Arts

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Writing the Landscape

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A lot of the writing that I particularly love about landscape is immersive and meaningful. Every place has a unique quality. When writing about the environmental crisis, as I did in Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth (upcoming, Shanti Arts.), it adds another layer to the landscape and the valuing of it. Then writers add this sense of it: their own associations, their own experiences.

I think of sense of place is a layered, multi-faceted thing. It’s not only a sense of emotional connection with landscape, an insight into how that landscape is inhabited—peopled and animal-ed—but a sense of story. It’s also an invitation to explore and investigate and listen and engage the senses. The paintings and poems from Dread and Splendor are from all over, Norway, New York City, Costa Rica, India and more.

Joan Didion has written many books about place, including Central America and California. She emotionally engages with the places she’s at. Didion has been described by Martin Amis “as the poet of the great California emptiness.” California has had its fair share of wild fires that have seriously altered the landscape since Didion wrote about it.

Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth is about women at the heart of the environmental crisis. Irene Christensen, a Norwegian artist, did a series of paintings on this topic. I wrote poem responses to the paintings. I had to write about a dystopic landscape set in the not-too-distant future. Many landscapes are endangered as we ignore the warning signs of the planet’s destruction

Our manuscript/artwork will be delivered to Shanti Arts at the end of the month. It is scheduled to be out in early 2026. Follow me and the book here on Thursdays.

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Getting a Manuscript Ready for Publishing

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When you finally land that book contract, you have to deliver the final manuscript. I recently signed a contract with my publisher, Shanti Arts, for my manuscript, Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth.  It was more complicated than my two previous poetry collections for two reasons. The paintings and poems were a collaboration between myself and the Norwegian artist, Irene Christensen. Also, we got two offers for publication, Shanti Arts and the publisher of my previous collection, Finishing Line Press. 

It took several weeks to talk with both publishers and figure out, with my collaborator, which publisher was the right fit. I had a good relationship with Finishing Line Press and its publisher, Leah Maines. I had published my last book with them, and had a good experience with it. Finishing Line offered a higher royalty rate and I knew they were more proactive about promoting their new titles than most publishers. But they offered the contract to me and not my collaborator, Irene Christensen. We collaborated together from the beginning on the project. Shanti Arts is an arts publisher who offered us both a contract, but is not known for new book promotion. Irene and I decided to go with Shanti Arts.

Now I am in the process of preparing the manuscript for publication. As a poet, I want to put my best work into the published product. I have been workshopping my poems from the manuscript in my writing groups, relying on my fellow writers to help me edit and rewrite. I then have to pass them by my collaborator, Irene, who supplies the paintings that I responded to in poetry. Finally, I have to get it to my publisher, Christine Brooks Cote. Irene has to have the artwork ready as well.

After Christine receives the manuscript, it takes her a year to publish, with much going back and forth. Since there is a full-color painting with every poem, it takes longer to publish.

I will keep you posted here on the upcoming process, from contract to published book, and beyond. Follow me here on Thursdays.

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How to Enhance Your Story

Writing a good story is essential to any genre. Story writing is a key element of being a competent writer.

If you want to be as complete a writer as possible, it is important that you know  how to write a good story. Story writing is a common skill for most writers, it is something that most writers take for granted. In truth, you must develop your writing skills to the best of your abilities.

If you want to reach your full potential as a writer, you will need to tell a truly great story. Before you start writing your story though, you should make sure you know what story writing really is, and what the elements are needed. The five elements of a story are character, plot, setting, conflict and resolution.

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This is simple enough, but how do you make your story stand out?

One way to do this is to have your manuscript reviewed by a more experienced writer. There are many writers you can hire to do this or you can join a writing group. A good writing group will put everyone on an equal footing where everyone reads and the group comments on the piece. This can be done in a generative group, where everyone is writing something new right there and everyone shares or a critique group, where a manuscript, or part of one is sent out in advance by a group member and then the group reads it and offers critique. This route can be more difficult to do than paying a consultant, because you will want to feel comfortable with how the group operates before you can feel the feedback is helpful.

I was writing a collection of eco-poetry because I am passionate about climate justice. Then I met the Norwegian artist, Irene Christensen, who was doing a series of paintings about women at the heart of the environmental movement. We decided to collaborate and came up with a 60-page manuscript called Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth.

Another way to improve your story writing skills is to read other stories. I try to read something new on a daily basis. The more you delve into new literature, the more concepts and ideas will find their way into your own story writing.

