Trying not to burn out

I backed out of a gig today. I was supposed to read at the Atlanta Pride festival this afternoon in Piedmont Park to promote next week's Atlanta Queer Literary Festival. But I just couldn't do it. Since I've been home from the NYC gigs, I've been at a dead run with the day job, preparing for the festival, promoting Conquering Venus and desperately trying to get back to working on the second novel. I feel depleted and exhausted. So, I'm keeping a low profile this weekend and getting myself mentally ready for AQLF. My apologies to anyone who was expecting me in the park this afternoon.

I'll be reading with Michael Montlack, Regie Cabico, Jim Elledge and Cleo Creech on Thursday night, Nov. 5, at 7:30 p.m. at Outwrite Books in Atlanta for the My Diva anthology event. On Saturday, Nov. 7, at 3 p.m. in the Decatur Library, I'll be reading from Conquering Venus. To see a full schedule of the AQLF events -- which features Staceyann Chin and Manil Suri as our keynotes and a special appearance by Terry Galloway -- visit the AQLF website.

Many, many thanks to novelist Ben Tanzer for all his help promoting Conquering Venus and for giving it a great shout on his This Blog Will Change Your Life.

Weekend Music, Review & Interview

Florence and the Machine's brilliant cover of the Candi Staton classic, You've Got the Love.

Jason Pettus reviews Conquering Venus at the CCLaP website.

A new interview at the What to Wear During an Orange Alert website.

Conquering Venus news & notes

If you're a book club looking for literary fiction with a dash of mystery and suspense, please consider Conquering Venus. There are discussion questions for the novel at this link. I am available to speak to book clubs in the metro Atlanta area and if I am visiting a city later this year or in 2010, I'll be happy to try and work a visit into my schedule. Please contact me at collinkelley@gmail.com to inquire.

Many thanks to publishing gurus Russ Marshalek and Brett Sandusky for having me read in New York and for the interview at their irreverent new vlog, Quit Being A Hooker, Hooker. I'm happy to be in the company of Eoin Colfer as one of the first interviews on the site. Please note the interview is not safe for work, small children, house pets or nuns.

If you're in Atlanta on Saturday, Oct. 31, I will be reading at the Atlanta Pride festival in Piedmont Park on the Budweiser stage. The literary portion of the event begins at 2:15 p.m. and I will probably read around 3 p.m.

Wings of Desire & Paris, Texas on Criterion DVD

Two of the greatest films ever made -- both by Wim Wenders -- are being released by The Criterion Collection. Wings of Desire is out Nov. 3 and it was just announced that Paris, Texas will be released in Jan. 26.

Weekend Update: Poetry galore

This has been a weekend of poetry thanks to two big events: Voices Carry on Friday and the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival fundraiser, I See Straight People, last night

Despite competing against two other readings, we had around 50 people for the sixth annual Voices Carry reading presented by Poetry Atlanta at Sycamore Place Gallery in Decatur. Theresa Davis, Karen Head, Bob Wood (filling in for an ailing Tania Rochelle) and Cecilia Woloch were fantastic. Kodac Harrison closed with a song and I hosted the evening, opening by reading three new-ish poems. Of course, after hearing all these wonderful poets, I was inspired to come home and try to write something new. I have a draft of something that deals with sex, bondage and travel, so we'll see how that plays out.

I woke up yesterday feeling the early stirrings of a cold (which I'm still feeling this afternoon -- Tylenol Cold & Flu is kicking in nicely), but I relaxed all day and made my way over to the Horizon School for the AQLF fundraiser. Great readings by host Rupert Fike (I'll never think of toast and Ireland the same way again), Jon Goode, Bruce Covey, Alice Lovelace, Laurel Snyder, Chelsea Rathburn (who debuted six new poems!) and Cecilia Woloch. We received more than $100 in donations. If you couldn't make it last night, but would still like to make a donation, just go to www.atlqueerlitfets.com and click the DONATE button in the right sidebar. Any amount is helpful. I can't believe we're just a little over a week away from AQLF!

My next reading is Saturday during Atlanta Pride. I'll be on the Budweiser Stage performing with Theresa Davis, Megan Volpert, Dustin Brookshire and some other fine LGBT poets starting at 2:15 p.m. If you're in the park, drop by the stage and check us out.

Walt Whitman...for Levi's Jeans

I wonder what Walt Whitman would think of his poetry being used as the script for two new Levi's Jeans commercials for their new "Go Forth" campaign. The one above uses the audio that's been floating around for awhile claiming to be Whitman reading four lines of "America" on a wax cylinder. The one below uses Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" read by voiceover artist Will Greer. The commercials are slick and beautifully filmed, but it's so bizarre to hear Whitman hawking jeans. Of course, nothing slips by the Christian right wing crazies who are calling for a boycott of Levi's over these commercials, which they claim are "indoctrinating" (that's the right wing word du jour) kids into fascism, homosexuality and anarchy. Think I'm joking? Read some of the comments from Free Republic. And, of course, the commenters characterize Whitman as a creepy, perverted faggot. Maybe Uncle Walt wouldn't mind after all.

