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I had two poetry magazine deadlines this month that I wanted to meet.

First, Gusts, Canada's tanka magazine, had its deadline on February 15. I managed to email in three tanka the day before -- on Valentine's Day. I went looking through my pictures from China for inspiration.

Second, NoD, a journal from the University of Calgary in Alberta, has its deadline on March 1. I sent in three poems by email tonight. The issue they are reading for is: "viral-themed; send work that is parasitic, replicative, related to computer viruses, sickness or epidemics." I can't say that my poems were exactly on topic. But I never want to second guess an editor.

I've been in Gusts three times before, NoD once. Both are fine journals.

I have two published chapbooks.The most recent is Snapshots, May 2007. Plus I had a chapbook in 2000 called Changing Planes.

Snapshots
Published in May 2007 by believe your own press (Thornhill, Ontario, Canada)

You can see what it looks like & order copies here:
There are also 4 poems from the book on that website. The chapbook is $8 plus postage.

That's me on the cover holding my baby brother David. Needless to say this was mumbly mumbly years ago.

Changing Planes
Published in 2000 by Junction Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

This chapbook is out of print at the publisher. The only way to get a copy is to email me: carolyn at sfpoet dot com.
I charge $5 plus postage.

The poetry workshop I belong to, the Algonquin Square Table, started up again in October of 2007. We meet every two weeks or so at Hart House at the University of Toronto. I've made it to most of the meetings so far, and brought some poems written in/inspired by the Yukon.

To play catch-up, Gusts, a Canadian tanka journal, accepted and then published one of my Yukon tanka in issue #6. Then I received an email from Alexis Rotella asking my permission to reprint this tanka in her upcoming Ash Moon Anthology from Modern English Tanka Press (printed by Lulu). It should be out "in early 2008."

Just today, I submitted three China inspired tanka to issue #7 of Gusts. So far I'm batting .500 with Gusts, having appeared in three of the six issues.

In January I submitted a poem to Star*Line, the journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, which was accepted. And I submitted a second poem to the special prose-poem issue of Star*Line which was rejected. That's okay. I'm not sure I've got the hang of prose poetry.

Oh, and NYRSF did publish my Chengdu poem! And my interview with David W. Hill seemed to be well received. All credit for which goes to David, who gave great answers to my questions. And since it was conducted by email, I didn't have to retype anything! :)

Tonight, at 7:30pm, was my poetry reading at the Dawson Public Library.

Since I hate reading my poetry aloud for 15 minutes in a row, I asked that this be set up as a round robin reading, and invite all the poets of Dawson.

There were notices posted around town, with my picture on them, inviting people to come out.

Including Rob and me, there were 13 people there. Which was more than I expected! And I knew the names of 4 of the people! Plus the woman who won the poetry prize for the Writers on Eighth was there.

We read poetry to each other for an hour, which was great. Miriam, the new librarian in Dawson, put out wonderful food including a home made fruit salad.

Rob introduced me. He's so good at that!

The circle went around enough times for me to read 4 poems.

At the end, one of the poets, who was new to town, asked if there were any writing groups she could join. The other people said, no, maybe you should start one!

It seems I need to write a poem about ravens. They turned up in a lot of the Dawson poems. And sparked some lively conversation. They like to eat dog food. And it's $125 fine to be in possession of a dead raven. Even if you didn't kill it. It's the territorial bird. (Yukon is a territory, not a province)

If the event ends up in the Klondike Sun, I won't be here to get a copy. We leave town in 2 days. I'll have to catch it on the web.

- Carolyn

Well, it's time to berate myself for not writing enough poetry while up here at Berton House. On the other hand, I usually write no poetry in the summer, and while up here I wrote and submitted 6 poems, one of which was accepted (by the POEtry Anthology).

And just this week I sent off an acrostic poem to the New York Review of Science Fiction. It's about the Chengdu SF Conference we attended at the end of August. And, in theory, it's humorous. We'll see if they take it.

Also, I did an interview with SF short story writer David Wesley Hill and submitted it to the NYRSF. I've never interviewed anyone before, so we'll see if that gets accepted, or sent back for more work.

David Hill was with us in Chengdu -- a really great & interesting guy. He's famous in China, and less well known here. And the story behind that was what the interview was about.

I may backfill some blog entries on China -- I've been writing up my notes, on paper, in a notebook, the old fashioned way ;)

But, as I say, I've got notes for poems, so I'm sure over the course of the winter, I'll be forging those into poems for the Algonquin Square Table Poetry Workshop. Or, as my brother would say, I'll be "pulling a poem out of my ass" on Sunday mornings for the workshop on Sunday afternoons.

- Carolyn

September 22, 2007

At 4:30 this morning, I finally got to see the northern lights here in Dawson.

I first saw the northern lights in 1967. It was on a deserted stretch of highway in Saskatchewan in the middle of the night. My father pulled the car over and woke everyone up. We hustled out onto the shoulder of the highway and looked up. I did not think it would be 40 years until I would see them again.

This morning the sky was clear and starry. The green northern lights seemed to form a semi-circle in the north part of the sky, while a wide river of green light ran straight back from the WNW. That part looked like the milky way, only green and perpendicular the milky way.

Polaris was almost overhead from Dawson, so the north lights must have been very far north.

They moved a lot. Not visibly, but noticeably over the course of just a minute or two.

We were in our pajamas outside. I'd pulled on my warm hooded sweatshirt (thank you Osprey Media!), while Rob had thrown on his Tilley jacket. So, for 35 minutes we shuttled between the yard and the big kitchen window, just watching.

