Weirding Word®

Beltway Quarterly Opens 2009 with Museum Issue

Beltway Poetry opens 2009 with a new issue devoted entirely to poems about museums.  Thirty-three poets write about museums, historical sites, and other public places devoted to preservation and exhibition.  The poems address the institutions and "their collections, their workers, and the many ways in which they fulfill their founders’ hopes of enlarging the scope of civic life", as guest co-editor Maureen Thorson writes in her introduction.  "In these poems, poets engage in conversations with artists, their subjects, and with art itself. They stand in witness to the forces of history."

 

Saundra Rose Maley asks King Tut,"...is there a crossing over/ Or is this life just what it is, a sandal strap/At best?"  Margaret Yocom speaks in the voice of a man who amassed old logging equipment for a museum in Maine.  Kendra Kopelke lets the woman in a Hopper painting speak: " He put me here/like a candle/to ignite the room."  Stephen Cushman imagines painter's models, "posing in a yoga twist,/head going one way, torso another."  David Gewanter writes of a museum store clerk, " I love to see my mother behind//the counter, tidying up the fossil fish/and reptile rulers."  Linda Pastan contemplates death from a safe distance, asking, " Whose skulls are these,/and isn't it dread/that informs our pleasure//in this canvas?"

 

Poets included:  M.C. Allan * Francisco Aragón * Anne Becker * Mel Belin * Rose Berger * Jody Bolz * Dan Brady * Sarah Browning * Stephen Cushman * Kyle Dargan * Amani Elkassabany * Martin Galvin * Parris Garnier * David Gewanter * Andrew Haley * Reginald Harris * Alan King * Rosemary Klein * Kendra Kopelke * Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda * Mary Ann Larkin * Barbara Lefcowitz * Saundra Rose Maley * Lalita Noronha * Linda Pastan * Ann Rayburn * M.A. Schaffner * Edna Small * Cheryl Snell * Marcela Sulak * Melissa Tuckey * Margaret Yocom * Katherine E. Young

Gaea Honeycutt
blog@weirdingword.com 

Weirding Word®, a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, is a virtual publication department that provides editing, freelance writing, and publication and web design services.

Copyright 2008-2009 Gaea L. Honeycutt. All rights reserved.

Financial Advice in Tough Times: Harrine Freeman

Stop by and talk to author and financial advisor Harrine Freeman at one of the appearances listed below. Her book How To Get Out of Debt: Get an "A" Credit Rating for Free, guides readers through practical steps to financial freedom. Also, read her interview with the Weirding Word® Blog.

October 2008

• October 16, 2008, 3:00-6:00 p.m., booksigning with DC Bookman, McPherson Square, Washington, DC


• October 20, 2008, 7:00 a.m., Financial Contributor, Heaven 1580AM, Todd B./The Breakdown, Lanham, MD


• October 21, 2008, Preparing for College Seminar, Reservoir High School, 11550 Scaggsville Road, Fulton, MD

November 2008

• November 1, 2008, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., For Sisters Only, booksigning w/Michel Wright, WPGC 95.5FM, Convention Center, Washington DC


• November 4, 2008, Understanding Your Credit, CAAB, 1801 K Street NW, Suite M100, Washington, DC


• November 7, 2008, 7:30-9:30 p.m., Business Credit Seminar, Dreams No Longer Deferred Event, M&T Bank Pavilion @ the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, 12 N. Eutaw ST, Baltimore, MD 21201


• November 8, 2008, Essence Magazine, Young Women for Leadership Conference, Washington Covention Center, Ballroom B/C, 206-207, 301-306


• November 17, 2008, Financial Contributor, Heaven 1580AM, Todd B./The Breakdown, Lanham, MD 7am

December 2008

• December 15, 2008, 7:00 a.m., Financial Contributor, Heaven 1580AM, Todd B./The Breakdown, Lanham, MD

Gaea Honeycutt
blog@weirdingword.com

Weirding Word®, a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, is a virtual publication department that provides editing, freelance writing, and publication and web design services.

Copyright 2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt. All rights reserved.

