An amazing thing happened yesterday.

The Book of Dead Birds started off as a poem about all the dead birds I've come across in my life. The first one was when I was 6. I was walking home from school and my friend Sonja and I found a dead baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. It was featherless; its eyes hadn't opened yet. It was the first time I had seen a dead thing, and it had a huge impact on me. When we got back to my house, my friend Sonja and I put together an elaborate ritual to honor the dead bird's life.

Flash forward 29 years. The book is about to come out. A reporter (actually my good friend Donna) and a photographer from the local paper came to my house today to do a story about the book. They wanted to take a shot of me on my front porch. When I sat down on the bench that's built into the end of the porch, what did I see next to me but a dead baby bird, featherless, its eyes closed. It looked exactly like the one that had started me on this whole journey. Total full circle.

The photographer took some pictures of the dead bird. I don't know if that image will end up in the paper--the editors might be squeamish about it--but I'm going to try to get a copy.

My daughter and I had a little ritual to bury the bird (she said things similar to what I had said as a girl). I am blown away.

Another cool thing yesterday: I found out that O Magazine calls my book "a moving and perceptive first novel." Yay!

It is hard to believe The Book of Dead Birds is coming out so soon. It doesn't quite seem real to me (then again, I've been dealing with some yucky sinus stuff which is making everything feel slightly unreal these days. I hope I'll get some more energy in time for all of my events. I'd hate to nod off during book signings!)

A very sweet thing--my daughter, who is 9, read my novel (I was a little uncertain about whether or not to share it with her--it covers some pretty dark terrain--but she was insistent, plus she's a lot more mature than most people twice her age. I wouldn't suggest any other nine year old read it, but Hannah is a force of nature unto herself.) The day she finished reading it, she surprised me by making a board game based upon the book, with a Chutes and Ladders-style board and cards with trivia and true/false questions about the characters and the plot. We played, using pennies as game pieces. I was so deeply moved that she took the time to create something out of my creation (and I was deeply moved by how proud she is). All I can say is, let the bad reviews come. I have the love and support of my family, and no weird outside reviewer person can change that.

I hope some of you will want to give the novel a try. In the meanwhile, if you feel like reading some of my fiction, I have a silly new story up at Pindeldyboz.

Many thanks to the lovely and talented Eula Palmer for updating my website! Now you can get the latest info on my novel, coming soon to a bookstore near you (and I may be coming soon to a bookstore near you, myself--check out the link to my tour schedule on the site. I look forward to seeing everyone!)

I just received my first copy of the hardcover yesterday. It is amazing to be able to hold it and smell it and rub my hands all over it. It is a beautiful thing.

I also recently received my contributor's copies of a great new book about breastfeeding--Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts by Fiona Giles (who edited the amazing Chick for a Day and Dick for a Day). Fiona incorporated my essay, "Mammatocumulus", into the introduction of the book. If you have breasts, or if you like breasts, you must read this book!

Hope everyone is doing well during this uncertain time. I wish you (and the world) peace.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Amanda Davis. She died in a plane crash Friday along with her parents (her father was piloting a private plane; he was taking Amanda on her book tour. Her amazing first novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me--a title which takes on heartbreaking significance now--was just released this month. She was also the author of an incredible book of short stories, Circling the Drain.) I was just getting to know Amanda, and was so touched by her deep talent, by her kindness and humor and zest for life. I am still in a state of shock. We are trying to get her novel on the bestseller list as a tribute--please consider buying a copy; you won't regret it (although when you read her work you will certainly mourn the loss of such a wild and beautiful talent, such a generous human being). To read some beautiful tributes about her life, visit McSweeney's.

Hey, guess what?! I won 2nd place in that 24 hour short story contest I mentioned earlier--a nice surprise. You can read the story here, if you'd like.

