Scrolling through some older blog posts this weekend, it occurred to me that this little oddling turns seven this month. My book of sideshow women set in the 30's/40's, it was initially my MFA thesis in 2007, but then bounced from it's initial press acceptance to Black Lawrence in 2011 and was published in 2014, which made the gestation a little longer than usual. It was the only book I've published that had a lot of hands in it from the beginning--my own, my thesis classmates and advisors. Many of the adjustments made to get it approved for the degree were ditched when I actually started sending it out, actually, so outside of maybe the ordering, the poems are probably a bit different than the version that exists in the Columbia archives (and it's a weird thing to know it's over there.) Maybe some day if I am ever a fancy famous poet people will write theses on the changes I made merely to please an advisor and get the damned degree, and the ridiculousness of 32 year old me actually feeling like I had to do that becuase I just wanted it done (which is a whole other blog entry in and of itself.). But really, this is the better version and I love it so, even though it took 7 years to come to fruition. I also love that people are still, according to my royalty statements, actually buying this weird little book on the regular. You can get your very own copy here:
https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/girl-show/
Scrolling through some older blog posts this weekend, it occurred to me that this little oddling turns seven this month. My book of sideshow women set in the 30's/40's, it was initially my MFA thesis in 2007, but then bounced from it's initial press acceptance to Black Lawrence in 2011 and was published in 2014, which made the gestation a little longer than usual. It was the only book I've published that had a lot of hands in it from the beginning--my own, my thesis classmates and advisors. Many of the adjustments made to get it approved for the degree were ditched when I actually started sending it out, actually, so outside of maybe the ordering, the poems are probably a bit different than the version that exists in the Columbia archives (and it's a weird thing to know it's over there.) Maybe some day if I am ever a fancy famous poet people will write theses on the changes I made merely to please an advisor and get the damned degree, and the ridiculousness of 32 year old me actually feeling like I had to do that becuase I just wanted it done (which is a whole other blog entry in and of itself.). But really, this is the better version and I love it so, even though it took 7 years to come to fruition. I also love that people are still, according to my royalty statements, actually buying this weird little book on the regular. You can get your very own copy here: https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/girl-show/
Comments