Bits & Pieces of This & That

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Since I've been posting features of poets for the past month, I've fallen behind in the bragging department. Time to catch up. Here's what got me excited and made me happy recently.

First, The Crafty Poet received two more nice reviews. As the book is zeroing in on its second birthday, I am very happy that it continues to attract attention and praise. The first review is by Philip Chase and appears in the 2015 issue of the Journal of New Jersey Poets. As that is a print journal, I scanned the review and posted it on my website. I am very fond of this opening sentence: "With plenty of practical advice, insightful interviews, useful exercise, and original poems from an array of voices and styles, Diane Lockward's aptly titled The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop is an invaluable tool for anyone looking to delve into the craft of creating poetry." The entire review can be found HERE.

The second review is by Linda Simone and appears online in Writer's Relief. This reviews begins with this nice sentence: "If you’re looking for the magic bullet to combat writer’s (or poet’s) block, The Crafty Poet, A Portable Workshop by poet Diane Lockward may be the book for you." Read the entire review HERE.

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I'm also happy to report that The Crafty Poet E-Book is doing nicely. On the generous recommendation of Scott Wiggerman and David Meischen, co-editors of Wingbeats and Wingbeats II, I used the services of eBookIt for the conversion. I have been extremely pleased with their service and recommend them to anyone looking to convert a print book into an ebook. While I had not expected them to do any editing, they did and my editor did a really great job. Then my rather complicated table of contents required manual inputting which they did for a very reasonable fee. I especially appreciated the open line of communication. Any questions I had were quickly answered. The cost of this service was recovered in less than the first two months of the book's availability. For each of the three months that the ebook has been available, it has been a bestseller. As a result, it has been given a fancy badge on its page. The Crafty Poet ebook is available at eBookIt, Amazon, B&N, and elsewhere.

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Then I had the great happiness and honor of having a poem featured by Garrison Keillor at The Writer's Almanac on Monday, June 22. Linguini was read by Keillor on his broadcast that goes out daily on 600 radio stations. The poem also went out via Keillor's daily newsletter. First published in Poet Lore, the poem later appeared in my second poetry book, What Feeds Us.

In the poem publication department, my poem "Thinking Like a Buddhist" appears in the current issue of Driftless Review.

Then I also have two poems, "We Were Such a Fine Plum Pudding" and "The Gift of a Rat" in the current issue of Compose Journal. This is a beautiful online journal that includes poetry, fiction, and art. The editors also do a great job of promoting the journal and the authors via social media.

My bad news is some nasty poison ivy on my arms which has me dousing my limbs in rubbing alcohol and spreading on copious coats of Wal-dryl. No more weeding for me.