But the most important thing to remember about being a good writer is to keep at it. A good writer writes everyday. Even if what you’re writing that day is not going well, if you keep at it, you’ll eventually get to something that works. You can’t sit down the first time and tell a wonderful, well-written story. It takes practice.

Follow me here on Thursdays. I will be writing about the writing/publishing process and the progress of my manuscript Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth.

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Creativity Gets Stimulated By Exercise

Many writers, including me, exercise as part of their creative process. The physical state of our bodies, and our willingness to routinely move them through space to the extent we are able, can either serve or subvert the quest to create. I am in the process of preparing my manuscript, Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth, for final submission to my publisher, Shanti Arts. I signed the contract, with the artist Irene Christensen, in October, and now I have to deliver the manuscript.

According to a new study by Scientific Reports* “the pattern of findings argues for shared variance between bodily movements and creativity or fluency and originality.”

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There are studies about how aerobic exercise both increases the size of the prefrontal cortex and facilitates interaction between it and the amygdala. This is important to creators because the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that helps tamp down the amygdala’s fear and anxiety signals.

Dr. Jennifer Heisz, author of Move the Body, Heal the Mind, shares deeply compelling insights and research about the connection between movement and anxiety, depression, working memory, mental flexibility and creativity

I swim everyday first thing in the morning, then I write. I have been following this pattern for years and find it works for me. Artists, writers and any other driven creators use movement as a powerful tool in the quest to help transform the persistent uncertainty, fear, and anxiety that accompanies the quest to create,

Anyone involved in a creative endeavor might consider movement, as a potent elixir to help transform the uncomfortable sensation of anxiety from a source of pain and creative stagnation into something not only manageable but usable.

A growing body of research on the therapeutic effect of exercise on anxiety, mood, and fear illustrates the often sustained anxiety that rides organically along with the uncertainty of creation. As artists, we need to cultivate the energetic capacity needed to give our brains what they require to function long enough, and at a high enough level, to have even a shot at closing the gap between idea and performed piece or manuscript. We need to not only train in the craft, but also do what we can to equip ourselves to flourish along the way.the creative process, especially in the context of a larger work, is a survival event.

What form of exercise do you use to feed your creativity? As I prepare the final manuscript, Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth, to my publisher, Shanti Arts, I depend on exercise to help me through. Swimming is one of the things that stimulates my writing each morning.

I will blog on Thursdays about the writing process and the submission of the final manuscript, and publication of my book. Follow me her on Thursdays.

*“Everyday bodily movement is associated with creativity independently from active positive affect” by Rominger, et al. Scientific Reports.

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My Manuscript Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth Has Found a Publisher

The Goddess Speaks. Oil, 12” x 12”

I have been working on this manuscript for some time with the Norwegian Artist, Irene Christensen. The painting seen here, “The Goddess Speaks,” is a candidate for the cover art. There are more than 30 full-color paintings, many oil, that inspired my poems.

It was a challenge finding a publisher who wanted to publish the book because the four-color art is more expensive to produce than the average poetry collection. Not many publishers even publish visuals with poetry. The final cost of the book will be more thatn the average poetry book. We wound up submitting simultaneously to four publishers, and getting offers from two, Finishing Line Press and Shanti Arts. We decided to go with Shanti Arts.

For those of you who follow my blog, you have been with me on my journey to publication of this manuscript. It was important to me to publish this manuscript as it’s a complete collection of eco-poems, inspired by the paintings of women at the heart of the movement to preserve the environment. Like recycling and going with green energy, as an artist, I wanted to contribute to the literature on the environmental crisis.

I didn’t even want to tell people about my upcoming book publication until I had a signed contract. Now I do. The next step is refining the accepted manuscript and making it the best it can be. I rely on my writer friends to read and make suggestions. I don’t always use these suggestions, but it helps to have another pair of eyes looking at my poems and suggesting what’s strong and what’s stopped them as they were reading.

For those of you who followed my blog through the development of this manuscript, my first collaborative effort with an artist, continue to follow me though the final steps before publication and beyond.

I will blog about the publication process each week. Follow me here.

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Publishing In the Best Literary Journals for Poets

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Poets like to be published in literary journals, but there are some journals that are considered at the top and most poets would love to be in. Once they’ve got a few publications under their belt, they might have success with one of the following sites. A publication in any of these poetry journals could catapult your writing toward a larger, more reputable audience.