I will be teaching a Fruitflesh workshop at a conference this weekend, Women Envisioning the Future (part of the global Gather the Women movement to take place on International Women's Day, March 8th.) The event is being held at CSUSB, from 9-4. Admission ($25) includes all kinds of wonderful workshops--art, movement, peace-making, yoga, spirituality--plus speakers, panel discussions, a spiral dance, and more. It should be a really lovely day. For more information, please visit the Women Creating Peace Collective's website. You can also visit Gather the Women to find out about other events, worldwide.

I never thought I'd say this in my life, but...I am a swimsuit model! I was asked to participate in the Poets of Southern California Swimsuit Calendar, organized by the dynamic Sholeh Wolpe at Tebot Bach, a literary organization that does a lot of poetry outreach in the community. I had read an article about the project a couple of weeks before in the LA Times, and was tickled by the thought of it; I went to the Tebot Bach website (www.tebotbach.org) to get more info, and discovered that my beloved former poetry professor from Redlands, Ralph Angel, was going to be in the calendar. The project was great giggle fodder amongst my friends; we thought it was such an hysterical idea. I felt a little sad (and a lot relieved) that I wasn't part of it.


Then, this past Tuesday, I got a phone call from Sholeh herself saying she wanted to use me in a photo shoot (with Ralph Angel, no less!) I thought all the photos had already been taken, so this was a huge surprise. I found myself dealing with tons of conflicted emotions...Do I want to be immortalized in a bathing suit? I'm always railing against the objectification of women--wouldn't doing this be hypocritical of me? I felt hypocritical, too, because Fruitflesh is so much about loving our bodies, no matter what size or shape they may be, and I was suddenly struck with major thigh anxiety. I love my body fully from the inside out, from the lived experience of it, but I have not made total peace with the image of my body from the outside. My thighs, with their stretch marks and veins and bulges, are just about everything we're told thighs shouldn't be. That's what made me decide more than anything that I should participate. It's important that we see all kinds of thighs in the media. We only see Barbie doll thighs, and it makes those of us who don't have Barbie doll thighs think that something is wrong with our bodies. If we saw all kinds of bodies regularly, we would all feel a lot better about our own bodies. Plus, this calendar is actually going to be filled with poets of all ages and body types. It is a tongue-in-cheek swimsuit calendar, one that subverts the regular swimsuit calendar ideal. I decided to do it.


My friend Denise, who owns a vintage clothing store, brought over a bunch of cute vintage bathing suits for me to try. I chose one that is probably from the '50s; it looks more like a little jumper than a bathing suit, with a halter top and flared shorts at the bottom, in a crinkly fabric (black with white and rainbow beach designs.) My thighs felt quite comfortable in it.


The shoot itself was loads of fun. We took the pictures in the bathroom of one of Sholeh's friends--a big ornate bathroom with a huge whirlpool tub surrounded by pillars. Ralph wore a snorkel mask and flippers. We all held glasses of champagne (there were two other women in the photo, too--Sholeh, and Edith, a wonderful woman whose last name I've forgetten). At some point, a rubber ducky was involved. We ended the evening all smushed into the tub, smearing bubbles over each other's hair. It was so wonderful to catch up with Ralph (I never could have imagined that this is how we would reconnect!) He was instrumental in setting me on the path I'm still on today--his generosity and soulfulness continue to have a deep impact on me.


If anyone wants to preorder the calendars (which will be available in April), you can do so through the Tebot Bach website (www.tebotbach.org).


Speaking of websites, please visit www.poetsagainstthewar.org. It's so heartening to see so many voices clamoring, whispering, singing for peace.

This afternoon I participated in a 24 hour short story writing contest sponsored by www.writersweekly.com (I think they have these contests twice a year.) As far as writing marathons go, this was much, much simpler than November Is National Novel Writing Month, although I suppose I shouldn't even compare the two--this contest was more like a 50 yard dash than a marathon (it took me about 2 hours rather than 30 entire days!) The hosts email all participants with the topic and word limit the day of the contest so people can't cheat and write their stories ahead of time. This time, the story (950 words or less) had to somehow address a situation where a woman is watching tv during a blizzard and then someone who had died 10 years before appears on the screen. I wasn't quite sure what to do with that, and ended up writing a weird little tale about a woman dying of hypothermia and hallucinating about her dead husband. It sounds pretty grim, but it was a lot of fun to write (I should mention that the woman, much to her dismay, winds up getting saved in the end. I couldn't quite bring myself to kill her off. One of my downfalls as a writer--I tend to be too nice to my characters; it's hard for me to let them suffer in peace. I'm getting better at it, but it's not easy).

