Wednesday was the fifty-first anniversary of Sylvia Plath's death and I wanted to mark the day because I loved her so much when I was a teenager and love her now.

This sad anniversary comes very close to Valentine's Day and since And Then Things Fall Apart is a kind of valentine to Ms. Plath, I like to do something around Valentine's Day to celebrate everything, her work, her influence, her influence on me, my book, and that old brag of my heart I am I am I am. 

And there's a huge heart on the cover so...there's that too!

I've been tweeting like mad all week with fun links and photos and art about Sylvia Plath, her work, and the way she inspires artists all over the world.

If you FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER by 2/14/2014 you will be entered to win a signed copy of And Then Things Fall Apart.

xxoo

More Evidence That I am the Geekiest Girl in the World

I love stamps, OK.

I'm like, INTO them and if I were a little different I would collect them.  I would store them in elaborate leather bound albums that I would occasionally drag out of cold storage only to gaze at each frame adoringly through a magnifying glass with a mother-of-pearl handle. I'm one of those annoying people in front of you at the post office who ask the desk clerk --"got anything interesting back there?" while you are late for work and just need a money order to pay your landlord since your checks ran out.  I still swoon over the effing GRETA GARBO stamps from a few years back, the Ronald Reagan stamps that my ultra-liberal pals used as postage on their annual holiday newsletter, the Marilyn Monroe and Elvis stamps that have never been separated from each other and nestle like lovers in glassine envelopes in my office drawer.

I don't use the "good stamps"  (yes there's good stamps and so-so stamps and bad stamps- I'm looking at you, "forever" liberty bell) to post the cable and electric bill.  You know I like you if you get oversized artsy stamps or better yet, an eclectic mix of squash blossom 1 centers, GRETA GARBO,  Tito Puente and whatever else tickled my fancy that morning- an insane collection of geekdom in the upper right hand corner.

So, dear reader, imagine my surprise and delight to learn about my beloved and beleaguered US Postal Service's latest offering (er for next year, if they are still in business):

And yes of course, Sylvia's included, much to my delight.  And Cummings,  Brooks, Bishop, and Levertov!  Of course, the USPS adores writers- we spend millions of dollars a year on postage of manuscripts, blog giveaways,  editor gifts, bookmark peddling, agent love letters and etc.  I'm there at least four times a month and each time EVERY TIME I spend 40 bucks a pop on fancy stamps I don't really need... because I have a serious stamp problem and when I say problem I'm not kidding.

But I can't support the whole operation alone, people.  Go.  Write a letter.  Send your mom a gift, why not send every 5 year old you know a Good Luck in Kindergarten card?  Your post office NEEDS you!

I'm going there tomorrow.   Can I get you anything?

BTW I HAVE A BOOK COMING OUT JULY 26

And I am up to my eyeballs in--er-- the book. I am just putting this out there as a save the date type gesture that the lovely and kind folks at Books of Wonder are hosting a launch party for AND THEN THINGS FALL APART on July 26th from 6-8. There will be beer! Books! Cupcakes! Typewriters! A Sylvia Plath impersonator! And the author herself reading in an entertaining fashion!

Please do come. It's a Tuesday night. July 26th. What the hell else do you really have to do? The launch party will be so fun you will weep tears of delight re-telling the events of that fabled Tuesday to your children and grandchildren.

I can't wait to celebrate with you!

xxoo-

-A

Typewriters, AND THEN THINGS FALL APART, and Me

Even before I wrote a book that is supposed to have been written on one, I have always been a fan of the typewriter. Long ago I had a small collection that my mother donated to the local Nurse's Association Thrift Store once I moved out. I didn't freak out. I just went and bought more.

It's the sexy little "portable" ones of which I am especially fond. What people once thought of as portable in this age of iphones, and microchips, and GPS and what have you, redeems my faith in humanity. As I'm sure you are aware, when the Rapture comes, eyeglasses with become currency and those with typewriters will be the ones who will repopulate the world.