We were too tired and cold to stay up any later -- but the show was still going on.

This morning the temperature was -5C when we got up (late). The first time it's been below zero while we were awake.

Tonight is the closing night for Diamond Tooth Gerties. I suspect we will make an appearance. Last night was the big Gold Raffle draw at Gerties. I have a ticket, but we went to bed early rather than go to the 11:59pm drawing. It's a fund raiser for the Yukon Order of Pioneers.

I'm way behind in my blogging, as you can see!

It's only 4 days until we leave Dawson for Whitehorse. Two days there, then we are back in Mississauga and it will be all over.

- Carolyn

My sonnet for the POEtry Anthology was accepted! Woohoo!

The editor, Stephen M. Wilson, is starting his own small press so that he can publish this project (as well as other projects).

The list of poets for this Anthology is unbelievable!:

Linda D. Addison
Brian Aldiss
Joseph Armstead
Michael A. Arnzen
Michael Bishop
Louise Bohmer
Bruce Boston
C.S.E Cooney
Jennifer Crow
Malcolm Deeley
James S. Dorr
Andy Duncan
Amal El-Mohtar
Suzette Haden Elgin
Robert Frazier
M. Frost
Rain Graves
Joe Haldeman
Charlee Jacob
Jarret Keene
Deborah P Kolodji
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Geoffrey A. Landis
John Edward Lawson
Nick Mamatas
Elizabeth Massie
Robin Mayhall
Mark Anthony McLaughlin
Drew Morse
Roger E. Naylor
Patrick O'Leary
Terrie Leigh Relf
Ann K. Schwader
Marge Simon
Mary A. Turzillo
Scott Urban
David Niall Wilson
Corrine De Winter
Jane Yolen

And me! I hope this happens just so I can say I was in a book with all these great poets. I've even met some of them ;)

- Carolyn

August 14, 2007

Today I emailed my poem in to the POEtry project. Hopefully he'll take it. Which would be cool because the payment is $1/line with a minimum payment of $20. It's a sonnet, 12 lines, so I'd get the $20.

Mainly I'd be pleased because it's a who's who of fantastic poets. And I'd love to be on that list.

And tonight, at Rob's reading at the Dawson Public Library, Suzanne put into motion a get together of the local poets where we'll have tea & read our poetry to each other. Which, as I said, would be much more fun than just listening to me read. That's for sure!

And I just judged the poetry submissions for the "Writers on Eighth" contest. The assigned topic/theme was the International Gold Panning Championships. Exactly my thoughts. The Championships are being held here next week — but we're off to China and won't see them.

There were ... a limited number of poems entered, which made the job easier. There were even fewer short stories for Rob to judge. We have to announce the winners at the open house here on Thursday.

- Carolyn

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Dan & Betty very kindly drove us around the gold fields today in their moose-struck SUV. This is definitely 4W-drive territory. We visited the gigantic dredge #4, the discovery claim (where the gold rush started), and Gold Bottom.

At Gold Bottom, we got to pan for gold. Rob didn't get any flakes in his pan. I got 3! We were being shown how to pan by Andrea, a very lovely 14 year old. She's a real pro at panning for gold — she's won awards.

Tonight Rob read at the Dawson Public Library. He was great! The 13 people who came out had a good time. Lots of lively discussion afterward, too. But it looks like a bunch of us poets are going to get together once Rob & I are back from China. Should be fun!

Dan and Betty and Suzanne and Dawne were there tonight, plus two SF fans from Fairbanks, Alaska. We're going to have lunch with them tomorrow at the Triple J.

Tomorrow I'll be cleaning for the open house on Thursday. Finished the laundry today. Yipee!

- Carolyn

August 12, 2007

Suzanne arranged complimentary tickets for us on the Yukon Queen II round trip from Dawson to Eagle, Alaska.

We had to get up early to get to the dock for the 8:30am boarding. We are not morning people. We were a little late.

The boat was really nice. A catamaran hull, but similar to the ill-fated fast ferry from Rochester, NY to Toronto. [Both boats were built in Australia] They fed us lunch on the way up, and dinner on the way back. The food was excellent. The coffee & tea were free!

Eagle itself is a town of 129 people and an assortment of historic Gold-Rush era buildings. We had to go through customs both ways because we crossed the border. In each case, the customs agent came on board the boat and we showed our IDs and answered some basic questions to get off the boat.

There was not much to buy in Eagle as "The Eagle Mall" is closed on Sundays. "The Eagle Mall" is a tent with 4 vendors selling homemade crafts & jewelry. I'd have liked to have seen it. But, because the tickets were free, the boat people said we had to go on Sunday as that's their slow day.

The courthouse museum shop had stuff for sale from the same 4 vendors. I bought a necklace with an interesting metallic eagle hanging off it.

They did a cute mock-trial at the courthouse with people from the tour bus as judge, defendant, and jury. The defendant was excellent, given he had no preparation ahead of time. And the judge was chosen for his uncanny resemblance to the actual judge of the time — whose portrait hung behind the bench.

Eagle was named Eagle for the bluff beside the town where bald eagles nest. Their claim to fame seems to be that Roald Amundsen telegraphed the news from Eagle to Norway, that he had found the illusive northwest passage. He also asked them to send money.

On the way up in the boat we saw two moose and an eagle. On the way back we saw a much closer moose and a bear trying to swim across the Yukon River. He changed his mind when he saw us coming. And more eagles.

The weather was great! The next day it poured rain all day. We were lucky.

I'm starting to think that Holland-America owns the Yukon: the boat is H-A, the tour buses were H-A, the Westmark Hotel is H-A.

- Carolyn