February 5, 2018

From Voices de la Luna:

Thank you for submitting your poetry to Voices de la Luna. We are pleased to inform you that your poem, “A Vision of My Father in Gatwick Airport,” has been accepted and will be published in the [February 2018] issue.

As a gift, you will be receiving a complimentary contributor's copy. We thank you for your submission, and we encourage you to submit other pieces to Voices de la Luna in the future.


Still fierce cold. One bends like a centenarian just to get to the mailbox and back.

Dream that Kyle had an afternoon rehearsal at which he fired all the altos. For some reason this was the signal that I should go looking to buy a plant nursery, which I was doing before I woke.

February 4, 2018

Lunch with DJ after church. We shared our apprehension that Cantaria wants to become a show choir. Our asset has always been our surprising tone, and this is the best way to negate that.

February 3, 2018

Official:

Dear D:

Thank you for sending us "The Falls of the Wyona". We love it and look forward to publishing it! 

Will be in touch! 

Thanks again. 

Sincerely, 
Tobi Harper 


You can go here to view the submission:
https://redhenpress.submittable.com/user/submissions/8433265

In other matters, opening night of Night Music was flawless, the actors at the top of their game, even my agonized ear satisfied by every reading. Nor was there more than one resounding crash while moving the set. Nothing but fireworks. It was– I think I can say this without abashment–profound. I did consider that I am the only playwright who goes to his own opening alone, but I am so accustomed to that I barely noticed.

February 2, 2018

Good work from my senior writers. Any movement away from “white” writing is met with applause–even the use of quotation marks, which is somehow patriarchal. But still–. Played them In Hohe Rache so they would know with what intensity they must write.

Came home to one of the most amazing phone calls ever. It was the editor of Red Hen Press, and The Falls of the Wyona has won the Quill Prize and will be published this year. My second novel. I never imagined I would use those words. I had to ask him to repeat. He wants me to speak on a panel at AWP, so in an hour my plans for Spring Break were made– I will be in Tampa, a place that was not on my list an hour before. If only AWP were in Florence, all would be divine. I floated out of my house to the Magnetic, where Night Music had its first preview. Both local reviewers were there, but both are old friends, so I anticipate the best. The actors were perfection. The superfluous set had to be dragged about, so the scene changes were laborious, but that it the worst I can say.  J was there, requiring me to remember our brief affair, which he had the courtesy to remember as well. I caught myself thinking “he’s looking old.” Dear Jesus, what about me? So, in three months, Penial, an art show (however aborted) Night, Sleep, and the Dreams of Lovers, and The Falls of the Wyona. I am, for this time, treading air. I had a similar time in 1980 in Syracuse, but hardly since.

Droves of robins at my pond, tanking up for the next leg of their northwards journey.

February 1, 2018

Blessed Saint Brigid, light at the turning point of winter. . . .

January 31, 2018

Watched the giant blue butter moon rise above Avenue M, follow me through Biltmore and so to bed.

Had coffee at High Five, where a former Humanities student sat with me and talked over some of the insights of the course that were still unsettled in his brain. Sweet and gratifying. We talked of the meaning and application of myth. He was in the class that performed Medea. I gave him a postcard for Night Music and he said that now that he was unemployed he would have plenty of free time to attend. Hope to see him again. He aims for graduate school in some kind of special anthropology. I hope the wasteful and ignorant Boy that deprived future students of that opportunity fails in every conceivable way. I suppose he has and is, if gossip can be believed.  It is never blatant and visible enough entirely to suit.

Made it through choir without looking “ashen,” as Jack said I did after Cantaria rehearsal.

January 30, 2018

I watch Maud creeping about, restored to full health, and I give thanks for one looming terror averted.

Jon David wants to set “At the Creche,” an odd little poem of mine. We’re going to see if we can get a local commission, maybe All Souls-- maybe Cantaria, to put the commission debacle behind us, working in the open, if the time ever comes.

The day can’t decide between snow and sunshine.