It was an enjoyable writing day; I love contests/themed journals like this one where they give you certain hoops to jump through. It's nice to have a trigger, to see what emerges from it. I love it best when an idea for a story strikes me like lightning, out of the blue, but I really appreciate prompts, too. It's a cool way to get the juices flowing.

I have a poem in a beautiful new anthology, Proposing On the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage, edited by Ginny Connors (Poetworks/Grayson Books). On February 9 at 2pm, I'll be giving a reading from the anthology with three other poets (all wonderful)--Judy Kronenfeld, Cecilia Woloch, and Sherman Pearl--at the Montclair Borders. The book would make a great Valentine's gift!

Today I went to register.com to register www.thebookofdeadbirds.com for my website upgrade (coming soon-ish to a monitor near you!)
They offered me some amusing alternative urls, including:

thebookofdeaderbirds
thebookofdeadflock
mythebookofdeadbirds
thebookofdeadanimals
thebookofdeadestbirds
thebookofdeadbirdsit
freethebookofdeadbirds
thevolumeofdeadbirds
greatthebookofdeadbirds

Almost as much fun as an anagram server!

I just wanted to be sure to wish everyone a joyous and peaceful holiday season! I hope the coming year will be fruitful and delicious for all of you.

I did it! I haven't quite finished the story, but I passed the 50,000 words mark this morning. I have no idea whether this novel will have any value beyond the sheer exhilaration of writing it. I suppose it doesn't matter. Whether it evolves into an actual novel or just ends up being a fun exercise, I'm very grateful for the experience (I'm also grateful to have caught up with Ava and Darryl and all the rest of the Dead Birds folks!)

Note: I finished the first draft (a very rough draft) a couple of days later. I'm setting it aside for now, letting it gel. I find myself thinking about it alot, though, thinking of ways to make it better. I now have the feeling that I owe it to the characters to work on this story more, to try to hone it into something substantial. We'll see...It needs a lot of work, and I have a lot of stories pulling at me right now. It's been awhile since I've had a real clamor inside, so that feels nice. I just have to figure out which project has the most life, the most juice. I'll probably do some juggling. It could get interesting around here...

I am writing a novel this month (along with over 13,000 people around the world who are participating in November is National Novel Writing Month, or Nanowrimo, for short.) It's been quite a rush. The goal is to write 50,000 words over the course of the month--if you reach that word count, you're a winner (it's more like a marathon than anything else.) The emphasis is definitely quantity, not quality.

I had started to write a new novel this summer, but the writing was quite slow-going. The story is very research-intensive, so it was hard for me to lose myself in the flow of it (plus, I had been feeling annoyingly self-conscious about my writing ever since FRUITFLESH came out this Spring. It felt ironic to me--I was travelling around, talking to people about the writing process, while my own process was growing considerably less juicy.) I decided to do this Nanowrimo thing to re-enter the gush of words, to set the historical novel aside and just blast something out without my new awareness of the publishing world shadowing my process. It's been great fun. The characters from THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS started talking to me again; the novel I'm writing this month is a sequel, something I never imagined I would do. I always had a sense that the characters were off living lives after the story ended, but I never really thought about what they were doing (even though I felt such fondness for them and wished them well.) It's been amazing to catch up with them.

Speaking of THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS, my editor just sent me a mock-up of the cover. It's so gorgeous. It's nothing like I had visualized it would be, but it's perfect.

