Things that the moon sees are my nighttime routine
First the moon sees is empty streets
Then the moon sees kids sleeping
Finally the moon sees bats.
This is what the moon sees.
My six year-old, Gael, wrote this lovely poem. A writing prompt can bring out ideas and responses you never would have come up with or considered writing about on your own. What do you think the moon sees?
My forthcoming third novel, Confuse the Wind, will be released June 25, 2024 from Vive Leaves Press! Jessica Bell designed the cover and I love it so much. Can’t wait to share this one!
Last month, I travelled to Kansas City to attend AWP 2024. Three years ago, at AWP in Philadelphia, I made the decision that I would give myself the gift of attending this writing conference every year. It’s an infusion of writing inspiration. I spend my 4 days of the conference attending panels of writers, fiction and poetry readings, having dinners, drinks and outings with friends and writing group members who are also there, and feverishly meditating on what I might write next, what I’m currently working on, what the world of writing has yet to offer. I find myself choosing panels that are outside my genre. I often gravitate toward creative non-fiction, essay and memoir panels. I rather hear poetry read aloud than fiction. I take AWP as a time to explore new territory. I imagine while I’m there what life as a full-time writer would be like. What staying in constant community with writers would feel like. I breathe the air of many writers under one giant convention center roof, and it fuels me for months afterwards. This AWP I fit in a pre-dawn hike and poetry reading in the woods with my friend, Roja. I was also a panelist with Kim Liao, Kirsten Chen and Amy Hassinger on Publishing Beyond the Debut, where we talked about our publishing journey across multiple books, never a straight line or what any of us had expected. I signed copies of The Sign for Drowning at the 7.13 booth at the book fair. Actually trading two of the copies with other 7.13 authors for copies of their new novels, and selling all the remaining copies, meeting so many passionate writers who browsed the book fair between their AWP panels and forays. I randomly met the publisher of my colleague and friend, Cecilia Gentili, who had tragically passed away days before AWP. I attended panels with some writers who have inspired me over years and some who are new role models to me: Melissa Febos, Alexander Chee, Kai Cheng Thom, Meredith Talusan, and more. I ate BBQ at the famous Gates Bar-B-Q, where the actual restaurant was filled with smoke. Just to name a few moments. AWP did not disappoint this year. It really never could.
In January, close family and friends celebrated the re-release of The Sign for Drowning with me in Brooklyn. It was a little hard for me to decide how much to celebrate or acknowledge this new publication, as it was a re-issue of my debut. As I debated having a book party, I thought about 2023, and life in general. It was a hard year around the globe and personally. (I listed the reasons here and then deleted them- you know!) How many times in our lives do we get to gather with our loved ones en masse? Not enough! How often do we celebrate accomplishments, our devotions, our labors of love? Not much. Late January on the east coast is a good time to break things up with a party. It was such a lovely night having family, friends, my husband and kids, co-workers and writing group members all come together. A night to say thank you to all those who made it possible for The Sign for Drowning to be re-issued. Having my cousin, Faye, who made the cover painting, there to thank in-person. Highlighting the beautiful new intro by Gallaudet professor, Dr. Sharon Pajka, food from Sahadi’s. There was nothing not to like. Thank you to all who came out to have a good time together, to take two hours to celebrate a book, a story, a piece of happiness. I’m so glad you were there, and that we did.
This past week, my debut novel, THE SIGN FOR DROWNING, was re-issued by 7.13 Books. It’s an incredible honor for me to have this book republished, and by a press I so admire. The founder and editor of 7.13 Books, Leland Cheuk, is a friend and a member of my writing group of the last 20 years. Two years ago at AWP in Philadelphia, Leland suggested to me that 7.13 Books could bring my then out-of-print debut novel back out as a re-issue. When I got the courage a couple of weeks later to ask him if he was serious, he said of course, and we began the steps to making a new publication. I revised the book and moved it from 2008 to 2023. I updated the story to bring it into the contemporary world, and to bring Deaf technologies up to date, but I also altered some plot lines to meet my own more developed, older sensibility, and sense of truth. I did what felt right. Leland also suggested I seek a writer to do an introduction to the book. New editions of books often contain introductions to say why the book is being re-released. I am so proud and so humbled by the powerful introduction that now precedes my novel, written by Dr. Sharon Pajka, Professor of English at Gallaudet University. Pajka’s personal testimony about how the book impacted her as a reader and as a human being with lived experience in the Deaf world, makes this publication matter to me at a whole other level. I’m grateful and gratified. Thank you to Sharon and to 7.13 Books, and thank you to readers, whoever and wherever you are; I value your time and your openness to see what lies within the pages of a new, and renewed book.
