warming up my EmCee skills

Georgia Writers, I'm in your awards ceremony, emceeing your awards. (Apologies to LOL cats . I have two very entertaining cats and yet I still can't shake the LOL cats thing.)

Seriously, I'm so excited to be a part of this year's Georgia Author of the Year Awards ceremony. The list of nominees is inspiring, and there will be so many books I want to buy and authors I want to congratulate!

And can you believe I've never met Terry Kay? We'll have to reconcile that one, now won't we?

See you there!

Gil Scott-Heron

Is it confusing to post on Memorial Day about Gil Scott-Heron, who died this week at the age of 62? I think not.

But rather than explain Scott-Heron's music and politics to you, I'm going to direct you to Steve Almond's terrific retrospective in The Rumpus .

Scott-Heron, Almond writes, died of grief.

In other news, this is the view out my studio window; my neighbor's American flag, which he does not have out every day. He is a Vietnam Vet, and he does not receive the care from our V.A. hospital that he should.

He explained to me that Veteran's Day is for the folks like him who survived, Armed Forces Day is for the folks currently serving, and Memorial Day for the "ones that gave their all," but on this Memorial Day, please honor him and everyone else shortchanged by, and speaking out against, war.

Reveal Yourself, Narrative Urge artist!

So, you may recall that last week I blogged about the "Follow Your Narrative Urge" mystery letters ? Me and my big mouth. Or keyboard. I got a letter too, and the freaky thing is, I got it at work.. (Gasp!)

Here is a picture of the overall missive.

While it's not too hard to figure out where I work, I don't have it on my website, so, you mystery person, you either know me, are a former or current student at this particular institution of higher learning, or, I dunno, met me somewhere and I was running my mouth.

I read the note and the clipping in class today. (Yes, the clipping. If you're reading this, mystery person, you can just imagine...) I did it to encourage the awesomeness of participatory art.

You continue to rock.

June 1st UPDATE. The $10 Art Mystery Now has a Wiki page. Follow the escapes and for heaven's sake, help figure out who's the participatory public art puppetmaster!

Ten Years of Explosive Writing

That's the deck on the title of "Boomtown," my grad school's anthology celebrating our first decade! Boom! Hooray!

And I blurbed it! More hooray!

You can buy it 1here . There's some fabulous and famous (uh huh, famous) writers in here.... c'mon...you want one.

Hey, thanks, TriQuarterly Review online!

Now I know why camp was weird, and it took my writing a book review for TriQuarterly Review online to find out. , so thanks, TQR!

The intersection of author and character

Thanks, Annette Gendler , for letting me co-pilot your blog today and rattle on about Venn diagrams, and where the writer and the character meet face to face.

(that's my drawing on my notepad, in a phone-camera photo.)

Another art mystery, or, thanks for including me in your performance piece!

So, it seems that Atlanta's got an art mystery going on, and Creative Loafing's wondering about it, and then a slip of a quote from Invisible Sisters is part of the performance, and I dig it.

"Follow your narrative urge," the envelopes read. Yes, indeed! Do that! How cool is it to be an example? Very!

Who's the mastermind? Who's got $10 bills to give away? Is it a scavenger hunt? Kudos to a clever artist. I can't wait to see what happens next.

(image from the Creative Loafing article linked above.)

maps and legends

In the past three weeks, I have traversed Walcott, Iowa, and Cedartown, Georgia. I appreciate these places more than I can express here.

Richard Hugo says it better in The Triggering Town Consider that your writing tip for the day. Use the link to read about Hugo and how visiting, seeing, passing through towns are writing prompts.

Useful

I was wondering, can I train our cat to pull weeds? He's the one who's outside all day, and low to the ground.

While he's doing that, M & I will unpack the hammock that was our best anniversary gift.

See you in Calhoun, Georgia, this weekend, at the Northwest Georgia Writers' Conference! I'll be signing books, teaching a workshop, and enjoying the mountain air. While the cat is home, earning his keep.