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Tag: Books and Mortar

Who Let All This Poetry In Here?

2022-04-172022-04-17 John Winkelman

Reading Material for the Week of April 10, 2022

This past Thursday I had the wonderful experience of attending a poetry reading for the first time in well over two years. The event was hosted by local indie bookstore Books and Mortar. West Michigan poets Colleen Alles and Kristin Brace read from their most recent collections.

The reading was wonderful! I had previously purchased Brace’s book Toward the Wild Abundance, and picked up Alles’ After the 8-Ball (pictured above, with Poe) at the event, and both poets graciously signed their books and, as the audience was small, we spent some time after the event talking about reading and writing and life during the COVID years.

I have known Kristin for several years, from her tenure at the Grand Rapids Creative Youth Center as well as the weekly open studio graciously hosted in years past by Jack and Julie Ridl.

I met Colleen back at the end of 2019, when we published one of her poems in the last issue of The 3288 Review. Shortly thereafter, Grand Rapids Public Library put in an order for the entire run of the journal, all 12 issues. As luck would have it, at the time she was an employee of the GRPL, so when word got out that Caffeinated Press was shutting its doors, they decided to add our publication to their archives. It was the largest single sale ever for Caffeinated Press, and also one of the last. So it goes.

In reading news, I am still working my way through my unread issues of Poetry Magazine. I have finished 10 of them, and might make it through another 10 by the end of the month, though I will likely take a break after the issue I am currently reading (July/August 2019) to read After the 8-Ball.

In writing news, I am keeping up my pace of a new poem every day for National Poetry Month. This years the words are coming easier than they did last year or the years before, both because there is a little less of *gestures at everything* and because I have had two more years of practice both reading and writing poetry.

Posted in Literary MattersTagged Books and Mortar, poetry, West Michigan comment on Who Let All This Poetry In Here?

A Moderately Hopeful March

2022-03-062022-03-05 John Winkelman

New books from the week of February 27, 2022

In the past week I have returned to working a few days a week out of the downtown office which, while mundane on the face of it, is a Big Deal ™ for me for a few reasons. First, after two years I finally get to be outside of my house for more than errands and martial arts practice. Second, in select narrow, carefully managed settings, it is possible to return to something resembling a normal, not overly pandemic-ey routine. And third, Spring is just around the corner, and the city is waking up from a winter and a long hibernation, and that is a fine time of year to be outside, wandering around.

First up is Marlon James‘s new book Moon Witch, Spider King, which I picked up from local wunderkind bookstore Books and Mortar.

Next is the March 2022 issue of Poetry Magazine. I still plan to read through all of my back issues of this excellent journal in the month of April.

In reading news, I am well into Seth Dickinson’s The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, and so far it is every bit the equal to the previous two books in the series, and I am in awe of the way Dickinson portrays this motley cast of deeply damaged characters.

In writing, I didn’t accomplish much this past week, due to being distracted by the goings-on in Ukraine.

Posted in Literary MattersTagged Books and Mortar comment on A Moderately Hopeful March

Autumn Weather and Autumn Energy

2021-10-242021-10-24 John Winkelman

New arrivals in the week of October 17, 2021

Yesterday I wandered over to Books and Mortar to help Jenny and her crew move the store from their old location at 955 Cherry Street SE, across the street to their new location at 966 Cherry Street SE. The moving event was supposed to take three hours, and I set aside a couple of hours more because I know about moving locations. I also expected maybe a dozen people to show up (again because I have lots of experience with moving) because the day was cold and intermittently rainy.

But instead, the weather broke and the sun came out, and at least 75 people showed up and formed a human conveyor belt to move the books across the street, and the entire inventory and most of the fixtures were in the new space in less than an hour. Books and Mortar have photos and video of the event up on their Instagram. I look forward to seeing the new space when it is finished (grand re-opening November 5!).

Two new bookish things arrived this week, and one shirt.

First up is the latest issue of Poetry, which continues to be a balm of sorts for when the world gets a little too chaotic.

Next up is Gaia Awakens, a new anthology of climate crisis fiction from a recent Kickstarter created by C.D. Tavenor and Meg Trast of the Two Doctors Media Collaborative. I backed their project at the tier which included the “Eco, not Ego” tshirt, which I will happily wear to conventions, if the conventions I attend ever happen again.

In reading news, I started David Graber‘s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, which should keep me good and angry through the end of November.

In writing news, I am slowly amassing a pile of notes for the kickoff of NaNoWriMo in a week and change. I am trying something new this year – instead of breaking up my writing by chapter or story, I created 30 documents in Google Docs, one for each day of November, and will just put everything I write on each day in each document. I’ll worry about redistributing the words to their final resting places after the end of the month. What comes out of NaNoWriMo is the zero-eth draft of the work. The first draft will appear out of the random pile of typing once I have time to review what I have written.

Posted in Literary MattersTagged Books and Mortar, NaNoWriMo, reading comment on Autumn Weather and Autumn Energy

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John Winkelman in a diner in San Francisco

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