Organizing your writing life

SAVANNAH & SUCH: I drove down to Savannah this weekend for a reading. I was nervous the entire way because the weekend before (which I neglected to blog about...mainly because of the trauma) while I was on my way to meet my parents for Mother's Day dinner, my car totally died on the expressway. And I mean died. I was going about 65 mph and then 0. I somehow managed to roll the car into the left emergency lane, which is next to the barrier wall and not nearly big enough for a car. Let me just say...so I can get back to Savannah...that for about half an hour I thought I was going to die. When the tow truck arrived, I thought he was gonna die trying to get the car hooked up. Drivers are fucking madmen and would rather crash into you than move over a lane. Bastards. It cost nearly $500 to fix the assortment of things wrong with the car, so that was not a good weekend. And I missed dinner. Luckily, the car purred like a kitten all the way to the coast.

Anyway, Savannah was gorgeous as ever. I made it down in just under four hours and checked into what used to be the Days Inn on Bay Street, but in the last year had been transformed into the Inn at Ellis Square. That name change also meant a price hike. Sigh. My room didn't face the river, but the City Market side. My view was a giant pit that resembles Ground Zero in NYC. The city demolished the parking deck that had been there since the 1950s and are putting Ellis Square back...park, fountains and a four-story underground parking garage. Should be pretty nifty, but parking in downtown is absolute hell at the moment.

I went over to Cafe Ambrosia about 6 p.m. to meet up with Mary Kim. The revitalization of Broughton Street is complete now...mostly since the Savannah College of Art and Design have taken over every other building (see the photo). Parking was easy (wow!) and the cafe was really lovely. I had a few moments to chat with Mary and some of the SCAD students who were in attendance, then Heather Macadam came in and we had to trade books and dish on ex-lovers and mutual aquaintances. I've never met Heather, but the writing community is so small, that I wasn't surprised.

By the time the reading started, we had a nice little crowd. There were some Republican politican types who were holding some kind of fundraising meeting there and when Mary got up and said this was a GLBTQ reading, they fled like the devil was chasing them with a pitchfork. Morons. I read first...a few selections from Slow To Burn and recently published stuff. I think it went well. Heather read some of her NPR pieces and a section of a novel in progress. She's about to leave for a few months in the UK, which I'm jealous as hell about. My sales were non-existent. I sold one book, one CD and traded with Mary and Heather. However, Mary passed the hat for gas money, so I got a few dollars from that.

After the reading we went over to Creole Red on Bay Street for dinner. It was late, and the music was too loud. We dished more and then I went back to the hotel. I had been chatting with a really cute guy from Savannah and we had a blind date, which was very nice. And you know I ain't lying because I never kiss and tell on the blog, but this date was truly worthy of a mention. K, if you're reading, looking forward to your visit to Atlanta soon.

I came back to Atlanta late Saturday and the drive back seemed to take twice the time. I-16 is one of the most desolate stretches of highway in the country and I could not wait to get home. I got back to the apartment, didn't even unpack and fell asleep on the couch. Total exhaustion.

On Sunday, I had brunch with Malory and then met up with Karen Head and Rupert Fike for dessert (for me anyway) at Mick's In Decatur before Java Monkey. We dished about the poetry scene, of course, and talked about work in progress. Java was good. Mike Dockins (poetry editor for Redactions and former editor at Terminus) featured and did some funny poems. I'm featuring at Java on June 4, so ya'll come on out and show me some love.

I totally forgot to put up the link to my interview on Leisure Talk Radio. Jana Oliver stepped in and guest hosted The Business of Words to talk to me about Slow To Burn. It's a little over a half hour long and can be listened to online or downloaded to your iPod or other portable music player. I also read a few selections from the chapbook, too. You can listen at this link: www.leisuretalk.net.