SATC2 releases tonight.

... and I can't help but wonder why I am fretting over what to wear to sit in the dark for two and a half hours.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Tomorrow makes three years of marriage, ten years of dating, many more of friendship (that's enough math), and you just keep getting better, baby.

I think I just figured out why I didn't get more writing done during my MFA program.

Because instead I was reading:

Atwood, Margaret. Surfacing. New York: Ballantine, 1972.

Benitez, Sandra. A Place Where the Sea Remembers. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1993.

Bernard, Marie Lyn. “Fucking Around.” Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women. Ed. Rachel Kramer Bussel. Berkeley: Seal Press, 2008.

Bigelow, Katherine, dir. The Hurt Locker. Voltage Pictures, 2008.

Bloom, Amy. A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You. New York: Random House, 2000.

Bolden, Emma. The Mariner’s Wife: Poems. Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, 2008.

---. “The Soul unto itself— / is an imperial friend— / Or the most agonizing spy— / An enemy — could send /.” A Century of Nerve, November 6, 2009. http://emmabolden.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/the-soul-unto-itself-is-an-imperial-friend-or-the-most-agonizing-spy-an-enemy-could-send/, accessed December 3, 2009.

Book Show, The. “Junot Diaz in Conversation at the Sydney Writer’s Festival,” May 27, 2008. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2253921.htm, accessed April 23, 2010.

Brown, Nickole. Sister. Los Angeles: Red Hen Press, 2007.

Burger, Neil, dir. The Lucky Ones. Lionsgate, 2008.

Butler, Robert Olen. From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. New York: Grove, 2006.

---. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. New York: Grove/Atlantic, 2001.

---. Intercourse. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008.

---. The Deuce. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1994.

Buxbaum, Julie. After You. New York: Random House, 2009.

Cameron, Julia. The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life. New York: Penguin/Putnam, 1998.

Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. New York: Harper and Bros., 1902.

Castillo, Ana. The Guardians. New York: Random House, 2007.

Chan, C. W. “The Butterfly Dream.” The Philosopher, Volume LXXXIII No.2. http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/butter.htm, accessed December 4, 2009.

Chicago Manual of Style. 15^th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Chi’en, Evelyn Nien-Ming. Weird English. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Cox, Mark. “On Voice and Revision.” Words Overflown by Stars. David Jauss, ed. Pp. 400–402. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2009.

Dandicat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Random House, 1998.

Davenport, Kiana. Shark Dialogues. New York: Plume, 1994.

Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead, 2007.

Didion, Joan. Slouching towards Bethlehem. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961.

Doty, Mark. Dog Years: A Memoir. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Drayson, Nicholas. A Guide to the Birds of East Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008.

Dybek, Stuart. I Sailed with Magellan. New York: Picador, 2004.

Frey, James. A Million Little Pieces. New York: Random House, 2003.

Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Geertz, Clifford. “The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man.” Man in Adaptation: The Cultural Present. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.

González, Rigoberto. Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.

---. Crossing Vines. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.

---. Other Fugitives and Other Strangers. North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2006.

---. So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Graham, Philip. “8:46.” The Los Angeles Review 4 (2007):147–161.

---. How to Read an Unwritten Language. New York: Scribner, 1995.

---. “Point of Entry, Point of Departure.” Philipgraham.net, February 18. http://www.philipgraham.net/2010/02/point-of-entry-point-of-departure/, accessed May 21, 2010.

---. “Two-Way Street.” Philipgraham.net, October 23, 2009. http://www.philipgraham.net/2009/10/two-way-street/, accessed December 3, 2009.

Grogan, John. Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Hanff, Helene. 84, Charing Cross Road. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.

Hemmings, Kaui Hart. The Descendents. New York: Random House, 2007.

Hemmings, Kaui Hart. House of Thieves. New York: Penguin, 2005.

Hemley, Robin. Turning Life into Fiction. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2006.

Hempel, Amy. The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel. New York: Scribner, 2006.

Hesser, Amanda, ed. Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009.

Highway, Tomson. “Spokane Words: Tomson Highway Raps with Sherman Alexie.” ShermanAlexie.com, n.d. http://www.fallsapart.com/art-av2.html, accessed October 2, 2009.

