Sandra Gail Lambert

Books Save Lives - The Make It Safe Project

Reading.  In my childhood it offered hope and a way to thrive.  And in our bookstore I saw books change, expand, rescue, lighten, and actually save people's lives.  And now fifteen-year-old lesbian Amelia Roskin-Frazee has started the Make It Safe Project to provide packages of LGBTQ themed books to schools and youth homeless shelters.  

Here's a Lambda Literary interview with Amelia.  Her favorite book right now is Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden.  I remember when it came out in 1982.  I remember the joy of selling it. I remember arguing for it to be put in the the young adult section of our catalog rather than adult fiction.  I lost.  Things have changed, haven't they?  

Conference Discoveries

Because of the Other Words conference I'm reading Vinculum: Poems by Alice Friman and Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy by Ira Sukrungruang.  Here's why.

Alice Friman read on the opening
night of readings and that thing happened where me and the poem - well, it was like that scene in West Side Story where Tony and Maria meet for the first time.  The crowd around them disappears, the music fades, and time ceases to be linear.  Later, I bought her collection, found the poem, and was awed that it wasn't even a page long.  

Now that would have been enough to make the drive and the hard hotel mattress worth the trouble, but then I went to Ira Sukrungruang's creative nonfiction workshop.  His presentation was lovely, learned, and intimate.  I sort of cried a little in the beginning, was intellectually stimulated throughout, and had the start of a next essay bouncing around inside me by the end. 

Now, This is a Book Club!

 
A book club where actors stage a pivotal scene from the novel, tables are set with theme-decorated goblets, and prizes are awarded for the fanciest hat.  Now, I do have a decent imagination and with it I've prepared for my imaginary radio interview with Diane Rehms, sometimes the podcast with Nancy Pearl.  And for sure, sometimes, I imagine my not-as-yet-published novel chosen for book clubs.  But it took a much wilder imagination than mine in a devoted supporter of the written word to come up with Mama Fancina's Fancy Hat Literary Luncheon.  Really, as Tayari Jones put it, the best book club ever. 

Lambda Literary Awards - Read Any Good Queers Lately?

 
If you look at this list of Lambda Literary Award Finalists and are appalled by how few of them you've read, you are not alone.  I've read The Big Bang Symphony (oh, so good) and Just Kids, and that's it. 

This must be rectified.  For me, since I hope one day to be listed in the category, Lesbian Debut Fiction is a good place to start.  My choices are Alcetis by Katherine Beutner, Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard, The More I Owe You by Michael Sledge, One More Stop by Lois Walden, or Sub Rosa by Amber Dawn. 

P.S.  One of these novels, it seems, is by a man, Michael Sledge.  Now I'm sure it's a lovely piece of fiction, but I thought the purpose of a Lesbian Debut Category was to support and promote lesbian writers. 

 
Stanford Kay paints books and says "Both paintings and books are vessels for ideas, experience and memory."

 

Soothing Procrastination Tool - The Book Depository Live

The Book Depository (a bookstore in England that offers free shipping anywhere in the world) has an interactive map where each book they sell pops up pinned to the country it was ordered from.

In fifteen seconds there were The Netherlands (Gunsmithing), Czech Republic (Quantum Measurement and Control), Malta (House of the Spirits), Singapore (Beautiful Children), Illinois (The Romans), Poland (A Separate Peace), Saskatchewan (Midnight Violence), and Australia (Gourmet Marshmallows). 

So, if writers must procrastinate (which it seems we must), what better way than watching people all over the world buying books and imagining one day seeing our own title pop up for that thrilling half second.   

   

Eileen Myles - Inferno - A Poet's Novel

Eileen Myles - I am so ordering her novel. 

 
  

A New Use for Cigarette Machines

In Hamburg the cigarette vending machines have been refurbished.  They now dispense books by local authors.  Too cool.     

Reading to Dogs

 
Here's an organization that improves literary skills by having children read to dogs.  What a grand idea. 

Dear Ursula Le Guin, A Belated Happy Birthday

Last month was Ursula Le Guin's eightieth birthday (and the fortieth anniversary of the publication of The Left Hand of Darkness).  I've read science fiction ever since I was a little girl.  From the heart-breaking tenderness of Rocannon's World, to the gender-bending Left Hand of Darkness, through the personally politically transforming The Dispossessed (the part where she pees on the statue still inspires me), all the way up to just last year with Lavinia - one of the best books I've ever read - Le Guin has been with me most of my reading life.  

Happy birthday, Ms. Le Guin, and thank you.   

Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon

 

Seven hundred and sixty pages.  "Unreadable, turgid, overwritten, and obscene" is how it was described by the 1974 Pulitzer Prize comittee. 

But today's the day.  I and many other internet connected readers (and maybe you?) are going to read Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.  Like we did for Middlemarch, we'll read a chunk each week (70 pages), chat with each other about it, and maybe make it all the way through.  

Why?  Yeah, I wasn't sure at first, but then I read a one liner description of the novel - "centers on the design, production, and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military."  It was that word "dispatch."  My mother, at seventeen, was a person on whom those bombs were dispatched.  

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.   

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. 

East Hope by Katherine Davis

 

Katherine Davis' new novel East Hope is out.  This is not the one she was in the midst of when we worked together at The Atlantic Center for the Arts, but the one before.  This is a disciplined writer.  And I learned a lot about plot (like that maybe it's important to have one) from her. 

So, Kitty - big congratulations! 

 

Beth Ann Fennelly Reads Her Work

These days there are more and more promotional videos for books.  This is the best one I've ever seen, probably because it is a lovely thing in and of itself. 

Beth Ann Fennelly was the poetry part of the faculty at this year's Writers in Paradise Conference.  I so enjoyed her reading and now, with this video, I get to share a bit of it with you.  Just click on the arrow.

Books I've read

Essentially, all blogging is self-centered, but my hope is to stop just before a reader rolls their eyes and says "sheesh, why did she think anyone would want to know that?" 

So, it's risky, but, in the side column,I've added a list of books I've read this year.  I think it's the Internet equivalent of perusing people's bookshelves and nightstands when you visit their homes. Ya'll do that, right?