Best American Poetry is an anthology of the best poetry of the year. Each year, this series presents essential American verse and the poets who create it. Truly the “best” American poetry has appeared in this venerable collection for over thirty-five years. Get a copy of this and look at the journals the poems first appeared in. Robert Pinsky, the famous poet and literature professor, has called this annual anthology “a vivid snapshot of what a distinuished poet finds exciting, fresh and memorable.”

Among the literary journals often found the Best American Poetry anthology is The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, The New England Review, The Harvard Review, The Cincinnati Review, Prairie Schooner, The Kenyon Review, Southwest Review, The Virginia Review Quarterly, New Ohio Review, the Paris Review, The Nation, The Georgia Review, The American Scholar, AGNI, The Literary Review, The Iowa Review, The Common, The Boston Review, Harper’s, Gulf Coast, Conduit, River Styx, Denver Quarterly, The Atlantic Monthly, Barrow Street, Cave Wall, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Sun, New York Times Magazine, Black Warrior Review, The Colorado Review, The Carolina Quarterly, The Missouri Review, Pleiades, The New Criterion, The Hopkins Review, Image Magazine, The Southampton Review, The Sewnee Review, Birmingham, Massachusetts Review, The Sycamore Review, Terminus Magazine, Cherry Tree, Ecotone, Crazy Horse, Gulfshore Life, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Hudson Review, The Iron Horse Literary Review, Naugatuck River Review, Maggy, The Manhattan Review, McSweeney’s, Michigan Quarterly Review, New South, New York Quarterly, PEN America, Poetry London, Poetry Northwest, The Rumpus, Southern Indiana Review, Vinyl Poetry, Buzzfeed, Mississippi Review, Cooper Nickel, Crab Apple Review, Copper Nickel and Brilliant Corners.

I have just signed a contract for a new book, Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth, with my artist colleague, Irene Christensen with Shanti Arts Press. It should be out in 2025. I will chronicle this experience to publication here on Thursdays. Follow me here.




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I’m Grateful to Have Our Painting and Poem, “The Day Wavers Between Going and Staying” in Issue 200 of the Arlington Literary Journal

The painting and poem “The Day Wavers Between Going and Staying” was published in Issue 200 of the Arlington Literary Journal. Take a look:

https://www.arlijo.com/post/issue-200#viewer-huuwn650

This poem and painting is part of the upcoming book Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth, to be published by Shanti Arts Press in 2025.

I will be blogging on Thursdays. Follow me here.

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Publishing Poetry

Many writers write poetry, even if it’s not their favorite genre.There is not much money in publishing poetry, unless you’re a poet laureate like Billy Collins or famous internationally like Sheamus Heaney.  But there is a market for publishing poetry.

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The best way for a new poet to publish is in a poetry journal or magazine.  Split This Rock offers an online list of literary journals https://www.splitthisrock.org/resources/literary-arts-journals. There are many other websites that show journals looking for poetry. You need to do some homework to figure out with which journals your poetry will resonate.

You may not want to start with well-established journals like The Kenyon Review or The American Poetry Journal, but there are many to choose from.  Starry Starry Kite https://www.lindacastronovo.com/theonlinejournal, a new online journal, is open to submissions from new writers.

Poetry remains a niche market for bookstores.  A good bookstore carries poetry books (and you should buy some.)  They carry classic poets, academic anthologies, and well-known poets. Most poets don’t reach this level.  If you have a relationship with your local bookstore owner (and you should get to know him/her,) this person is likely to carry a few copies of your new book.  I left three copies of my latest book with a local bookstore, and it sold all three copies, but it took about a year.

Book publishers look at the back of your submitted full-length manuscripts for acknowledgements of poetry published in literary journals.  I’ve heard that some publishers look for a 25 percent ratio of published poems to 75 percent nonpublished when looking at a book manuscript.  This percentage will vary publisher to publisher, but the publisher wants to know the poems in the manuscript were considered publishable by the literary journals.

Each journal has its own submission procedures, but as a rule, they don’t want more than five or six poems per submission.  Rejections are more common than not, so be prepared for this.  You should get an idea of what the journal is publishing by looking online at poetry from that journal, going to your local library and looking at old issues, or just buying a sample issue.  A good sponsor for a good journal is a university, so check the journal’s affiliations. If you like the poetry the journal offers, it’s a good sign that the journal might like your poetry.

I published in about 25 literary journals, including Nebo, The California Quarterly, Taproot Literary Quarterly and Crosswinds Literary Journal, before I published my first book of poetry. 


I chose to submit to small, independent publishers who were known to publish new poets.