Hongo, Garrett. “Introduction: Culture Wars in Asian America.” Under Western Eyes: Personal Essays from Asian America. New York: Anchor Books, 1996.

Ishiguro, Kazuo. “A Family Supper.” The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories. Ed. Daniel Halpern. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.

Jauss, Dave. Alone with All That Could Happen. Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 2008.

Johnston, Bret Anthony, ed. Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer. New York: Random House, 2008.

Jones, Tayari. Leaving Atlanta. New York: Warner Books, 2002.

---. The Untelling. New York: Time Warner, 2005.

July, Miranda. No One Belongs Here More Than You. New York: Scribner, 2007.

Kanner, Ellen. “Entering the Dreamspace with Writer Robert Olen Butler.” First Person Book page, n.d. http://www.bookpage.com/0201bp/robert_olen_butler.html, accessed October 6, 2009.

Khakpour, Porochista. Sons and Other Flammable Objects. New York: Grove/Atlantic, 2007.

Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1990.

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.

Kundera, Milan. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999[1978].

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.

Le, Nam. The Boat. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

Lee, Don. Yellow. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Lin, Tao. Shoplifting from American Apparel. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2009.

Lynch, Thomas. Apparition & Late Fictions. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2010.

Marche, Stephen. Shining at the Bottom of the Sea. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007.

McCann, Colum. Let the Great World Spin. New York: Random House, 2009.

McEwan, Ian. Atonement. New York: Anchor Books, 2001.

---. Saturday. New York: Anchor Books, 2005.

Mendes, Sam, dir. Jarhead. Based on the book by Tony Swofford. Universal Pictures, 2005.

Min, Anchee. Becoming Madame Mao. New York: Mariner Books (Houghton Mifflin), 2001.

Minh-ha, Trinh T. Woman Native Other. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1989.

Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1989.

Munroe, Alice. Selected Stories. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1996.

Murakami, Haruki. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories. New York: Random House, Inc., 2007.

---. What I Talk about When I Talk about Running: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 2008.

Noel, Christopher. In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing: A Geography of Grief. Lincoln, NE: Author’s Choice Press, 1996.

Paz, Octavio. The Other Voice. New York: Harcourt, 1990.

Peirce, Kimberly, dir. Stop-Loss. Paramount Pictures, 2008.

Pidgin Coup, Da. “Pidgin and Education: A Position Paper.” Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i, 1999. http://hawaii.edu/sls/pidgin.html, accessed April 22, 2010.

Piernan, Susan. “Writing across Cultures.” M.F.A. thesis, Vermont College of Fine Arts, 2002.

Realuyo, Bino. The Umbrella Country. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Reddy, Michael J. “The Conduit Metaphor: A Case of Frame Conflict in Our Language about Language.” Metaphor and Thought. Andrew Ortony, ed. Pp. 284–324. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Rossini, Clare. “The Writer as Revisionary.” Words Overflown by Stars. David Jauss, ed. Pp. 403–413. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2009.

Rouss, Shannan. Easy for You: Stories. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.

Row, Jess. The Train to Lo Wu. New York: Random House, 2005.

Ruefle, Mary. The Most of It. Seattle: Wave Books, 2008.

Sajé, Natasha. “Poetry & Ethics: Writing about Others.” The Writer’s Chronicle 42.3 (December 2009):14–22.

Sakamoto, Kerri. The Electrical Field. New York: Norton, 1998.

Saner, Reg. “Creationism: The Ecotone Made of Words.” The Writer’s Chronicle March/April 2010 [vol. 42, no. 5]:18–22.

Schoech, Samantha, and Lisa Taggart, eds. The Bigger the Better the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image, & Other Hazards of Being Female. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2007.

Schoemperlen, Diane. Forms of Devotion: Stories and Pictures. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1998.

Seaman, Donna. “An Interview with Robert Olen Butler.” Bookslut.com, February 2007. http://www.bookslut.com/features/2007_02_010635.php, accessed November 6, 2009.

Sederat, Roger. Dear Regime: Letters to the Islamic Republic. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008.

Segal, Lore. Lucinella. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2009[1970].

