{ bee + spool }

Please join me in two weeks for the following (From SFPL):

Litquake and the San Francisco Public Library are joining forces in 2008 to host a bi-monthly series of events in branches throughout the city as a lead up to the big temblor, scheduled this year for October 3-11, 2008. Both Litquake and the Library are committed to fostering interest in literature and bringing feisty and creative events to the local literary community.

Please join us for our first event “Noe—and Nearby—Poets” at the recently renovated Noe Valley branch, featuring poets who live in Noe Valley and nearby neighborhoods.

Noe—and Nearby—Poets
Tuesday, May 20, 7-8:30pm
Noe Valley branch
451 Jersey Street (near Castro), SF
355.5707

Debbie Yee, Keith Ekiss, Pireeni Sundaralingam & Colm Ó Riain, Kirsten Lee Andersen and Zack Rogow will join the audience for a reception afterwards.

About the poets:

• Debbie Yee is a trusts and estates attorney. A Kundiman Fellow, Debbie’s poems have appeared in Cheers to Muses: Contemporary Works by Asian American Women, Barn Owl Review, OCHO, and MiPOesias.
• Keith Ekiss is the Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford, and a recipient of scholarships and residencies from the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley Writers’ Conferences, Santa Fe Art Institute, Millay Colony for the Arts, and Petrified Forest National Park.
• Pireeni Sundaralingam was named one of America’s “Emerging Writers” by Ploughshares. She is editor of Writing the Lines of Our Hands, the first anthology of American South Asian poetry. Colm Ó Riain is a founding member of the Spoken Word theater group Dhaia Tribe, and violinist with avant-garde animation orchestra The Sprocket Ensemble. Together they perform as “Word and Violin.”
• Zack Rogow has published thirteen books, including five collections of poetry. His sixth book of poems, The Number before Infinity, will be published in September. He teaches in the low-residency MFA in Writing at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.
• Kirsten Andersen received her MFA from NYU. Her poetry appears in Barrow Street, Swink Magazine, Notre Dame Review, and other journals. Currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Kirsten has received fellowships from the Edward Albee Foundation, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

Space is limited; please call 355-3707 to reserve your spot.

Keep an eye out for upcoming Litquake + the Library events at Mission Bay Branch in July and at Sunset in September!

This stack paper cutter pleases me to no end this weekend. I decided to invest in one to trim thicker stacks of paper, especially the unfinished ends of finished work. The Bostitch guillotine paper trimmer (with a plastic base and very little heft) I’ve had for years hasn’t ever been able to trim more than two or three sheets of cardstock at a time with any accuracy. Neither was the Fiskars rotary trimmer, though it is nice for crafting, with its interchangeable blades that will give faux deckled edges and such. After doing some pricing research on eBay and Amazon, I went with a refurbished model manufactured by QCM in Naperville, Illinois (made in the USA!) from a seller on Amazon. After putting the parts together (the equipment came with instructions, but was not a quizzical-free assembly process), these fantastic results happened:

Before: After:

So, basically I feel really very prepared for some upcoming chapbook construction challenges, and am meandering (in a more directed way) into growing { bee + spool } press. Additional I-want-thats still include a saddle stapler.

In chapbook news, I’ve made some great swaps with Logan Ryan Smith and Transmission Press, Juliet Cook and Blood Pudding Press, and Jen Tynes and horse less press with my DIY chap. I’ve just received Hossannah’s small chap Lorem Ipsum printed on bright white cardstock and clipped at the corner with a silver binder clip filled with poetry and patent illustrations. I’m looking forward to the read. Upcoming, a chap trade with Michaela A. Gabriel in Austria, whose chapbook The Secret Meanings of Greek Letters was published by dancing girl press.

Interested in a chapbook swap? Email me (replace the (at)). Alternatively, order mine here and know that the proceeds of the sale will be donated to Asian American Women Artists Association, a non-profit organization here in San Francisco.

Then, at the fresh lemonade stand at the State Fair last summer.

Now, a work in progress by Didi Menendez.