Summer 2008 Issue of Beltway Poetry Quarterly

Beltway Poetry Quarterly announces it's summer volume. The Forebears Issue includes essays that celebrate individuals and locations important to their writing:

• a photo essay on DC AUTHOR'S HOUSES by Kim Roberts and Dan Vera


• Taquiena Boston and Vera J. Katz on OWEN DODSON


• M.A. Schaffner on AMBROSE BIERCE


• Grace Cavalieri on ANN DARR


• Olivia Barbee on GWENDOLYN BENNETT


• Kathi Morrison-Taylor on JOAQUIN MILLER


• Myra Sklarew on LEON-GONTRAN DAMAS


• Merrill Leffler on GABRIELLE EDGCOMB


• Elisavietta Ritchie on JOHN PAUKER


• Mark Opsasnick on JIM MORRISON and BEAT COFFEEHOUSES

This is the third issue in a series documenting the rich literary history of Washington, DC. Beltway Poetry Quarterly is also pleased to welcome a new summer intern, Alyssa Schimmel. Alyssa is serving as an editorial assistant, and has already updated one of the most popular sections of the Beltway Resource Bank, The Poet Links, which provides links to other web sites featuring individual area poets, past and current.

Finally, Beltway Poetry Quarterly annouces Maureen Thorson as co-editor of a new themed issue on the subject of museums. Poems on the theme are welcome from any poets currently living in DC, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia or Delaware. Entries will be read throughout the month of August. Full guidelines can be found on the journal's website.

Gaea Honeycutt
blog@weirdingword.com

Weirding Word®, a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, is a virtual publication department that provides editing, freelance writing, and publication and web design services.

Copyright 2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt. All rights reserved.

June Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Metro Area Events

The June Poetry News is now online at Beltway Poetry Quarterly, with listings of calls for entries, new publications, and special events.

Upcoming events include:

"GLBT Poets of Washington," a guided walking tour of the Dupont Circle neighborhood, June 21, 10:30 am to noon. Led by Dan Vera, the tour costs $5 and advance reservations are required. Celebrate Gay Pride Month and learn how gay literary culture has flourished from the 1970s to the present in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, with the influence of such writers as Essex Hemphill, Ed Cox, Tim Dlugos, Michael Lally, Lee Lally, Richard McCann, Andrew Holleran, and many others. Stops include Dupont Park, Lambda Rising Bookstore, the site of the Community Bookshop, and writer's homes. This is an expanded version of the tour first developed for the Split This Rock Poetry Festival in March 2008. The tour takes approximately 1.5 hours and will run rain or shine. Limited to 25 participants. Please wear comfortable walking shoes and carry water. The tour starts outside the Starbucks Coffee where Connecticut Avenue and New Hampshire Avenue intersect with the northern part of Dupont Circle. RSVP to Kim Roberts at beltway@mac.com.

Gaea Honeycutt
blog@weirdingword.com

Weirding Word®, a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, is a virtual publication department that provides editing, freelance writing, and publication and web design services.

Copyright 2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt. All rights reserved.

Weirding Word® on Writers: Norma Lehmeier Hartie (Part 2)

Weirding Word® on Writers continues an interview with Norma Lehmeier Hartie, author of Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Home, Your Life & Your Planet. In Part 1, she discussed creating harmonious environments, her approach to writing, and self-publishing. The second and final part of the interview focuses on the power of words, creating a harmonious office, and her future plans.

WW: Now, you’ve gotten a couple of awards for Harmonious Environment.
NLH: With ForeWard Magazine and Nautilus, the book is a finalist. With Writer's Digest, it won the grand prize. So, it’s pretty exciting and there’s an interview in the current Writer’s Digest.

WW: One of the things we believe here at Weirding Word® is that words really create. That words define life and impact how it’s shaped. And, I’m wondering if you agree with that, and second of all, how words shape and define your life?
NLH: Well, I do agree with that. Just off the top of my head, I’m thinking how you can pick up a book, and go to classic literature and become that world. That comes to life. I guess both fiction and nonfiction do different things. But for me fiction has always been this whole…you step into another life with fiction. And nonfiction, just the concept, it expands your consciousness and your awareness. And you see the world differently. I’ve often wondered about the difference between what it must be like to be illiterate. Forgetting even computing, but just being illiterate. What that person thinks about versus people who read and write. It has to be hugely different.

WW: I never thought about it that way before.
NLH: It’s true though, isn’t it?

WW: Umm-hmm, umm-hmm.
NLH: You can’t compare…unless back when stories were passed on verbally, that’s a little bit different and a different era, too.

