Sandra Gail Lambert

My Last Read of the Year

"Everything is root and mud and twist."  This is how Janisse Ray describes the deep swamp in Drifting into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River.  This is a perfect description of a southern swamp, told with a perfect construction of a sentence, and it made me crawl out of my warm bed and go write. 

And tonight I'll read further into her tale of kayaking the length of a river, a river protected by Riverkeepers, her home river, a river, formed by the joining of the Ocmulgee and Oconee, that is the largest free-flowing, intact water system on the Atlantic coast. 

And this will be the last book I put on my "What I've Read - 2011" list.  Adding the 2012 heading, seeing it here on the side of the blog with nothing, as yet, underneath it, thinking about the books still in their final edits that might end up listed, the books waiting, well-worn, on library shelves - well, it's a Happy New Year for all.      

Nikky Finney's NBA for Poetry Speech

"I am now officially speechless," she ends it.  More accurately, we all are speechless. Start at the four minute mark to hear Nikky Finney's awesome acceptance speech for her collection Head Off and Split. 

LGBT Writers in Schools

Did you ever dream that some day you, in all your queer writing self, would be invited back to speak at your high school, middle school (if they had those then), or even your elementary school?  The Lambda Literary Foundation is wanting just that to be possible.  They, along with The National Council of Teachers of English, are pulling together a pilot program to place authors with classrooms. 

Right now, I think they're just "taking names" for this LGBT Writers in Schools program.  Go sign up.  They are especially looking for authors that write for young adults. 

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve - as good as any of those writers retreats

I went camping and came home with a decent draft of a new short story and the mushy beginnings of an essay.  Not bad.  The morning seranades by meadowlarks and the wild turkeys that wandered through my campsite helped.  And let's not forget the loggerhead shrikes, the crested caracaras, the woodstorks, the bob whites, the insatiable butterflies, the snipes (yes, they are real), and the mama alligators that kept living their lives all around me.

And many thanks to the staff (paid and volunteer) of Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park who are devoted to the restoration of this ancient landscape. 

Oh, and check out my new wheelchair . 

Writing in the "Real Florida"

A good part of my writing has been done at one or the other of the state parks of Florida, but it's been awhile. So I'm thrilled that this year I've tuned up, cleaned out, and packed my 1992 Ford Econoline Club Wagon that has the back seats ripped out to fit in a platform bed with six inches of foam mattress topped by an egg-crate and that topped with a quilt and five pillows - my writing bower.

The old gal of a van and I are off to Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. Here's a landscape that epitomizes the "Visit the Real Florida" motto of our State Park System.