publication – LaDonnaWitmer

Just a Little Taste

Mood: Dabbling | Drinking: Soon

nibble

A bit of poetry housekeeping, if you don’t mind.

I’ve been neglecting to mention that I have two poems floating out and about in the world of print, and now seems as good a time as any to mention them.

Last fall, Donna Marbach published an anthology of poems about women called Remembering Faces, and I have one poem in between those pages, “Little Sister”.

Donna is on the east coast, so you’ll probably have better luck finding the book there — if you want to hunt it down, contact Donna through her Palettes & Quills website.

A more recent publication came off the presses just this month — the latest (4th) issue of Nibble, a poetry magazine published here in the Bay Area by Jeff Fleming.

My poem “Farm Cat” is featured in that publication, along with a great many other fabulous (and short!) poems. To get your own copy or find out more about the magazine, visit the Nibble website.

And last but not least in this newsy little update: I am no longer languishing in the land of the unemployed. I am, as of last Monday, once again writing for the man. Which means my sushi habit and shoe shopping sprees are no longer endangered. Huzzah!

More to come later… I believe I’m going to be posting a new poem shortly, as soon as I run it through my writing group one more time, and I’m already working on a new cinépoem for “Bright Neon Love.”

No rest for the wicked. Or the Type A’s.

-Lo, doing that thing she does.

Zine It All

zinefest08
Mood: Hooey
Drinking: Blooey

This weekend is the big old San Francisco Zine Fest. I expect to see all you word lovers, crafty bitches, art farts, and don’t-got-nuthin-better-to-do peeps out and about!

Here are the dirty deets:
LOCATION – SF County Fair Building (in Golden Gate Park at 9th & Lincoln)
HOURS – Saturday 11am to 8pm, Sunday 11am to 7pm
STUFF TO SEE & BUY – Zines, Arts, Crafts, Small Presses, & Poetry trinkets from yours truly

You know me and mine are gonna get bored sitting at our little table for 9 hours a day on the weekend, so stop by, say hi, and please, please, pretty please, buy some stuff! (We have some free stuff, too, for all you cheapskates.)

Speaking of cheap, did I mention that this whole event is free? Free, people. No admission charge for the masses. How can you resist?!

OK, I’ve gotta go prepare.

See you there.

-Lo, who is folded along the dotted lines.

She is a Death Star

Mood: Sugarhigh
Drinking: Water

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, they say.

And although I like to pretend I don’t listen to them, cliches usually become cliched because they contain a dollop of truth.

Which is why, a few months ago when this dude from Vermont contacted me and said, “Hey, I run a small indie press and I’d like to publish a chapbook with you,” well, I thought about it for two seconds and said “Hell, yes.”

And so I present to you my third book, She is a Death Star
(21 poems about her).

It’s a true chapbook, meaning that it’s small and waif-like and folded and stapled and low-tech. And it’s available in very limited quantities. And I’m not selling it on this site.

You can get this sweet little thing at only two places. Maybe three…

1. Scintillating Publications
Send your $6 to:
Joseph Veronneau
21 Russell Street
Burlington VT 05401
or email him at mustiis@aol.com

2. Quimby’s Bookstore
1854 W. North Avenue
Chicago, IL

3. Any poetry reading I am featuring at.
Time and venue info will be posted here well before the reading.

If you’re wondering why you should part with your hard-earned six bucks for another stack of poems from me, here’s what you’ll be getting…
She is a Death Star contents:
1. Slow Roast
2. Pretty.Good.Girl.
3. Sylvia
4. Goldfish
5. The fake boobs win again
6. Sterling Girl
7. Scrapbook
8. Sappho
9. Continental
10. Eve
11. Breathing
12. A Charitable Donation
13. Anonymous
14. SFO 1607
15. Crash Protocol
16. Samba
17. What It Means to See Her
18. Nemesis
19. She Said Saturday
20. Equinox: Vernal
21. Alter Ego

Two of those poems were first published in Shedding the Angel Skin, eight are in The Secrets of Falling, which leaves 11 shiny new ones that you can only find in She is a Death Star. A pretty sweet deal for a surprise chapbook, don’t you think?

-Lo, who once got a gift horse named Fantasia.

Boxes o’ Books

Mood: High
Drinking: Tea
It’s your turn. The boxes (and boxes and boxes) of books have arrived.

If you live in or around San Francisco and can wait until next week, come to The Secrets of Falling Book Release Party at Space 180 on Thursday, May 17 from 6 to 9 p.m. and get your books.

If you’re elsewhere, you can still get yours. Just go to The Books page to place your online order.

The Secrets of Falling will also be available in a few bookstores soon. I’ll let you know where and when.

I can’t begin to adequately express how excited we are. Secrets is a really beautiful book — Kathy Azada’s design is jaw-dropping, and the photography by Patti Monaghen and Bruce Willems really brings each poem to life.