And so now there's all this chatter about the "hipster"and their "love" of "typewriters." There's stalls of them at the Brooklyn Flea. On Etsy, you can buy necklaces, cufflinks, and elaborate brooches made from typewriter keys and precious decoupaged and silkscreened art pieces with Olivettis and Smith Coronas. This NY Times article is amazing and, for the record, I have never paid more that $20 for a typewriter.

Nothing says I am hyper literate like a typewriter fetish. So yes. I am (re)amassing a fine collection. I have about 4 in storage in New Jersey. I have a recurring and often seemingly urgent fantasy of getting industrial shelving from Ikea and arranging them, MOMA like, above my writing space- where I am sure they would plummet from the wall and bash my brains all over my computer.

Flavorwire had this piece up with capital W Writers and Their Typewriters- kinda like Major League Sluggers and Their Bats, or, Notorious Gangsters and Their Tommy Guns. But it still turned me on. The iconic pic of Sylvia Plath is there and- to my great delight!- Francoise Sagan upon whom I shall lavish more attention later. And that dashing scoundrel angel Langston Hughes. Enjoy!

Flavorwire » Famous Authors And Their Typewriters

Literary Ladies: Or What to Wear to a Reading When You are the Reader

I curate and co-host a reading series and you'd think I'd be very comfortable with what to wear to a reading. Last night at Pen Parentis where we hosted poet Mahogany L. Browne, Thelma Adams, and the amazing YA writer Cathleen Bell I rather enjoyed my little outfit, right down to my teal tights and boots.

BUT NOW I have to figure out what to wear to a huge reading at a library with bus loads of teenagers and then what to wear to the DEBUT AUTHOR SHOWCASE... (click NTC Teen Author Festival logo for full schedule).

Why is this keeping me up at night? I know the right answer is just to be myself, but lately, I'm not sure what that means.

I'm still on a Patti Smith vest and tuxedo shirt kick but I also want to have a 1950's retro feel to honor the Sylvia Plath parts of AND THEN THINGS FALL APART. There is a huge vintage clothing element in my book too so I want to represent that part of it all too.

And I want to not only SEEM young but to actually feel very close to how I felt when I was 17. Jeggings might be involved.

And I want the teenagers to think I'm cool.

Good luck...

My new pal Maeve at The Plath Diaries did this whole thing on Polyvore about Plath and fashion which totally inspired me to try it out. And here is an outfit I am considering for the Showcase:

reading outfit? by belljarsummer featuring vintage brooches

And then badass Michelle Tea over at the Ironing Board Collective did this great piece on Looking at Literary Ladies and it reminded me that it kinda matters, how we represent ourselves to the world. I mean, I am, after all A WOMAN OF LETTERS! I want to look the part and live the life and love every minute of it...

I'm getting a new haircut with Steph at Dickson Hairshop on Tuesday so... I'll keep you posted.

GET IT? "Posted." A little blogging humor for you this fine Wednesday.

Till Friday-

PS did you know Poet Nikki Giovanni has "THUG LIFE" tattooed on her forearm? Neither did I!

Got Milk?

First, I am alive. I have been swamped with edits, children, house guests and life, I guess. I love blogs, I love blogging and forgive me for ignoring my responsibilities. Here's an update

1. I totally bailed on NANOWRIMO. My kid's birthday was in there and I had to take a bus with a baby and a stroller to Target to buy crap for the party because I couldn't do it any other day and then I was a whole 2 days behind and was never gonna catch up no matter how many pep talk emails they sent to my inbox. I am not discouraged. It made me think about my next project and now I'm all committed.
2. I've been listening to a lot of Terry Gross interviews while I work and I love it.
3. I have not done laundry in too long. We are finally out of sheets, towels and underwear.
4. I have lots of fun little Sylvia Plath things going on and I'll tell you more about it when I have time and when they happen.

And now I must share THIS with you because it is precisely these kinds of things that make me fall in love with people and the internet all over again. Thanks to Paisley Pajamas for the heads up... just clickety click on the HERE for funtimes.

Sylvia Plath Inc.