WW: But, the more you learn, the more it changes the way you think about things.
NLH: Absolutely. Even writing my own book, there were certain things I needed to work through and understand that had never been presented as far as I know. And, probably the most exciting aspect…not probably, in fact, it was…were those few “ah-ha” moments where I’m like, “Ohmigod!” I’m jumping up. I mean really, because certain things just made sense suddenly and I was the first to think of it that way. And that changed my consciousness, and I know whenever I read a good book and I learn, it’s that “ah-ha, wow”. It’s great.

WW: Now, that leads me to one of my standard questions. And that is, what is different now about how you write and how you approach writing than when you first started Harmonious Environment?
NLH: I could say almost “fearless”. In other words, I think…and I’ve heard it many times...that people are afraid to start writing. I was afraid to start the book. Now that I have and I write virtually every day, it’s much, much easier and I’ve become a better writer. After you write a book, you keep working on it and you continue writing, and you just find that your skills increase. It flows. I don’t really often get writers block, if ever really, because of a level of confidence. Yeah, it really boils down to being confident. Particularly when I’ve gotten good book reviews and won the award. If that isn’t a confidence booster…it really means I can write. I’m not just putting down words. And that really gives me confidence.

WW: It’s sort of a validation of everything that you’ve worked so long to do.
NLH: It is. And so even e-mails, all of that stuff, it just becomes really simple.

WW: Is there anything in the book that you’d like to focus on or that you’d like to tell people about that I didn’t ask? Is there anything that people don’t know enough about or don’t think enough about that you’d really like to share?
NLH: Well, I think one thing that I try to impress throughout the book is to decorate and do your home using your own intuition. As opposed to “oh, this is trendy” or whatever, to really decorate for your soul. And I don’t like to use that word flippantly, but I mean what really feels good to you. Obviously, if you live with other people, you want to make compromises and so on. But, not to worry about what anyone else feels. You will know when it’s right.

It’s just one of those things where I have people who will come into my house and they’ll say… I mean, and it’s funny, I don’t care who it is…virtually everyone will say, “Wow, it feels so good here.” And that because it is energetic… everything flows and things do look good. Yeah, I am a professional, but I do think virtually anybody is capable of doing it. And that’s the other reason why I wrote the book. So people can gain confidence in themselves and make a home because we spend so much time at home. It just feels good.

WW: What kind of advice do you have for people in their home office or an office building?
NLH: No clutter. Be organized. I know that’s the tough thing, but if you do it...Have a little fun when you organize. Go to a Container Store or a place like that. Know what you need. “I need one container for files.” Whatever it is. And get stuff that you like. I’m not a big proponent of buying stuff, but in this case, if it’s going to get you organized and keep you organized, it’s well worth it. Particularly in an office where you want to accomplish something, you want it as clutter free and organized as possible.

And depending upon what you want – if you want to gain wealth, for example, or recognition in your job – there are certain things you can do with a ba gua map or feng shui to sort of spice up certain areas of your office to increase wealth and so on. But that’s a little hard to talk about.

WW: That’s the octagon-shaped map in the book?
NLH: Which is also a square. It can be depicted either way. It is laid over a room or over an entire house.

WW: Interesting. I’ll have to read it in pieces so I don’t get overwhelmed like I do with my paper. Now, it sounds like you’re moving into a lot of new areas. You’re doing more of the workshops. And, publishing. Are you publishing for other people, too. Are you taking on authors now?
NLH: It’s something I might do in the future, but it would be in a completely different direction. And actually, at this point, I’m really trying to decide which of the number directions I’m going in. But that’s probably the last one I would do. I do plan on writing more books.

WW: Well, that was my next question. What’s next on the horizon for you?
NLH: Well, I am thinking about taking the book that I have…because as you said, it’s very large..and not exactly chopping up the chapters. But, forming a few more books from it that would allow people to focus on just one area if they wanted to do that. And, I’m also thinking of writing on the state of publishing today. It’s for writers who don’t know where to turn. There are slightly different books out there, but I'd answer some of the questions about what’s going on. There’s a lot going on very rapidly.

If you missed Part 1 of Norma's interview, you can check it out on the blog. And, do forget to visit her website to learn more about creating a harmonious environment.

Gaea Honeycutt
blog@weirdingword.com

Weirding Word®, a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, is a virtual publication department that provides editing, freelance writing, and publication and web design services.

Copyright 2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt. All rights reserved.