I love poetry, as all of you know. Today is World Poetry Day, which is weird because National Poetry Month isn’t until April. Nevertheless, I’ll be peppering my people with poems today and I hope you will, too. 🙂
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I’ll be speaking tonight at the meeting of the East Texas Writers Guild on “Sounds in Poetry” at the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce Building at 6:30pm.
Tomorrow night I’ll be leading a lesson on “Beginner Calligraphy” at the Tyler Public Library at 5:30pm.
A busy week – I’m so excited! 🙂
In February, it felt like I had written practically nothing, so it was sort of a surprise to find out that I wrote 13,543 words. Of those words,
- 353 were for this blog (three short posts),
- 3536 were for my journal,
- 7203 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (one for East Texas Writers Guild and one for the Open Door Writing Group),
- 1629 were on various social media accounts,
- 421 were poetry (one short poem and one long),
- and 401 were in short stories (two pieces of flash fiction).
There were only four days that I didn’t write anything. I was sick for a lot of the month. So, I didn’t get any poems or short stories submitted anywhere.
As for reading, I read parts of:
- Sound and Form in Modern Poetry by Harvey Gross (paperback; non-fiction)
- Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (hardcover; poetry)
- Storyteller: 100 Poem Letters by Moran Harper Nichols (e-book; poetry)
- A Poet’s Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie (paperback; non-fiction)
- If Women Rose Rooted: The Power of the Celtic Woman by Sharon Blackie (audiobook; non-fiction)
- The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky (paperback; non-fiction)
I finished reading:
- The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest edited by Ellen Datlow (e-book; fiction short stories)
- The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War #2) by T. Kingfisher (audiobook; fantasy)
- Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes #1) by Travis Baldree (paperback; fantasy)
- On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity by Daniel Bowman, Jr. (e-book; non-fiction)
PS. It is totally do-able to read Legends and Lattes #1 AFTER you’ve read Legends and Lattes #2 (Bookshelves and Bonedust) if, like me, you didn’t know it was a series.
I have been rescheduled to speak at the March meeting of the East Texas Writer’s Guild on March 10, 2025. They meet from 6:30pm-8:00pm in the Genecov Room of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce Building (aka The Blackstone Building) in downtown Tyler. I’ll be speaking on Sounds in Poetry. Hope to see some of you there!
I’ve been asked to lead a a couple of sessions of the Tyler Public Library’s “Try It Tuesday!” programs. On March 11, 2025, I’ll be teaching a beginner calligraphy lesson and on April 8, 2025, I’ll be teaching a beginner crochet lesson. Both sessions are free to the public. They run from 5:30-7:30pm in the 3rd floor Makerspace at the Tyler Public Library. Hope to see some of y’all there! 🙂
Hey y’all – I know I told you that I was speaking at tonight’s ETWG meeting, but I have the plague, so I cannot be there, doctor’s orders. ☹️ Will try to reschedule for when I’m well.
In January 2025, I wrote 9,847 words. Of those words,
- 830 were for this blog (six posts)
- 3121 were journal entries
- 3149 were lessons, scripts, and slides (for one ODWG lesson)
- 2045 were on various social media accounts
- 151 were poetry (one poem)
- and 651 were short stories (three pieces of flash fiction)
I sent off three poems and three short stories for publication, but haven’t heard back from any of them.
I also read parts of these books:
- A Poet’s Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie (paperback; non-fiction)
- Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (hardcover; poetry)
- The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War #2) by T. Kingfisher (audiobook; fantasy)
- The Green Man: Tales from the Mystic Forest edited by Ellen Datlow (e-book; fiction short stories)
And finished these books:
- The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop by Fannie Flag (e-book; fiction)
- Just Dying to Glamp by April Nunn Coker (e-book; mystery)
- When She Returned by Lucinda Berry (e-book; thriller)
- Peace is a Practice by Morgan Harper Nichols (e-book; non-fiction).
January is always a tricky month, I think. The first couple weeks are still half-way holidays and then there are a few random at-home days for my school-age kiddo as well. Which means that you don’t get a full month of writing days, but I managed to write at least a little something for 26 out of 31 days in any case. I think that’s pretty good. 🙂
I have been asked to speak at the February meeting of the East Texas Writer’s Guild on February 10, 2025. They meet from 6:30pm-8:00pm in the Genecov Room of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce Building (aka The Blackstone Building) in downtown Tyler. Hope to see some of you there!
Today I’m giving a lesson on Sounds in Poetry over at the Tyler Public Library at 1pm in the Makerspace (behind the computer lab on the third floor). But don’t let that scare you away if you’re not a poet. I’m covering poetry, a little bit about songwriting, and how to use lyricism in your prose as well.
Hope to see you there!
I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group (at the Tyler Public Library) at 1pm on January 22nd on the topic of “Sounds in Poetry”.
If you think this sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve been talking about doing this lesson for about three years now, but we needed more poets in the audience. We have more poets now! 🙂 YAY!
Come on over and join us!
Lisa Holcomb 