Stegner, Page, ed. The Selected Letters of Wallace Stegner. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2007.

Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” Under Western Eyes: Personal Essays from Asian America. New York: Anchor Books, 1996.

Thomas, Scarlett. The End of Mr. Y. New York: Harvest Books, 2006.

Tonouchi, Lee A. da word. Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge Press, 2001.

---. Living Pidgin: Contemplations on Pidgin Culture. Kane’ohe, HI: Tinfish Press, 2002.

Tyau, Kathleen. Makai. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.

Vaswani, Neela. “Ethnic America.” M.F.A. thesis, Vermont College of Fine Arts, 1998.

Vivian, Robert. The Mover of Bones. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Mother Night. New York: Delta/Random House, 1961.

Wagner, Andrew, dir. Starting Out in the Evening. Based on the book by Brian Morton. Roadside Attractions, 2007.

Weich, Dave. “Author Interviews: Robert Olen Butler Plays with Voices.” Powell’s Books website, March 3, 2000. http://www.powells.com/authors/butler.html, accessed November 6, 2009.

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---. “Tomson Highway,” n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomson_Highway, accessed October 2, 2009.

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Wojahn, David. “‘If You Have To Be Sure, Don’t Write’: Poetry and Self-Doubt.” Words Overflown by Stars. David Jauss, ed. Pp. 414–432. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2009.

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Yanique, Tiphanie. How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2010.

Yanique, Tiphanie. “My Superhero Secret.” Persephone Speaks: A Kore Press Forum for Women in Art, Culture, and Letters. http://korepress.blogspot.com/2007/08/my-superhero-secret.html, accessed May 21, 2010.

Zenith, Richard, ed. and trans. The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa. New York: Grove/Atlantic, 2001.

Just ridiculous: smiles for your morning.

1. MARIJUANA-SCENTED CANDLES (via DailyCandy)

Market Street Candles, out of Venice Beach, CA, presents handmade soy candles in gorgeous containers such as Moroccan glassware and fine china. One of the scents available to you is marijuana--although only god knows why you'd want to smell it if you weren't already high.

2. GEORGE CARLIN ON AIRLINE SAFETY (via Nick Lewis: The Blog)

In which the man is SO, SO, SO right.

3. HAWAII WOMEN'S JOURNAL GOES QUARTERLY

Ok, maybe this is only ridiculously happy news for the Editor and me, but boy is it happy news for us.

A manifesto of sorts.

While I had very mixed feelings about the Lish event last night, I did take some important realizations away about the kind of writer I want to be.*

When I read about the event, it was touted as a reading, some Q&A, and a party for his new book Collected Fictions. And I’ll be honest and reveal how miserably un-well-read I am by admitting that I knew him only as an editor, not a writer. But a writer he evidently is—or, actually, according to him, was.

I don’t know what to say about the event, really. I have no wish to belittle or deny an older author a kind of swan song tour for what is pretty much a Lifetime Achievement Book, but the evening moved me profoundly and positively, though more for the processing I did after it than the actual event itself.

His remarks were extremely off the cuff. He talked of his friends (many literary superstars themselves), his family, and two times that he choked on accessories he was wearing (don’t ask).

But that very bit—of arriving early to a café in the village at which he was to meet two friends and positioning himself into a striking stance, with a dapper outfit, and a pile of good books, and a glass of wine, and a spot of bread and then choking on the grosgrain ribbon on which held his decorative glasses with no lenses—that was the most real moment of the evening for me. It undercut what did feel like posturing.

In that moment, he seemed to be saying, this is what this night is, this is what a literary career is: so much posturing that at moments you find yourself choking on the ridiculousness.

The off-the-cuffness was charming for a turn, and then it went on and on. I felt even that he was playing with and into our expectations of him—that he was acting out a retired ex-writer and semi-doddering and superfamous type, rather than being his actual self. He finished with a flourish by taking a few questions and then reading … what turned out to be Don DeLillo’s work. AURGGGHHGRRRRR.

By that point, my husband and I were pretty frustrated, so we didn’t wait around to buy a copy of his book and get it autographed, instead proceeding directly to the nearest steakhouse where we bought ourselves a huge ribeye, crab-stuffed mushrooms, sweet potato casserole, two glasses of wine, and a hunk of cheesecake for good measure.