Congratulations to Tyriek White, the winner of the 2023 First Novel Prize from The Center for Fiction! Last week I had the privilege of hearing Tyriek and all the other finalists read from their first novels at The Center for Fiction fete in their honor. I was blown away. Every finalist had a truly original and beautifully written novel. The readings were also delivered with incredible finesse and style. Best yet, was that the writers and hundreds of book-loving, literary and hip New Yorkers hung around for several hours partying and talking books together.
Life goals: hang out at The Center for Fiction more often. Read Tyriek White’s first novel, We Are A Haunting immediately.
Last spring, my kids’ school held their annual gala and auction. Parents are asked to donate goods, vacation house rentals, services, etc. that other parents might bid on for this fundraiser. You’ll see all kinds of items, like Rag and Bone purses (which I scored), cases of wine, jewelry, vacation homes in the Poconos, weeks of summer camp, a years worth of coffee, and author visits. I donated the author visit.
I offered to visit any book club and provide 10 copies of my last novel, PRACTICE DYING. A few weeks later, I was thrilled to see the name of someone I recognized as a PTA member as a bidder for my offering. A few weeks later, he contacted me to make arrangements and he let me know that he bought the author visit as a gift for his mother’s writing group in Norway. I was going to Tolvsrod! By zoom. I started corresponding with Ellen to make plans for visiting her Book Club, a group of friends who have been meeting and reading together for twenty-five years.
Well, last week, I got to pop in for an hour, via zoom, and share the first inspirations for this book, the last-minute revisions and additions, the reason why a wolf is prominent in the prose, and that animals often are in all my fiction, why I’d dare to write the Dalai Lama as a fictional character, and much more. I also got to meet the most thoughtful and interesting group of women, who love to read and discuss literature. The group was mostly made up of teachers and doctors, two of my all-time favorite professions. The only thing I would have enjoyed more about this experience was being there in person. Maybe this Spring, someone will put a plane ticket to Norway in the auction.
I want to thank øistein and his mom, Ellen, for the lovely and fun experience of joining my first “Norwegian Book Club.” Isn’t it good?
My good friend, the artist, Jean Rim, recently published her second children’s book with writer Ursula Bevan. Jean’s illustrations make these two very original children’s books, Sunny the Sunflower and Pepper the Penguin, books that children can’t tear their eyes away from.
I’ve known Jean for twenty years. We’ve gone in and out of each other’s lives over those two decades. But a funny things always happens with us. It’s always our art work that brings us back together after an absence, and we voraciously connect as though we never parted. When I see Jean after a long absence, it always seems like we effortlessly shed love and light into each other’s worlds. She’s a radical feminist artist, a healer, a gusher, a gentle soul and a rowdy chick who plays hard. We lost touch for awhile when Jean moved back to South Korea for a handful of years, but somehow each time one of my books came out, Jean appeared to celebrate with me and when she returned to New York, I made a point to come to her open studios, art shows, and now book readings. Jean’s paintings- currently carved-paint works of art- are stunning, and they are her primary artistic expression, but I’m so glad she’s put her energy into mesmerizing the kids too with her illustrations.
Last summer, I was on vacation with my family, visiting my father in the Philippines. Jean texted me out of the blue asking if I’d give an editorial pass to her new children’s book, Pepper the Penguin. She sent me several pdf’s of the book, the text and illustrations and I was able to spend a few days reading it over, making edits to streamline and clarify the text and one suggestion for an image that I felt was missing from the final lesson the book teaches, an albatross who helped Pepper find his way home. With a twelve hour time difference between us, it took a few days to communicate back and forth.
Jean surprised me with a special thanks in the back of the book. I’m as proud of that special thanks as I am of any recognition I’ve ever received. Jean has that way about her, that a smile and a playful comment, given with the bright twinkle that shines from her eyes, makes everyone around her feel special.
Here she is at her book launch at the Strand, with Ursula and with her friend Nancy, who is the third- generation owner of the Strand Bookstore. Congratulations Jean! I love you.
Check out her incredible works of art here too. The one titled Fairy Land, she gave to me as a gift recently and I stare at it on my wall for long minutes everyday. You may discover one that you just can’t live without.