There was a time, long ago, when I was obsessed with tattoos. I was so into them, I subscribed to Tattoo magazine and felt that permanent ink was the only way to identify myself as an individual. Or something.

So I have one, and I love it but that is only because I can't see it. It's on my lower back and as good as invisible to me. Sometimes, I'll pass tattooed people and sigh like my mother, "Oh, why would they do that to themselves," before remembering that I, er, HAVE ONE. And kind of a big one at that.

Getting it was one of the best days of my life. Right up there with getting married and having babies. That night, I had my first martini (with a slice of Polish sausage in it instead of an olive). I was high on adrenaline all night and went and saw a band called the Cocktails, flashing my tattoo/ass to anyone who wanted to mess with me. Like those other milestone days, it was momentous. It was painful. It would be remembered forever.

So there is this whole literary tattoo trend underfoot and I'm intrigued. I wanted to showcase a few Sylvia Plath tattoos because they are relevant and something I think, that my main character Keek, might go off and do one day.

Most of these are of the I am I am I am variety and

this one is rather nice and MFA subtle...

These are a little Angelina Jolie (in a good way).

This one is an ode to "Tulips" and it is huge and dark and

Sylvia had no idea this is where here words would end up!

This one is cool too. It has all got me considering another one,

tattoo that is. Not baby. Or even book... Well, maybe book.

I'm thinking I want to write the kind of books that inspire people to tattoo themselves. This is the answer I will give the next time some interviewer asks me, "Why YA?"

Great Literature Blows My Mind

This is a new gem from my pal Peter K. Steinberg at Sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.com. He's videotaping the actual public garden Plath writes about in Chapter 11. My favorite part is the end where Peter says he thinks that's what a weeping scholar tree is. It's beautiful and surreal, to see in real life what you have imagined in your own reader's brain a thousand times as you revise your YA book called Bell Jar Summer. In Chapter 11 she also mentions Chicago and imagines the intricacies involved in committing Hari Kari, "...they would jab in the knives in and zip them around, one on the upper crescent and one on the lower crescent, making a full circle. Then their stomach skin would come loose, like a plate, and their insides would fall out, and they would die."

I know!

This whole video reminded me of the time I was in Russia in 1994 post Perestroika and Galsnost, pre now. I was a Russian Lit freak (are you surprised?) and in love with Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and we visited Patriarch's Ponds in Moscow where the beginning of the novel is set and it was like walking fully awake through a recurring dream. On a corner of the deserted water there was a cafe with a giant menacing black cat painted on the wall (Behemoth) and we spent what little money we had left to eat real food there. The place was filled with drunk Russian gangsters and a skinny and terrified strolling violin player. There were roses on the tables and menacing hilarity throughout. If only I had a digital camera then.

Sylvia's Library

Who the hell takes a VIDEO of a bookshelf? Peter K. Steinberg at sylviaplathinfo, that's who.

His blog is awesome, smart, and well researched. It always surprises me with a new facet of Ms. Plath- some new insight to her non-suicidal self that never fails to inspire me during this May of Mayhem revision!

I love that he geeked out and went to the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College and took an action-packed VIDEO of Sylvia's personal library shelves. I felt compelled to share it here. Parts 1 AND 2. ENJOY! Fun to play simultaneously...

Books/writers I could make out were: Blake, History of the Bible, German Dictionary, Dostoyevsky's Diary of a Writer, Henry James, The Golden Bough, Freud, The Poems of Robert Frost, Botany Books, Hawthorne short stores, Dubliners, Finnegan's Wake, Kafka, Goethe poems, The Writer's Handbook, Chaucer... D.H. Lawrence, Death in Venice, Christopher Marlowe, Oxford Book of Sixteenth Sentury Writers, Rimbaud, Anne Sexton (!), Baby and Child Care (!), Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, Plato, Shakespeare, The Painted Caravan, Yeats, Richard Wilbur. If you can see anymore without going blind, let me know! And THANKS, Peter K. Steinberg at Sylvia Plath Info for all the hard work!