Sandra Gail Lambert

More "Something to Declare" news.

For all of us Gainesvillians, Something to Declare: Good Lesbian Travel Writing is now available at Wild Iris Books.  And if my having an essay included isn't enough, here's more incentive to go get it - Booklist is giving the anthology a starred (meaning it is outstanding in its genre) review.  Whoo hoo.   

The Confederate General Rides North - Amanda C. Gable

Twenty years ago Amanda Gable used to read her stories to us at Charis Books in Atlanta.  They were about Kat, a sturdy, intrepid, smart, passionate little girl growing up amidst the complexities of the 1960's South.  I was starting to write a bit myself and had such a writer's crush on Amanda, on her writing.  I wished that I could write like that. 

And now, halfway through The Confederate General Rides North, Amanda's just-released novel, and discovering what has become of the Kat stories, I still wish that I could write like this.      

Paynes Prairie as writing aide

La Chua Trail is only five miles from my house.  It's open most days, all day.  Each visit the place is stunning, always in a different way.  Today's trek was midsummer lush and lotus.  And purple spears of pickerel weed.  Immature night herons.  Fluff-necked adolescent gallinules. 

It took a couple of miles before the twisted-up, has-anyone-responded-to-my-queries-yet, I-could-check-my-email-on-the-phone-right-here anxiety unraveled.  But it did.  I felt it.  Right in that place behind my stomach and in front of my spine.  Whew.  

I think I'll leave a few notes around my house to remind me to get out there more often.  Feel free to nag me about it.     

The Mickee Faust Club - Now Playing in Tallahassee

Mickee Faust (aka Terry Galloway) is the disaffected sewer rat brother of Florida's more well-known mouse.  His club, as paraphrased from their website, rallies around this rebellious rat bastard and peacefully converge to write, direct and perform the raucous and wily cabarets that have become Faust's hallmark. In every Faust show you’ll find a mix of political and socio-sexual satire, literary and cinematic parodies, old vaudeville, new vaudeville, original and adapted songs and some fully-staged bad jokes thrown in for good measure.

Here's a promo from Mickee Faust's Gimp Parade -

Writing While Waiting

Here's an update on my writing life. 

I am having one, moving forward from the recently finished novel, doing all those things you're supposed to do.  But mostly I'm waiting.  A batch of query letters are out.  There has been some interest.  Which means a flurry of sending out what has been requested and now - more waiting. 

Each time the computer dings that a new message has arrived, I scurry to open it.  If the internet connection is wonky, I scream things.  Bad things.  Today my cell phone rang.  It was an area code I didn't recognize.  I thought, this might be it.  It wasn't.  

Does anxious heart racing count as aerobic exercise?

   

Kseniya Simonova - Ukrainian Sand Artist

 

With wide sweeps of her arms, finger flicks, and the grand casting down of handfuls of sand, Kseniya Simonova recreates her country's destruction during WWII. 

Gwen, Tukufu, Wes, and Elyse - The History Detectives

Tukufu Zuberi from The History Detectives (my favorite television show) has filmed a show from the Living History Farm at (my much beloved and three miles from my home) Morningside Nature Center about old letters that might indicate a family's participation in the post-slavery exodus to Liberia. (writing! hidden history!)

The program airs this Monday, August 17th at 9pm on PBS.  

 

Something to Declare - Tooting My Own Horn

The anthology Something to Declare is available from any of your local, independent bookstores.  And on page 72 (not that I have it memorized) is an essay by me about a kayak trip on the Withlacoochee (North) River.  There is just no way it's not fun to see my name in the table of contents. 

I've started reading the other pieces.  Whew, there are some good writers in this anthology.  

And here's an important thing to know if you're a writer sending things out, getting rejected, all that.  This piece was turned down by TWENTY-ONE journals and anthologies before finding a home.  Now, I did revise it a couple of times over the years, but please, keep sending things out there into the world.    

 

Mean Little deaf Queer - by Terry Galloway

Wild Iris Books, this Thursday, August 13th, 6pm - I'll be there for a reading by Terry Galloway of her new memoir Mean Little deaf Queer.

Dorothy Allison says, "This story is true and passionate and fearless and funny as hell when it is not heartbreaking.  I expect this book to charm the hell out of great numbers of people, piss off a few, and give hope to many more."  

 

Oh yeah, this is going to be a great evening.  

Su Blackwell - Three Dimensional Literature

 

Su Blackwell uses old books about to be tossed and revives their stories by forming the pages in sculpture. Cliche alert, but really, these take my breath away.  She says "the landscapes speak of a bleak mystery, a rising, an awareness of the air."  

  

Read this article about her process.  Go to her website.  Watching the video of her merry-go-round sculpture did something lovely for my heart. 

Gaining Perspective

 

Six hundred fifty million years of tectonic drift in 1.2 minutes!

A Disability Rights Take on Obama

Josie Byzek, as she puts it, "is as sarcastic as hell, has a egg-head streak a mile wide, and has called the disability community her home since 1990."  And she's a kick-ass writer. 

Here's her take on President Obama's take on disability, especially in light of his recent reversal of support for the Community Choice Act.  

Josie begins "President Obama used his speech on the 19th anniversary of the ADA to outline his disability policies — about time. And as strong an Obama admirer as I am, I think we’re in trouble."