Balloon Boy, Obama and sexy librarians

The fab poet/musician Jackie Sheeler and I recorded a webisode for her Get Angry With Me blog and didn't get too angry, but we did have a lot of fun recording this. There's a little plug for Conquering Venus (natch), plus we talked about the Balloon Boy hoax, watching the Storybook Burlesque troop perform at my Sunday reading (Jaxx was hot for the "sexy librarian") and Obama's pledge to end Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) and repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Many thanks and much love to Jaxx for doing this and for putting me up for my weekend in NYC. My hair was still wet after my shower and it makes my head look weird. Please try to ignore that.

Conquering Venus podcast & NYC report part 2

First, let me thank Will Kenyon for interviewing me about Conquering Venus for the podcast on his blog. You can listen to it now at this link. It was a fun interview, and I do sound quite over-caffeinated for much of the session.

Now, let's go back in time to last night and the Just Working on My Novel event at The Tank in New York. Although Elise Blackwell and I were "the hosts," it was really Brett Sandusky and Russ Marshalek's show. Elise was not feeling well, but was a trooper and read from her novel, Grub. I thought my reading from Venus was much better than Sunday night's, since I was more relaxed, familiar with the surroundings and the audience was quite enthusiastic. There were some great folks reading at the open mic, including a guy who read this graphic, hilarious piece about having sex in a crowded NYC subway car. Last night was also the launch of the publishing vlog Quit Being a Hooker, Hooker. It's warped, frenzied (and over-caffeinated AND over-bow tied) and probably inappropriate, but y'all know I love the inappropriate stuff. My interview with Brett "Fuck the Pain Away" Sandusky will be posting on the site soon. God help you all.

I'm back in the ATL and getting ready for this weekend's back-to-back poetry spectaculars -- Voices Carry and I See Straight People. Come out and join us!

NYC report

A quick update on my trip and readings in NYC. I arrived late Saturday afternoon to a cold and rainy Manhattan. BFF Jackie and I hung out all evening at her place in Harlem, catching up and talking late.

Sunday was more rain and being totally lazy. Last night, we hopped on the subway and went down to the 45th Street Theater and The Tank space for Fierce, a literary event hosted by Russ Marshalek. I read with Elise Blackwell, Dana Rasso and Sarah Rainone. Katie Kitamura was sick and didn't show, which was a little disappointing. Brett Sandusky taped an interview with me for the about-to-launch publishing biz website, Quit Being a Hooker, Hooker. It's a pretty loopy, improvisational interview. I think it will be posting soon. I was so excited to see my friend and the brilliant musician, Vanessa Daou, in the audience. Her support has been amazing. Love ya, V!

The only downside of the evening was that the bookseller didn't get copies of Conquering Venus. There was plenty of blame-game going on who dropped the ball on that issue. I was momentarily livid, but there was nothing to be done. I guess my days of schlepping books to readings isn't over yet.

Tonight, I'll be co-hosting the prose open mic, Just Working on My Novel, which is also being held at The Tank. I'll read again from Venus and Elise Blackwell will be reading from her work. I have a couple of copies of Venus with me, so those will be for sale at the table tonight. If you're NYC and coming down, sign up for the open mic is at 7 and the readings begin at 7:30 p.m. A big crowd is expected, according to hookers in charge Russ and Brett. ;-)

New York state of mind

I'm off to New York this weekend for readings at The Tank on Sunday and Monday evening. The Tank is located at the 45th Street Theatre in Hell's Kitchen, 354 W. 45th St.

Sunday, Oct. 18, 7:30 p.m.

Fierce: An evening of intense voices in fiction and literary-themed burlesque

Featuring:

Elise Blackwell
Collin Kelley
Katie Kitamura
Sarah Rainone
D.E. Rasso

Performances by members of Storybook Burlesque

Fierce is a night celebrating the powerful, the moving, the offensive and the exhilarating in modern fiction, gathering 5 of the most exciting writers currently putting pen to paper.

