Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Ghost Wife, Night Bomb Press, Oregon, Poetry, Suzanne Burns, Wordstock on October 12, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Suzanne Burns, a fine Oregon writer, has a new collection of poetry coming out soon. Her publisher, Night Bomb Press, is offering free shipping on orders of Ghost Wife placed before November 7. Here’s where to go for the deal: http://www.nightbombpress.com/preorders.html.
I met Suzanne a few years ago at the Wordstock book festival, at which we both reading (simultaneously). Having since read her earlier work, I’m now eagerly looking forward to the new one.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Audrey Hepburn, Dead Kennedys, Ezra Pound, Fighters & Writers, Olsen Twins, Powell’s, Suzanne Burns, The Paris Poems, The Widow, Wordstock on January 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Last year at Wordstock – Portland’s big book fest – I met Suzanne Burns. I was there to read from Fighters & Writers. She was there to read from The Widow. Unfortunately, our readings conflicted so I missed her presentation. I did, however, get a copy of her superb chapbook, a collection of linked, crystalline prose poems, which I highly recommend.
More recently, I was gratified to see that a Powell’s staff member selected The Widow as one of her top five books of 2010.
I’d also recommend Burns’s The Paris Poems for several reasons, not least of which is that it’s a rare to find a versifier who can work the Dead Kennedys, Audrey Hepburn, Ezra Pound and the Olsen Twins into a single poem.
Posted in Events, Fighters & Writers, tagged Attic, Bo Caldwell, Charles Goodrich, City of Tranquil Light, David Biespiel, Dead End Gene Pool, Fighters & Writers, Gimme Refuge, Kevin Sampsell, Larry Colton, Matt Love, Multnomah County Library, Nestucca Spit Press, No Ordinary Joes, Oregon Convention Center, Oregon Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen, Suzanne Burns, The Distant Land of My Father, The Oregonian, The Widow, Wendy Burden, Wordstock on October 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The best thing about events like Wordstock, from my perspective anyway, is the opportunity to meet fellow writers. At the Nonfiction Reading Showcase at the Multnomah County Central Library on Wednesday, October 6, I met Wendy Burden, author of Dead End Gene Pool, and Kevin Sampsell, author of A Common Pornography. (Larry Colton also read from No Ordinary Joes that evening, but I didn’t have a chance to speak with him.) I ran into Wendy again at the authors’ reception two days later, where I also chatted with David Biespiel, founder/director of Attic: A Haven for Writers and author of Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces, Bo Caldwell, author of the novels City of Tranquil Light and The Distant Land of My Father, and poet and fiction writer Suzanne Burns.
Reading at Wordstock with Matt Love, Portland, Oregon, October 9, 2010
At the festival itself I also spoke briefly with writers I already knew, such as poet Charles Goodrich and my neighbor, Oregon’s Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen.
The downside of such shows is that it’s impossible to take in everything that entices. In different rooms at the Convention Center on Saturday, Suzanne read from The Widow and Wendy read from her memoir at the same time that I was on stage beside Netsucca Spit Press founder Matt Love, who read from Gimme Refuge before I presented portions of the title essay from Fighters & Writers.
In the Wordstock author signing area with Wendy Burden, October 9, 2010
In an instance of unusually fortuitous timing amid such schedule conflicts, The Oregonian ran a brief review of my book the same weekend as Portland’s big gathering of scribblers.
