Kathleen Rooney » News

The KMSU Weekly Reader…

Kathleen — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:16:28 +0000

…in Mankato, Minnesota recorded a radio interview with me in June and posted it last week. You can listen to the podcast–which is very Midwestern and poetical–here. Thanks to Kara Garbe for her sympathetic reading and smart interview questions.

The Pine Tree State…

Kathleen — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:27:53 +0000

…aka Maine is where you reside during the residencies of the Stonecoast Low Residency MFA program, and it’s beautiful. See?The workshops, like the poetry one I was there to lead, take place in the Stone House, where the rooms all have evocative names, like this one, The Wolf’s Den Porch. Though not all the rooms have shag carpeting on the ceiling–my workshop just lucked out:

The best thing about Stonecoast, though, to be sort of cornball for a moment, was not the scenery or the setting, but the people–the students and the faculty members, like the ones pictured here, in the parking lot of the sumptuously appointed Knight’s Inn, formerly “The Maineline”…

…including (L to R) me, David Anthony Durham, Tim Seibles, Liz Hand, Nicole Cooley, Todd Boss and Deb Marquart. Thanks to Robin Talbot, Heather Magaw, and Annie Finch for all their organizational skill and vision, and to Allen’s Seafood in Harpswell for being so quintessentially Maine-y…

…and to all the lobsters who gave their lives for the final Community Dinner on Sunday evening. I didn’t have one because eating creatures is not my thing, but I hear they were delish:

Doors = opened.

Kathleen — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:20:04 +0000

Many things that I have written about poetry have gone live on the ol’ Internet this week, including:

a) a multi-media extravaganza about Leigh Stein’s Poets & Puppets project over on Harriet, the Poetry Foundation blog

b) a glowing review of Julia Story’s prose poetry book (except for the perplexing intro by Dan Chiasson) Post Moxie over at Coldfront

and c) an equally glowing one of Neil de la Flor’s prosey-poetry-y-hybrid-y book Almost Dorothy over at The Rumpus

Special thanks to Martin Seay and Lily Ladweig for the photos in the Open Door feature.

Elves and girls…

Kathleen — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:17:39 +0000

…live and nude are the subject of a joint review of Live Nude Elf by Nerve.com sex columnist Reverend Jen and Live Nude Girl by me in the Colorado Review. Thanks to Aaron Kimmel for the close readings and the thoughtful comparings and contrastings.

B-Sides & Rarities

Kathleen — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:24:38 +0000

Well, maybe not so much with the B-Sides, but definitely with the rarities. Or at least one rarity in the form of: yesterday I read in the Orange Alert Reading Series with this guy…

…Martin Seay, aka my spouse-person. He’s a fantastic writer, but uncommon is the occasion when he can be spotted performing his work in public. Also performing was John Cotter…

…reading from his brand new book Under the Small Lights, co-winner of the Miami University Press Novella Contest. And if that weren’t enough, also-also performing was Stephen Markley…

…whom you may know from his “Off the Markley” column in the Redeye, or from his recently published book Publish This Book. I read, too, part of “Natural Is Not In It,” the first essay in my essay collection For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs. It’s about Brazilian waxing, which can be a polarizing topic. There were parents in the audience! I was nervous. But everyone seemed to be into it… …so it all worked out. Thanks to Jason Behrends for organizing the Orange Alert Series, thanks to my fellow readers, and thanks to everyone who came out on a Sunday evening to listen to tales of 1950s street gangs in Venice, California, would-be playrights wandering around Walden Pond, the struggles of a young writer trying to become rich and famous, and the torturous removal of intimate body hair.

Hear, see, feel, smell, etc…

Kathleen — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:27:49 +0000

That is what people at the Green Lantern last night turned up to do FC2 authors, Big Other contributors, and others. The super-fantastic line-up included, in alphabetical order, A.D. Jameson:

…Jac Jemc…

…the ever-sparkly Tim Jones-Yelvington…

…Cris Mazza……me…

…Davis Schneiderman…

…and last but not least, Rob Stephenson:

Thanks to A.D. and Davis for organizing, and Tim for promoting, and Green Lantern for hosting, and everyone for listening!

The Great Printers Row Lit Fest of Oh-Ten

Kathleen — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:01:11 +0000

This past weekend was Printers Row here in Chicago, and I got to do a panel called “Telling Our Stories” with Nona Willis “Girldrive” Aronowitz, Lee “Unfinished Business” Kravitz, and Pamela “Three Wishes” Ferdinand…. ….moderated by Dawn Turner Trice of the Chicago Tribune: The organizers were great, and even put all of our names on this classy posterboard… …and had all of our books readily available on a table outside our panel room: Thanks to everyone for coming to hear us read and talk about memoir!

Friend, you stand on sacred ground.

Kathleen — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:06:27 +0000

This is a printing office! Crossroads of civilization… …refuge of all the arts: Specifically, it’s the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Massachusetts where Abby Beckel, Rebecca Sareceno, and I… …spent last Thursday and Friday letterpressing hundreds of covers for Mary Hamilton’s chapbook We know what we are, forthcoming in July from Rose Metal Press: But it really did feel like all the things that this classic printing office poster says a printing office is supposed to feel like: fixed in time, having been verified in proof, etc. Thanks to the Museum of Printing for letting us use their Vandercook… …for the fourth year running, and to Rebecca for being such a skilled and intuitive designer. Stay tuned to the Rose Metal Press blog for more details about the printing process, and, of course, how to order one of Mary’s weird and beautiful chapbooks.

Don’t get dumber over summer.

Kathleen — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 20:21:41 +0000

Michael Gushue includes That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness by Elisa Gabbert and me in his extensive summer reading list over at the No Tell Motel blog. Thanks, Michael. We salute you back!

Round up. Round-up. Roundup.

Kathleen — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:32:26 +0000

The more you write that word, the weirder it looks, but here’s a brief one about the mini-East Coast book tour I just got back from. Thursday night, I read in the In the Flesh Series in Manhattan, hosted by the lovely Rachel Kramer Bussel…
…who will be ending the series in December of this year, so if you’ve never been, you should hurry up and go, like these people who went last week: Next came Poets & Puppets II: the Resurrection at The Multifarious Array at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn. Here is a rare, behind the scenes shot of Poets & Puppets inventor Leigh Stein (left) rehearsing before the show: After that, it was onto Boston to read at Brookline Booksmith with Elisa Gabbert (front right) and Zoe Zolbrod, who was sitting on the other side of the audience, but who you can see here: Next up was the Cousins Reading Series in Providence, co-hosted by Darcie Dennigan and Bill Walsh, pictured here in the navy shirt and the shirt with the antelope on it: Also in this picture are a couple of my co-readers from that evening, Matt Jasper and Terrence Hawkins in the lower right. Last but not least, I read at Sandra Beasley’s place in DC as part of a fundraiser for the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland: Normally when I get back from a tour, I can pick a “favorite” reading, or one that stood out in some way as being the best or the most unusual. But this tour was so great–everyone was so nice and all the audiences were so welcoming–that I can’t say which one was my fave. Thanks to everyone who hosted, everyone who read with me, and everyone who came out to listen!