So, what exactly about the evening was so frustrating?

I felt like I didn’t belong. In either the room of his past, around which he wandered during his remarks, or the present room of future fictional giants. I can’t prove it, of course, but there were an incredible number of people who looked young, edgy, urban, and hopeful. Who might very well be, in another 46 years, back at the Mercantile delivering forth their own off-the-cuff remarks.

Initially, it fed a tiny panic that’s been simmering inside me lately: when I read the blog of a friend who is already making a career as both a poet and an academic, each time I hear about the contests others have won or publications they’ve achieved, when a friend casually talks of submitting a panel proposal or an article to AWP or The Writer's Chronicle. All these things happen and I think, Holy GAWD, I am not ready for this. I am not writing enough, submitting enough, thinking enough, proposing enough, and I am certainly not ready for a life of negotiating tenure. A HWJ writer lightheartedly teases me about overediting--and it was just teasing--but it only feeds the fire further: Am I spending too much time on this? Am I investing more of myself than I should be? Will I end up more known for editing than writing—or, worse, not known at all?

But what I took away from the end of tonight is that maybe jumping through those hoops, and trying to jump faster than all the others, all in hopes of arriving at a night like this, where a packed house of people sit, trapped, as I ramble in my way, off-the-cuff … well, perhaps it is just not for me.

I feel famished at nights like this … whereas take any night I’ve stayed up till 2am pouring over submissions or accepted pieces for HWJ, how those nights leave me feeling well-fed. Because that's what HWJ is about: we're going to give you all of ourselves, all our heart, every positive YES! and cautionary query that occurs to us. We are not going to hold back. You are never going to be published as is, I don’t care who you are, what your name is, or how famous you are. We can all stand to improve. And if you think only people who’ve published or literarily achieved more than you should be editing you, we respect that opinion and encourage you to submit elsewhere. Because one should never lose touch with the people who really matter in literature: READERS. And that’s what we are, forget our editorial titles: we are careful readers who want to throw ourselves into the world on your page.

Now, the thing to be said for Lish and for many a successful writer is that they put their art first. That before taking on the projects of others, they took on their own. That writing was fully integrated into their lives, and the roles of Husband/Wife, Father/Mother, Editor/Professor were on par with—or perhaps even slightly sublimated to—that of Writer. That they were very careful with how to cultivate their writerly image: they’ll only submit to interviews with certain publications or they only submit to certain places or even wait to be solicited, etc.

And look at them: totally, undeniably successful.

However, there’s little about that that appeals to me. I hope I always have my hands as deep in the work of others as in my own, because in working with other writers, hopefully we together improve their piece but also make me a better editor and writer. I hope I always have a project that fuels me, that makes me feel passion, that keeps me up at night.** I hope I always write stories, and I hope I continue to submit and be published, and I hope someday I even have a few books and awards under my belt.

But I also hope I never forget what it felt like to be in that room last night, not knowing the names he dropped and frankly not caring. I hope that I keep my humility about me and that I remember that anyone who wants to read my work, consider it, accept it, comment upon it (favorably or not), or interview me is honoring me with their attention, and I should do everything I can to continue to earn it.

---

* I continue with my uncertainty about whether discussing flawed literary event evenings is appropriate. I certainly don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, foremost. But what is this blog if not my stumbling through events, trying to make sense of them for myself. Also, I could write it all in my journal, but that'd be a bit like whispering into an abyss, where my own thoughts keep bouncing against canyon walls and repeating themselves back to me. I'd rather invite discussion than sit talking to myself. So ... gulp. Until I learn better, here we go.

** In the “inspired” way more than the “under deadline again” way.

We are more ourselves than we've ever been.

What is magical about this birthday is that right around my day, I get to usher in several of my closest friends into thirty as well. Because I just used up the last of my original words in the last post, here is part of what I wrote to a dear friend who turns thirty in two days:

BRACE YOURSELF.