I have a new manuscript, Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth, out for consideration with a few small independent publishers.  This is my first collaborative manuscript with the Norwegian artist, Irene Christensen.  She did a series of paintings about women at the heart of the environmental movement for which I wrote poem responses.  This is specialized publishing as the publisher needs to be experienced with four-color visuals as well as poetry. I don’t know if this will get published, but we never know for sure as poets.

I will be blogging on Thursdays. Follow me here.

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How to Publish Poetry

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There is a large poetry market for individual poems and whole manuscripts.

Literary journals publish many poems and some publishers publish poetry books. Poetry remains a niche market for bookstores.  A good bookstore carries poetry books (and you should buy some.)  They carry classic poets, academic anthologies, and well-known poets. Most poets don’t reach this level.  If you have a relationship with your local bookstore owner (and you should get to know him/her,) this individual is likely to carry a few copies of your new book.  I left three copies of my latest book with a local bookstore, and it sold all three copies, but it took about a year.

The best way for a new poet to publish is in a poetry journal or magazine.  Split This Rock offers an online list of literary journals https://www.splitthisrock.org/resources/literary-arts-journals.

You need to do some homework to figure out with which journals your poetry will resonate and want whatever poetry you have to offer.

You may not want to start with well-established journals like The Kenyon Review or The American Poetry Journal, but there are many to choose from.  Starry Starry Kite https://www.lindacastronovo.com/theonlinejournal, a new online journal, is open to submissions of poetry.

Publication in literary journals is also important to book publishers.  I’ve heard that some publishers look for a 25 percent ratio of published poems to 75 percent nonpublished when looking at a book manuscript.  This percentage will vary publisher to publisher, but the publisher wants to know the poems in the manuscript were considered publishable by the literary journals.

In nearly all cases, these book publishers will only publish a new poet if they have a track record with the literary journals.

Each journal has its own submission procedures, but as a rule, they don’t want more than five or six poems per submission.  Rejections are more common than not, so be prepared for this.  You should get an idea of what the journal is publishing by looking online at poetry from that journal going to your local library and looking at old issues, or just buying a sample issue.  A good sponsor for a good journal is a university, so check the journal’s affiliations. If you like the poetry the journal offers, it’s a good sign that the journal might like your poetry. Read the journal’s submission guidelines carefully.

I published in about 25 literary journals, including Nebo, The California Quarterly, Taproot Literary Quarterly and Crosswinds Literary Journal, before I published my first book of poetry. 

I chose to submit to small, independent publishers who were known to publish new poets.

I have a new manuscript, Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth, out for consideration with a few small independent publishers.  This is my first collaborative manuscript with the Norwegian artist, Irene Christensen.  She did a series of paintings about women at the heart of the environmental movement for which I wrote poem responses.  This is specialized publishing as the publisher needs to be experienced with four-color visuals as well as poetry. I don’t know if this will get published, but we never know for sure as poets.

Follow me here on Thursdays where I will blog about writing, the writing process, editing, revising and publishing.

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The Writer’s Notebook

Every writer should keep a notebook or journal. A stray piece of paper wouldn’t do. I have always had a notebook, but I have been using my iPhone as a notebook these last few years. I find that I lose my notebook, but always have my phone. You can also use apps, such as My Journal. I was thinking about the long relationship that I’ve had with notebooks, and their centrality to everything I do, the way that they foster my creativity across years and decades.

I’m sure that’s true of most other writers. And yet, whenever I see guides to keeping a journal online, I rarely recognise my own practice in there. I’ve seen so many idealised journals, designed for public display, written in overly neat handwriting using multi-coloured pens, filled with motivational quotes and orderly bullet points. This kind of journal feels wrong to me, reeking of an overly disciplined school: the people-pleasing, self-conscious, high-pressure spaces of my school books. The tyranny of good presentation and legibility.

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In my view, a notebook should be unorganized. It should be random thoughts that you want to pick up later. I’ve written many poems from random thoughts I’ve had a movies, while reading, while listening to music, or just going to the supermarket.

Your notebook should be written for nobody’s eyes but your own. It’s a completely private space, where you are the only one writing and reading. You should never show anything directly from its pages, and certainly don’t let anyone have a flick through. This gives you the freedom to write anything in it That might be my darkest thoughts or my fragile feelings; but mostly it’s just terrible writing. Be incoherent, self-pitying, tacky, boring or stupid in this space. It’s nobody else’s business.

I’ll be taking a break from blogging for the month of August. Follow me here again on Thursdays after Labor Day.