Sandra Gail Lambert

Judy Horacek Fun

 

Not that I have an editor, yet.  But if I did, and wanted to send a present, I'd order a print of this cartoon from Judy Horacek .  

The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory

Last December I posted about Kenny Fries' memoir Body, Remember.  I've had another of his books at my beside since, but I put it off until now. 

Well.  At least The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory doesn't make me relive childhood loneliness and hospitalizations (except for the sawing off the cast part - I could smell the plaster dust).  No, this one just delves into the feeling I've always had that if things got tough in the world, I'd be an early choice for the ice flow. 

But instead of shutting his eyes to all that and carrying on, Fries looks right into the history, theory, and applications of "survival of the fittest."  He mixes it all up in with his own life, shakes, and pours out words that honor Darwin and himself (and me) and our place in the world.  Read this book. 

 

Something to Declare

 

This anthology is coming out from the University of Wisconsin Press in September.  Check out the list of contributors!

Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Louise A. Blum, Rebecca Chekouras, Jane Churchon, Tzivia Gover, Kate Lynn Hibbard, Jourdan Imani Keith, Gillian Kendall, Sandra Gail Lambert, Pearlie McNeill, Lesléa Newman, Sheila Ortiz Taylor, Suzanne Parker, Sima Rabinowitz, Ruthann Robson, Lauren Sanders, Patty Smith, Lori Soderlind, and Hannah Tennant-Moore

 

The Hay Festival

Can you imagine a literary festival where Sarah Waters and Desmond Tutu are interviewed in the same podcast?  This is the literary world in Great Britain, specifically at the Hay Festival going on right now in Wales. (The homeland of my grandfather and probably where I get my pale skin and straight used-to-be almost black hair.) 

Check out the daily podcasts from the festival.  I listened to the Waters/Tutu offering and look forward to the guy who ate only what he could forage off the land for a year - rabbits, rosehips, poisoned mushrooms, etc. 

Marga Gomez takes on the L-Word

It's been raining here for way to many days.  We are not Oregonians.  Our Florida constitutions are in sun-deprivation shock.  So, take a break from being irritated by everything and laugh.  This video gets funnier and funnier. 

Southern Women Writers Conference

Mab Segrest, Natasha Tretheway, Sharyn McCrumb, Connie May Fowler, Thulani Davis, Sarah Gordon, Melissa Fay Greene, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Allison Hedge Coke, Natalie Daise, and Marsha Norman - this is the line-up at the Eighth Biennial Southern Women Writers Conference.  September 24-26 at Berry College near Rome, Georgia.  

Lillian Smith would be proud.   

Half done

I've revised my way through 140 of 230 pages and, to my great relief, at least so far, I think this novel is okay.  I mean, I don't hate it in general and sometimes, in particular, I'm sort of thrilled.  For me, about my own writing, that's pretty good.  

Another thing I'm noticing is how much help I've searched out and received these past three years.  I bid on a charity auction and won a chapter critique from Martha Southgate, and another section was brought to the Writers in Paradise Conference with Thisbe Nissen.  A whole year ago, (has it been that long?) Connie May Fowler brought together a fabulous group of writers for a week.  That's where she set me on the right, final path for the novel.  Then there was Kelly Cherry and the rest of my Atlantic Center for the Arts group who read a long, long segment, and just this week Laura van den Berggave me thoughtful notes as her contribution to a fundraiser for Dzanc Books educational programs. And right now, a novelist friend and her editor are reading the entire thing.   

Early on I had feedback from Suzanne Carlton who teaches a fine fiction writing class here in Gainesville, my poet friend offers support on an almost daily basis, and all along, most months, the Lesbian Readers Group and Potluck has listened to me read bits and pieces.  There is nothing like reading out loud, in front of other people, to make evey flaw evident.  

Okay, enough looking back.  It's time to get this done.   

Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

It's seven hundred and ninety five pages of teen-antsy type.  It has sentences whose clauses wander off in all sorts of directions.  The religious and literary references are beyond me.  It has words and phrases like "mawworm of bachelors," "nullifidian," "hustings," "custos rotulorum," and "family quartering are scuttle-fish sable and commentator rampant." (Huh?) 

It's only because of Moonrat's Middlemay Middlemarch reading project that I've reading it.  We're doing about a hundred page section every week and commenting online every Monday.   

I've been hooked ever since the first time Mrs. Cadwallader made me laugh.  I mean how does Eliot get me to feel like I know her characters through and through with just a few words?  And how perfect is this comparison - "... about as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a vendor's back chamber."?

We're only two weeks in.  Ya'll could still join us.   

The Compleat Novel

For all these three years, I've had this dragonfly scene scribbled in various forms on various pieces of scrap papers.  I've tucked them in with each chapter's notes as I work on it.  I've never found a place for it. 

So, on Monday, I was struggling again with this last little bridge thingee (highly technical craft term) that was all I needed to have done to have the whole book written and ready for revisions.  It was coming along okay, but.  In my mind, there was always the "but." 

I flipped through all the notes trying to figure something, anything out.  I found my latest additions to the dragonfly scene - "living veil," "riding her breath."  I closed the bridge thingee file, opened the computer to the last scene of the novel, wove in the dragonfly scene, and really, truly, right outloud, gasped.  I knew the novel was done.   

My skin tingled, my face flushed, all sorts of muscles tightened and released in waves (Yes, I know what it sounds like), and I just had to go outside and twirl around my yard.  

So, I've risked rereading the ending.  It needs some work, but yes, the novel is complete.  Not done or finished with revisions or anything like that, but still, let's celebrate. 

Ursula K Le Guin: Guesswork & Archaeology & Virgil

This audience was lucky enough to have afternoon tea with Ursula K. LeGuin.  She talks about her novel Lavinia and how, for her, science and historical fictions are metaphors for the here and now.  She emanates beauty. (Not that I'm gaga for her or anything.)

Everyone Matters: Dignity and Safety for Transgender and Transsexual People

This is excellent, tender, strong, and offers a clarity that often only comes from first person accounts.  It's presented by the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.