But don’t take my word for it. (I’m clearly biased, anyway.) See for yourself!

-Lo, who thinks that brown boxes are a sight for sore eyes.

Exclamation Point

bookishere
Mood: Ebullient
Drinking: Effervescent

The book, it is here.

Well, yours isn’t yet…the big truck bearing the big skid of 14+ cartons of books won’t arrive until next week. But Kathy & I got our little box of advance samples yesterday.

We have scrutinized every single millimeter of every single page, and we’d like to report that The Secrets of Falling is perfect and beautiful in every single way.

If you’ve placed a pre-order, your book will be mailed out as soon as the big truck makes its delivery next week. If you haven’t placed an order yet, what are you waiting for??

If you live in San Francisco or thereabouts, you’re probably waiting for the book release party to buy your book. A wise decision. Then you can get your book AND purchase a lovely framed photographic print as well.

If you haven’t heard about the party yet, you can get all the party details here. (And yes, you’re invited.)

Now I have to go sniff my advance copy again. Fresh ink, it smells so good.

-Lo, who is the very picture of giddy at the moment.

The Wind Beneath

famouskathy
Mood: Delirious
Drinking: Black Tea

Miss Kathy Azada kicks some serious ass.

You need to know this, Internet, because yesterday I spent a good 19 hours with the woman (that’s her, looking quite fetching on the right) , and I can definitely vouch for her formidable abilities in the ass-kicking arena.

April 2 was the deadline, you see. The drop-dead date. The line in the sand. The end of the road. The long goodbye. Whatever you want, that’s what it was. We had to send our book to the printer.

But these things never go quite the way you imagine they would, so that’s why Miss K and I were up in the tiniest wee small hours of this Tuesday morning, clicking and cutting and wavering between zombie-like grunting episodes and drunk-with-the-tiredness giggle fits. Come hell or sunrise, we were going to FINISH THE BOOK!

And we did. The Secrets of Falling is done. Well, almost done. She is making her way to Chicago right now to get plucked and printed and gathered and glued. My friend Warren at Imagine Print will take good care of her. And in a few weeks, a very few weeks, she’ll be ready to meet the world.

So let’s all raise a glass of whatever you’ve got to Kathy Azada, the woman who rocks the hardest.

Thank you, Kathy. You’re the best. No, shut up. You are.

Thank yous must also go out to Boy, who was the kindest, coolest, most supportiv-est partner ever, keeping Kathy and I hydrated and fed all day long, even going so far as to make us perfect little ginger cakes with warm caramel frosting. I mean, come on. That’s just insanely sweet. And then there was the whole thing with the exacto blade at 2 a.m., as he sat there cutting all the tiny pages for our miniature mock-ups. I’m the luckiest girl…

Big thanks, also, to LeeLoo, who stayed up with us and farted a lot to help keep us awake; to Roy, who helped out with some InDesign advice; and to Lani, who let me keep Kathy out ’til all hours. I shall bake you all magical cookies!

-Lo, who finds 3 a.m. to be very bewitching when she doesn’t sleep through it.

Airborne

airborne Mood:
Awesomely Exhausted
Drinking:Diet Coke

“I done heard tell ya’ll was in Alabama!”

That’s my best southern accent for you. Greetings from Alabama, by the way. The people here have been super sweet and are taking me out for southern BBQ tomorrow. My stomach’s already excited.

But that’s a story for another day. Right now, I’m crazy with the tiredness, so I’m just going to give you the good news and go to sleep. Ready?

I’m co-Poet of the Week over at Poetry Super Highway this week. Sweet! All three of my featured poems have something to do with airplanes, hence the photo that I took somewhere in the sky over Texas on Friday.

So go check them out. The first poem (Kiss & Fly) is brand new. I actually posted it here a week or so ago. The other two (Crash Protocol and Samba) are going to be printed in my new book (which is coming out in April!)

-Lo, who is fixin’ to put on her pajamas now.

Twofer

Mood:
Drinking:

It must be my lucky week.

I’ve got three more poems online elsewhere. This time they’re published over at Subter, an online ‘zine.

Take a look at the whole thing…lots of interesting people contribute. Or you can just go look at me. Right here. And then go check out the other stuff.

Which is what I’m gonna go do. Right. Now.

-Lo, with mouth full of crunchy bagely goodness.

Speeding Down the Poetry Superhighway

Mood: Hungry
Drinking: Not yet

So this week I get to be a P.O.W. It’s an unfortunate acronym with bad connotations, but this is the lesser-known and much less painful kind of P.O.W. I’m a Poet of the Week. (So, I guess technically that acronym could be p.o.t.w. if you wanted to get all picky about it.)

Check it out over at the Poetry SuperHighway dot com.

-Lo, off to get some pancakes.