small press publishers

this is a new interest of mine - looking into intriguing small press publishers, and small literary magazines around the world.

see, i want to write again. i don't know where to start - that's mainly why i am using the blog a lot. i don't tag it enough, nor do i have a lot of readers at the moment - no publicity, not that actively involved online, all those sorts of things... but where it comes to writing and publishing, i don't know where to start. i don't know what to say, or how to say it, or who to say it to. and sadly, i am fairly reluctant to publicise my blog too much, due to the presence of an angry, unhinged ex boyfriend from six years ago who's emailed me about offhanded comments i've made in it. that bothers me deeply, and i don't want to encourage that sort of madness.
i guess i just need to Do It. you know. play with words. read. be alone. sit. exist. think. do. not so much apathy, and letting things happen. i need words like this, i need words and i need to be in them. i need my time with them. and unfortunately, it's practice and time and repetition that improves. and feedback and audience. blogs/diaries are good because they get you used to communicating in written words, and get you used to your own rhythms of writing and the way to pull the words together. but i need more than that, i need to write stories, and poetry, and .. and things.

i need to push my reading too - into MORE and Different. what i'm thinking of is investing in McSweeney's for the year, as well as a few choice back issues, and Wave Books yearly subscription - all their published material for a year, for $75.

and i need to write.


Today's Lizard Photo -- Dr Cuddles and Splodgy spooning. adorable.

skinks, heat, mountain-tops and comics

the skinks are cranky. specifically, splodgy the blue tongue, who everyone else insists on calling 'stinky' because, well... he smells a bit, is pacing his house moodily, ramming his little head under twigs, putting his little paws up against the glass. i want to let him crawl around outside the house, only he's being sprayed for mites and ticks today, and i need to keep them in confinement. no water either. fortunately, they are desert animals, and it's not going to hurt them.

the Lizard People have given excellent advice - Dr Cuddle's lack of teeth might not be animal cruelty, but just the remainder of a disease, or something... he had a big meal of Crumbly Lizard Feed, and loved it. i think splodgy has settled. the bunnies had cherries today, which delighted them, and i gave one to audrey rat, and she grabbed it so excitedly with her itty bitty hands and devoured it.

today, two new books - the first volume of 'love and rockets' - 'maggie the mechanic' -- and the first mouse guard comic bind-up - 'mouse guard autumn'. i had ordered 'mouse guard autumn' online, and the order got cancelled, which was disappointing. but i am going to move between these two and poetry while my focus is still wavering a little.

any suggestions of female poets to read are encouraged - my preference is 20th century at the moment.

Now, to CURRY. i am not a very excellent cook, but i do like making curry, and making it simmer for ages to make it strong an' tasty and delicious. so i goin' to cook that and leave it, and have a delicious fruit salad too. and make cous-cous to take for lunch this week.

hot day, tired animals

today has been too hot. i've slept most of the last 24 hours. woke up at six for dinner - it's closing in on 10.30, and i am exhausted.

the house is quiet, filled with sleeping critters. both bunnies are sprawled lazily in their houses, warm and cranky. the rats oscillate between picking fights with each other, and sulkily curling up around their condo. the skinks snooze in their house, and wandered around outside, in the apartment, lackluster and belligerent as skinks often are. Kali the dragon sleeps on N's lap, little arms relaxed and a tired frustrated expression crossing his face.

the heat does no one well here.

every so often, a piece of newspaper shifts in someone's house. (that's my preference to cage. all the beasties, after small runs around, attempt to get back to their houses, because it is their territory, and they like it there.) the rats shift around, bunny moves a leg, and the skinks dig deeper into their newspaper. a rat sneezes. the shingleback sneezes too. we are suspecting that he might have a slightly abused past and it worries us - he needs a vet trip.

my mind is hazy, like the feeling after rain on a hot humid brisbane day. it is lazy and cannot hold ideas together very well. sleep suits me today, because it keeps me safe. it is groggy and lazy and smells like sweat, like sleeping all day and folding over and over.

i am starting on the introduction to my complete works of Sappho. i find it interesting that the work that is read, and loved, and respected, on the basis of what has been left behind. it's a similar thing to what interests me, working with manuscripts. it is an art of piecing together the fragments. it differs so much from oral histories, which are offered and are open verbal interactions. manuscripts are collected fragments of what is left of someone's life, the slipped through the cracks, the physical spaces and creations and movements, all added on top of each other. when i've worked with people's reciepts, or old old diaries, or gently, passionatly complied scrap books of photographs of planes, i wonder what they'd think of someone like me reading through them, moved by their attention and their passions, their sheer will to communicate and how this stays behind.

it's what i like about libraries.

sore tired attempt at blog post

i was going to write a reflection on the Forgotten Australia's apology, but i felt too ... mentally exhausted by working so closely with it to say anything substantial.

i was going to ponder the question/rant someone posted at me about the fact i do pole dancing fitness classes - they accused me of supporting female subjugation due to a fitness class, and i get irrationally furious when men tell me how to enact my feminism. but, i don't have much of substance to say, other than to raise the question of how this is different from other forms of dance, and if it matters?

i was going to write about the book i just finished reading - "the year of living biblically' by A.J. Jacobs - let's see -

i really enjoyed it. i like his writing style; it is easy, it flows well, it is personal without being forced, and intimate without that detracting from what he is investigating. his analysis of his own behaviour is interesting, and honest, and the interludes to his family life are actually quite touching. and i enjoy it as a way of looking, and really, honestly investigating the bible's content in such a deeply intimate way - enacting the rules with your own body, your own life. it is a daring thing to do, and i think he writes about it in a way that honestly communicates both the problems of fundimentalism, and the many, many variations of it, through his discussions with adherents to the faiths.

Jacobs also approaches all of the people with an openness i found refreshing. it's so easy to laugh at these seemingly absurd beliefs; but rather, he doesn't aim to make fun of them, but to try and understand what they are doing, what they believe and why they do. the scope, and the lightness of the tone of the book didn't allow for a thorough investigation of this - but this was not his purpose, and nor was there the space to do it.

not everything sat comfortably with me - i think there were two points where i stopped and went 'huh? i don't know about this...' - both towards the end. but i like that. i like that i was not sure how i felt about it. and it's not likely to be something i need to mull over - these are not issues i need to deal with. but any book that allows me to approach religion critically, compassionately, and gently humorously is something i respect.

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today, my complete works of anne sexton arrived. i need to add Carol Anne Duffy to my 'list of female poets to read'. anne first. i am excited.

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i got two new pets. a splotched blue tongue lizard, and a shingleback. the blue tongue 'musks' a lot - ie, puts out a 'sexy' smell for Da Ladies. the shingleback nuzzles you with his little face. they are both adorable little muffins.


this is the shingleback. the name is Dr Cuddles - N and i suspect he is a she, so Dr will suffice as a title.

the bunnies seem indifferent to the lizardly additions.