Mary Mackey’s haunting and evocative collection of poems based on her time in Brazil has been nominated for a Northern California Book Award:
See the review “The Sugar Zone is Bittersweet” here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-gelfand/the-sugar-zone-is-bitters_b_1117904.html
Le Bergamote - for that quick trip to Paris. Amazing pastries and great coffee in a cozy atmosphere in the heart of Chelsea.
Rubirosa after the Salon at Jane Ormerod’s loft
(Thin crust pizzas with great sauce)
Le Grainne Breakfast with my NY friend Lindsay, and an Ethan Hawke sighting.
Hale and Hearty – lunch before a visit to MOMA
Cafe Americano after the talk by Whitney Curator Sondra Gilman
Technorati Tags: big apple, ethan hawke, new york, eat in chelsea, slam poetry, uphook press, writers
Found this interesting piece on Writer’s Almanac this morning. Apparently, creating a stir is the oldest trick in the book of bookselling:
“Washington Irving born in New York City (1783), who publicized his book A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty by pretending it was written by a man named Dietrich Knickerbocker. He put out missing person notices and posed as Knickerbocker’s landlord, threatening to publish the manuscript to cover back rent. The reading public in 1809 was intrigued by all the drama, the book sold very well, and Irving became the first person in the United States to earn a living by writing. He then wrote a collection of short stories under the name of Geoffrey Crayon, which included his stories, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”
And, maybe this is why it’s so hard to cheer up in the mornings these days! Herb Caen was my staple w/coffee – his fun and gossip mollified all the bad news of the Chronicle:
“San Francisco columnist Herb Caen (books by this author), born in Sacramento (1916) whose column in the San Francisco Chronicle began in 1938, when he was 22, the year after the Golden Gate Bridge opened. He continued writing 1,000 words a day, six days a week, for almost 60 years — it was the longest-running columnist in American history. He coined the term “beatnik” in 1958, and he made the word “hippie” popular in the 1960s. He said: “I’m going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to Heaven. I’ll look around and say, ‘It’s not bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.”
Technorati Tags: bay area, herb caen, writers almanac, puppy, san francisco, writers
“A Dreamer’s Guide to Cities” San Francisco Bay Press, Virginia/San Francisco: 2009
In her second full-length poetry collection, Joan Gelfand explores the poignancy of living in a world that is war-torn and environmentally damaged. With a nod to the humorous paradox of modern life, Gelfand writes from the vantage point of a mother, an artist, and a Zen meditator. “A Dreamer’s Guide…” looks beyond the surface of our lives at the connections that make live worth living, and the sensual details that color it. Read More
Seeking Center: A Collection of Poems by Joan Gelfand, Two Bridges Press, Richmond CA: 2006
In Seeking Center, Joan Gelfand joins the reader in a free-wheeling discussion, beyond the poems themselves, regarding what is poetry today, here at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Read More