I walk every morning in Mount Prospect Park, a block from my home, where my dog can run off leash for half an hour before I start my work day. I’ve visited this park for nearly twenty years, never as regularly as I do now, since we got this pandemic dog. Several days in a row this fall were extremely misty; the mist settled between the trees and sat on the dying grass and dirt. The sky white. And that mist changed my walks. All I could look at was the trees. The park has giant oaks scattered around a loop, a grassy field in the center of the walking path. These oaks are probably over a hundred years old based on their size and the fact that many of the apartment buildings in my neighborhood were built around 1905, the trees were probably planted with the buildings. They’re giants and their forked branches seem to reach toward each other on all sides. Without their leaves, in the late fall, and punctuated with this dense mist, I felt I could see them in glowing relief. And it seemed they had made effort, over decades, to hold hands with each other- trunks planted twenty feet apart, they had eventually accomplished a touching of branches, probably an underground mingling of roots too.
I noticed one tree had a kite stuck in its branches. The kite looks serviceable and still pretty with a rainbow of colors and as I imagined retrieving it, my eyes picked out another caught in the same tree. And then in disbelief, I saw a third and fourth. It was a kite-eating tree, like in a Charlie Brown movie. The tree held these four kites, higher than any parent could reach or kid could climb, and that was that. The kites would remain. For some reason it made me think of unfinished writing projects. Kites in trees. Serviceable, almost good, almost done, almost able to soar, but stuck in some branches. Unreachable. Many writers I know chronically have kites stuck in trees. That hasn’t been my MO. I tend to finish things after a very long time. I stick with one project over five or six or seven or ten years, until it’s done. My slow writing pace a different challenge than perpetually unfinished writing. But I think all writers share the experience of untouched dreams of projects, ideas for books, secret desires of what you would write if you could just… that are like these rainbow shreds of fabric stuck in a mighty oak. The funny thing is that it seems a safe place for an idea to hold. Perhaps let giant, old trees snag your early imaginings. They’ll keep them for you while you dally, or work too hard at other things, or even forget. They’ll hide them in foliage, or fly them high like unreachable flags in the mist, and they’ll safe keep them until you find yourself ready one day to fly your kite again.
In June this year I received a publication offer for my third novel, CONFUSE THE WIND. The offer came from an independent press based in Athens, Greece called Vine Leaves Press. I’d been communicating with VLP for months and I was ecstatic to receive their offer. After the initial thrill quieted, I realized that I wanted to do a pretty serious revision of the book they’d finally agreed to publish. I had a call scheduled with an editor at Vine Leaves and I rehearsed how to explain the revision to her. What I feared was that she would say, that sounds like a big revision- why don’t you re-submit when you’re done. I decided that would be okay. I’d roll the dice. Revision is a huge part of writing, the majority of the endeavor. A final version of a novel only carries a shadow of the first draft in my experience. I’d already revised this novel many times. But, this was not something I’d done before. Found a publisher, received an offer, and then decided I had to revise again. I had my long talk with Vine Leaves editor, Amie McCracken. And she said two sentences that I’ll never forget. “That sounds like the same novel we’ve accepted, with some critical changes, some major revisions, but not a new book. Our offer would stand and you can have until December to revise it.” This call was yet another indicator of several I’d already perceived that Vine Leaves Press was a publisher I was going to be very happy with.
Five months ago I began a revision that if I called it a slog, would be a large understatement. I’ve re-written this book mostly after 10pm, on the fumes of mental and physical energy that exist after a day of a full-time job and raising two young kids. I think I’ve done three years of writing in 5 months.The joy of writing wasn’t the leading sensation of this re-write. But I knew every hour that what was happening was improvement, was closer to my truth, was the story that I had been trying to get to all along, but more of itself. And finally, something happened this week that made the revision a joy again. I always think that if a nugget of my writing does the intended thing and then something else that I didn’t intend but that cracks the book a little more open, I’ve achieved my best. This book has two main protagonists, a dad and baby-sitter. What happened this week was that a secret fell into place between the baby-sitter and the child she cares for, and the reader. Just them. This happened because I moved huge chunks of writing around to change the chronology of some key plot points and somehow in the shuffle, this event became something that no one knows about except these two characters. And I love it. It’s subtle and I will be curious what readers in my life will catch it. But it’s there and it was not quite intentional and a happy accident. It also brings me great relief and some returned thrills to know I’m only 20 pages from the end of this revision. Revision, even when you’ve begged for it, is very hard. And it is the only rewards I’ve really known in writing.
Rachel Stolzman Gullo 