Readers include current South Carolina-based Elise Blackwell, author of three critically acclaimed novels, "Hunger", "The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish", and "Grub", with a fourth on the way in 2010; Award-winning Atlanta poet and journalist Collin Kelley, whose recently-published first novel "Conquering Venus" is a triumph of heart, sex, time and place; world traveler Katie Kitamura, whose novel "The Longshot", about the inense underground world of Mixed Martial Arts, has her being called “the second coming of Hemingway”; Sarah Rainone, author of high school yearbook from hell coming of age novel "Love Will Tear Us Apart" that’s as sexy, bittersweet and unnerving as the song it takes its name from; and D.E. Rasso, cult-fave writer/blogger/expert on ways to kill a man using only one hand, recently published to great critical acclaim in the renowned breakup story collection "Love Is A Four-Letter Word".

Supplementing the readings will be performances by the literary-themed Storybook Burlesque troupe, ensuring the level of connection between the visual and the audible, the written and the seen, never drops.

Monday, Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m.

Just Working On My Novel: The bi-monthly reading series that's drunken and curious. That makes it drunkenly bi-curious.

"Just Working On My Novel"-a night to air the bones and skeletons rattling in the closet, that take the shape of half-finished, mid-craft pieces of fiction and nonfiction. It is a reading series, and it is awesome. It is a force of nature, and it tastes like candy.

"Just Working On My Novel"-Because everyone's writing a novel. There are some who believe everyone should write a novel. Obviously Lauren Conrad agrees. If she can do it, are you telling me you can't? It doesn't even have to BE a novel. Nonfiction works, too, but "Just Working On My Somethin' Somethin' " doesn't have the same ring to it.

Host for this go-round of Just Working On My Novel are not one but TWO esteemed authors-South Carolina's Elise Blackwell and Atlanta's Collin Kelley.

Collin is an award-winning poet and journalist, and has recently published his first novel, "Conquering Venus". Elise has released three novels to critical acclaim, "Hunger", "Grub" and "The Unnatural History Of Cypress Parish" and is on the faculty at the University of South Carolina.

What Elise and Collin will do: read from what they've published. Read from unpublished works. Talk to you. Drink.

What you will do: Show up at 7 to inquire about a place in line to read your 5-10 minute unpublished work of fiction or nonfiction. Be prepared for critiques. Drink. Donate to support the tank nonprofit art space, because it loves you and you love it.

Signup at 7 p.m., readings at 7:30 p.m.

The Page 69 Test

Many thanks to Marshal and The Page 69 Test for featuring Conquering Venus. The concept for the blog is for authors to turn to page 69 in their book and write an essay about how what's happening on that page and how it relates to the rest of the novel. On page 69 of Venus, Irène tells Martin about the root of her agoraphobia. You can read the entire essay at this link.

The Sarah Jane Adventures returns

Brilliant trailer for series three of The Sarah Jane Adventures, which begins this week in the UK. Sarah Jane, K-9, The Judoon and...The Doctor!

New interview in SubtleTea

Many thanks to SubtleTea.com editor David Herrle for the in depth and thoughtful interview about the creation of Conquering Venus. You can read it at this link. Be sure to explore the rest of this fantastic online literary 'zine!

There was a small audience for my reading this afternoon at Bound to Be Read Books, but some great questions and discussions. Many thanks to the folks at the store for having me read and sign as part of their fourth anniversary celebration.

Read This: An Urgent Request by Sarah Luczaj

An Urgent Request ($10) is not only the debut chapbook from British poet Sarah Luczaj, but also the debut of poet Cecilia Woloch's Fortunate Daughter imprint for Tebot Bach, the SoCal poetry nonprofit and press. Both Luczaj and Woloch should be very proud because An Urgent Request is something quite special.

The poems in the chapbook are indeed urgent and you will read this in one sitting, hurriedly turning the page to get to the next one. Then you'll start from the beginning and read again, more slowly, letting these short, elegiac poems sink into your brain. As the title poem commands, Deliver those words please/I cannot wait any longer. And Luczaj delivers for 24 pages with nary a lemon in the bunch. Every poem and word is urgent and essential.

Luczaj's observations -- to quote Whitman -- contain multitudes, even in simple lines like, No one I love/has died so far today from "My Life is Brilliant" or in the admonition in "How To Take Control of Your Life":

Be careless. Always

wear clean underwear

in case you get run over.

Listen, don't listen.

Don't wear underwear.

Don't get run over.

There is a sense of loss and of missing the dead (which is the title of a poem in this collection), but again there is the urgency to move forward as in "Barking Back," where an epigraph by G.P. Taylor warns against walking the "black dog" of depression:

Oh my god,

I'm breathing. I'm getting up

now with my palms open

and my boots on.

I chose "For José Drouet" because it is stunning in its simplicity and tone. Even typing it up for this review, I had to stop and catch my breath. Any poem that can do that is worth its weight in gold, but to find an entire chapbook of them is priceless.