From the other side of thirty, all I can tell you is that. You're about to become even more wise, confident, and comfortable in your own skin. Banish the worries you have about wrinkles and white hairs and pain in places you didn't know you had because that is not what thirty is about, girlfriend. It's about being ourselves, and being unapologetic, and not giving a damn what anyone else thinks about it. I mean, we're ladies, we're polite and all, we'll listen, but we know our opinions of ourselves matter most. We are more ourselves than we've ever been. That's what you have to look forward to.

Happy Birthday to All the Thirty-Year-Olds Out There.

30th Birthday Trip to the Bahamas, baby.

That's what it looked like in pictures. Now for words:

Sunshine. Breezes. Palm trees. Water an incredible shade of blue because of coral and limestone. Warm salt on skin. Lounge chairs. Lanais. A certainty, a reassurance, a reminder, that this is the kind of place we are meant to live. Island time. Island directions. Island pace, at which you feel you can breathe again, you feel each and every breath, in and out. Coconuts with straws in them. And alcohol, too. The Daq Shaq. Watermelon daiquiris. Plum daiquiris. Pina colada daiquiris. The Miami Vice daiquiris. Something that came in a coconut carved into a monkey head made in the Philippines. Sky juice that knocked me on my ass. Fish Fry. The Graycliff cigar rollers. Graycliff gorgeous hotel grounds. That sweetstrong smell of a cigar. Steak. Guava duff. Conch. The Atlantis waterslide where we went through a pool of sharks, WTF. Pirated history. The long hot hike to the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, only to find out it was closed for construction. Arriving there at the same time and with the same disappointment as another group of tourists. A tide so low you could walk through most of the swimming lagoon on your knees. A high tide so high you lost the bottom in seven steps. The Queen's staircase, freely built by emancipated slaves through a man-made canyon they'd been forced to hand-carve, out of limestone, 102+ feet deep. Each of the 65 stairs commemorated a year of the Queen's 65 year reign, she who abolished slavery in the Bahamas. How frustrating that when you Google the staircase, you get mostly pictures and a count of stairs, some snarky comments from tourists: "ok, so what, there were stairs." Nearby in the canyon: a waterfall with no water, a frame with no portrait, a base with no plaque. The overwhelming straw market. Steak. Prime rib. Buying crap I didn't need. Being sobered (despite all that rum) by how very dependent the Bahamas is on tourism--it being their only industry, unless you now count the burgeoning cigar company. The island's soil is not very rich, so that rules out coffee, sugar, and pineapples. The usual staples of an island economy. Very nearly joining Royal Holiday Club, only to reflect that perhaps we should worry about future down payments on homes, cars, moves, babies, that kind of thing before investing in a lifetime of vacation travel. Live music at 22 Above Lounge by a hot local band who could seriously cover anything. And some "strange things," perhaps, but also "friendly natives."

My adaptation of Editor Hee's Kale Smoothie in HWJ, issue 2.

I am posting this everywhere on the Internet in the interests of pimping Hawaii Women's Journal issue 2, since we all worked so damn hard to finish it on time, despite various scheduling conflicts and dramas.

I just adapted Jennifer Hee's Morning-After-Double-Pork-Injection Smoothie recipe (see Hawaii Women's Journal, issue 2, Hee vs. Diva)--spinach in place of kale. With the blueberries and some strawberries, I am drinking the most gorgeous color purple you can imagine. :)

Here's the full adaptation, based on what was in the fridge:

three handfuls baby spinach

couple sloshes coconut water

1 cup vanilla soymilk

1 frozen banana

1 cup frozen blueberries

1 tablespoon almond butter (possibly more ... who's counting ... that shit is good)

about 6 frozen strawberries

protein powder

Kinda same-same, but kinda not. All the same delicious!

In retrospect, though, I wish I'd remembered to take a picture of the pretty purple smoothie instead of the emptied glass.

Also? I am totally 30 now.

And it ain't no big thing. :)

Hawaii Women's Journal Issue 2 (May/June 2010) now LIVE.

* CLICK HERE FOR ISSUE 2 ... including poetry by yours truly, yikes *

[pauses to gulp for air]

NOW GO AHEAD AND START SUBMITTING FOR ISSUE 3. submissions(at)hawaiiwomensjournal(dot)com

guidelines: http://hawaiiwomensjournal.com/submissions.html