I have some cool events coming up:

Thursday, November 7th, at 7:30pm, I'll be reading with Richard Beban, Jim Natal and Susan Terris at Beyond Baroque Literary Center, 681 Venice Blvd. (two blocks south of Lincoln). We'll each be reading from our own environmentally themed poetry to promote the recent Pudding House anthology, FRESH WATER. Beyond Baroque is such an amazing, illustrious, literary hub; I'm so thrilled to be reading there (and with such fabulous poets!) The event (and the anthology) will benefit Pete Seeger's organization, The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

Saturday, November 9th, from 5:30 to 7:30, I'll be acting as emcee for the literary stage at Ladyfest Los Angeles. This event should rock. I am very excited (and more than a little nervous!) to be introducing such luminaries as Francesca Lia Block, Eloise Klein Healy, Terry Wolverton, Michele Serros, and other incredible women wordsmiths. This will take place at the Spring Tower Bank Building, 453 Spring Street, Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90013. Ladyfest Los Angeles will be a mind-blowing four day festival of women's art--film, spoken word, music, and visual art. Check it out at www.ladyfestlosangeles.org.

In my bios, I often mention that my work can be found in several magazines and anthologies. Some people have asked me which anthologies in particular; I'll list the ones from the last five years here (I'll try to update every once in awhile; I'll list the magazines some time soon, as well.) Thanks to those who have expressed interest--I appreciate it! Most of these collections can be found at your favorite online bookstores:

--“Feeling East” (poem), FRESH WATER: Poems From the Rivers, Lakes, and Streams (Pudding House Press, Johnstown, OH, 2002)
--“Brit Ha-Hayim” (poem), MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS (Harmony Books, New York, 2001).
--“Pinworm Patrol” (essay), BREEDER: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers (Seal Press, Seattle, 2001)
--“Imagining Anna Akhmatova” (poem), 2000: Here’s to Humanity: A Comprehensive Compilation by Some of the World’s Most Illustrious Bards (The People’s Press, Baltimore, 2000.)
--“Becky and Nick” (poem), HENRY’S CREATURES: Poems and Stories on the Automobile (Black Moss Press, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, 2000)
--“Washing Down the Chalk” (essay), JEWISH MOTHERS TELL THEIR STORIES (The Haworth Press, Binghampton, NY, 2000)
--“Sugar Rush” (short story), JANE’S STORIES II: An Anthology By Midwestern Women (Wild Dove Press, Palatine, IL, 2000)
--“Openings” (essay), THE SPIRIT OF PREGNANCY (Contemporary Books, Chicago, 2000.)
--“My Son’s Foot” (poem) ESSENTIAL LOVE: Poems about Mothers and Fathers, Daughters and Sons (Grayson Books, West Hartford, CT, 2000)
--“Bagels and Bialys” (short story), THE OY OF SEX: Jewish Women Write Erotica (Cleis Press, San Francisco, 1999)
--“Nes Gadol Haya Sham” (poem), FAMILY CELEBRATIONS (Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, 1999)
--“The Body Politic of Peace” (poem), HEAL YOUR SOUL, HEAL THE WORLD: Prayers and Poems to Comfort, Inspire, and Connect Humanity (Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, 1999)
--“woman before Idea of woman” (poem), WHICH LILITH? Feminist Writers Re-Create the World’s First Woman (Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, NJ, 1998)
--“Mother’s Milk: A Dairy Tale”, OUR MOTHERS, OUR SELVES: Writers and Poets Celebrating Motherhood (Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT, 1996. This story also appeared in the anthologies THE BREAST, Global City Press, 1997 and PANDEMONIUM, Hysteria Press, 1996.)

My chapbook, Dictionary Poems, is now available through Pudding House Press. These are the poems I mentioned in FRUITFLESH, the poems I wrote when I gave myself the assignment to find a new word in the dictionary every day--a word that resonated for me, a word that was ripe--and write a poem around it. I am so grateful to Pudding House for publishing this small collection; they do so much to advocate for poetry in our culture. You can visit them, and order the chapbook, at www.puddinghouse.com (or you can contact me for details at gaylebrandeis@hotmail.com.)

Welcome to my blog!