For José Drouet

(1968-1989)

José, the light is moving in the water

José I carved a poem in the walls of a room

the room was dust

and the planets were

trapped as the people

in it and it broke

on them, and the room

broke on the sky which

is made of dirt as

the room is made of

dirt and the people

are made of dirt

and also the stars

it broke

on your body made of stars

José and now the words

are set in those walls

forever, too deep, and no one

is allowed to stand

between them, my room

sits alone in the city

José the light is moving in the water

and you are a mouthful

a handful now, a scattering

I wanted to tell you this

José who broke the windows

José the room was dust

Upcoming Readings

Three big readings coming up, including one this weekend in Atlanta and then two back-to-back biggies in the Big Apple!

Oct. 11, 3:00 p.m. - Bound to Be Read Books, 481-B Flat Shoals Ave. S.E, Atlanta, GA 30316

Oct. 18, 7:30 p.m. - Fierce: The Sharper Side of Fiction, with Elise Blackwell, Katie Kitamura, Sarah Rainone and D.E. Rasso. The Tank, 354 W. 45th Street, New York, NY, 10036

Oct. 19, 7:00 p.m. - Just Working on My Novel (hosting and reading with Elise Blackwell), The Tank, New York

Weekend Update

Spent a good portion of the weekend working on finalizing events for Poetry Atlanta and the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, which is just around the corner.

If you visit the AQLF website, you can see the schedule and list of participants, which include keynotes Staceyann Chin and Manil Suri, along with fabbity folks like Michael Montlack (poet and editor of the My Diva anthology), Regie Cabico, Terry Galloway, Jameson Currier, Charlie Jensen and many, many more. The festival begins a month from today on Nov. 4.

In the run-up to AQLF, we're holding a fun fundraiser called I See Straight People at the Horizon School auditorium on Saturday, Oct. 24, 7:30 p.m. This event will feature some of our straight but not narrow poet friends reading their work. Cecilia Woloch, Laurel Snyder, Chelsea Rathburn, Bruce Covey, Jon Goode, Alice Lovelace and host Rupert Fike are sure to delight.

It's also time for the sixth annual Voices Carry reading, which Cecilia and I created at the suggestion of our late friend, Chante Whitley-Head. Now sponsored by Poetry Atlanta, this year's event is Friday, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m. at Sycamore Place Gallery in Decatur. Cecilia Woloch, Tania Rochelle, Karen Head and Theresa Davis will feature, while Kodac Harrison will close with some music and I'll be hosting. Visit www.poetryatlanta.com for details.

I'll have details on some new readings for Conquering Venus soon, including one in Nashville in December. I'm also going to be reading at Atlanta Pride in Piedmont Park on Halloween. I'll post details as soon as I have them. Also in the works: California, Austin and two weeks in the UK and Paris next summer. Hooray!

Where I've Been...

I think this is the longest I've gone between blog posts ever. It's testament to my hectic schedule promoting Conquering Venus, my day job and working on events for Poetry Atlanta and the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival. We had the latest Poetry Atlanta Presents... on Tuesday night with Karen Head, Bob Wood and Robin Kemp (pictured) at the Decatur Library. If you haven't looked at the schedule for the upcoming AQLF -- Nov. 4-7 -- we have some amazing writers coming to town.

With the initial release buzz over, there's been a decline in sales of the novel, so I've been trying to round up new interviews, reviews (please, folks, I'm begging -- if you've read it, please post a review on Amazon or BN.com!) and other publicity. Author Ben Tanzer kindly put me in touch with some outlets to help whip up some publicity and dozens of review copies have been sent out. Vanilla Heart is nominating Conquering Venus for the Lambda, Publishing Triangle and Pushcart awards, so I would love to even be a finalist to help spread the word about the novel. You think promoting a collection of poetry is hard, it's cake compared to being a debut novelist. I feel like I've been swimming upstream for weeks.

Last night I recorded a podcast with Will Kenyon, which will appear on his site soon, and I also completed an interview with SubtleTea.com editor David Herrle, which might appear this weekend. In a couple of weeks, my essay about Conquering Venus will appear on The Page 69 Test, where authors discuss what's on that page and how it relates to the rest of their novel.

I'll be jetting off to New York for two events on Oct. 18-19: Fierce and Just Working On My Novel. Both of these events are being held at The Tank. I'm excited to read with Elise Blackwell, Katie Kitamura, Sarah Raineone and D.E. Rasso at Fierce as well as hosting JWOMN with Elise. Bluestockings will be on the onsite bookseller for the event, so bring your check, cash or cards!

Before New York, a last minute reading here in Atlanta at Bound to Be Read Books in East Atlanta Village on Sunday, Oct. 11, at 3 p.m. The store is celebrating its fourth anniversary and I'm excited to be involved. I'll be reading something new from the novel and talking about the trilogy. Drop by and say hello!