Mary Soon Lee's Mailbox Blues for 2010-2011

This page contains Mary Soon Lee's 2010-2011 mailbox mutterings. For more recent news see the latest Mailbox Blues.

17 December 2011: Christmas Break

William and Lucy had their last day of school yesterday :-) I'd like to report that this is the end of worrying about homework and alarm clocks for two weeks, but William has been assigned one essay. Still it is only one essay, so things are pretty close to ideal.

2 December 2011: Progress Report

Poems: 63 written so far in 2011. Exercise: 81 gym visits in 2011, 12 swimming sessions.

The end of the year is fast approaching and the school vacation is only two weeks away, so I have officially abandonned my goal of writing a short story this year. On the plus side, I have written a satisfying number of poems, have exercised more than in any other year in my life, and my Christmas shopping is well underway :-)

17 November 2011: 21 Years

21 years ago, on 17 November 1990, Andrew and I came to the States. We thought we would be here for 2 or 3 years, while Andrew did a post-doc at MIT, but it looks as though we underestimated our stay :-) Our children were born here. We bought a house. We became American citizens.

31 October 2011: Progress Report

Poems: 57 written so far in 2011. Exercise: 73 gym visits in 2011, 12 swimming sessions.

I have exceeded my goal for the year of writing 52 poems, but have thus far failed to write a short story. Happy Halloween!

14 October 2011: Children's Books (Oppel + Collins)

Over the past month or so, I have been reading some books that William also recently devoured, and I have liked them very much indeed. A friend of ours gave William "Airborn" by Kenneth Oppel, which had a beautiful drawing of an airship on the cover. Blimps/airships/dirigibles were William's first passion. When he was about four years old, we would regularly go to the big Carnegie Library in Oakland to search for blimp books. Sometimes helpful librarians would journey to the Stacks to fetch us old blimp books that he hadn't seen. Although William's interests have diversified since then, he was hooked by the cover, and read and loved "Airborn." Intrigued, I followed suit. Sure enough, it was a great book -- beautifully written, with well-drawn characters, an engaging plot, and a wonderful setting (at least to those of us with any fondness for blimps) in a world where airships are the main form of long-distance passenger transport.

Next, William became hooked on Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy ... and I again followed suit. The first book ("The Hunger Games") was an impressive, fast, entertaining read in a very dsytopian future where children are pitted against other children in an annual gladitorial fight to the death. The second book ("Catching Fire") was good, but less innovative. The third book ("Mockingjay") was my favorite of the trilogy. In it, Suzanne Collins widened the scope and depth of the story. Without giving specifics, I will say that "Mockingjay" shows the toll of warfare. There is a great deal of loss to cope with. People die. Children die. Children are traumatized. In context, all of this is appropriate, but nonetheless there was at least one occasion when I wanted to yell at the author - "How could you do that?" And other occasions when I was very moved by a touch of softness amid the dark.

28 September 2011: Main Street Rag

I am very glad to report that Main Street Rag has accepted my poems "Autumn Fire" and "Half-Caste." "Autumn Fire" in particular is a personal favorite of mine. These will be my fourteenth and fifteenth poems to appear in Main Street Rag.

24 September 2011: Revisions

Now that William and Lucy have returned to school, I am trying to set aside one day a week for writing. As well as writing a few new poems, I have been busy revising older ones. It can be quite satisfying to hack away at an old poem: lopping off lines, adding new sections, playing with word choice. But at other times I am frustrated by tiny corrections that feel necessary but tedious, such as adding or deleting a comma, or merging two lines into one. Still, it's usually better than doing the laundry :-)

18 September 2011: Lucy

Lucy had her seventh birthday party today. This important event was held at the local Bounce U, where she and her classmates were able to bounce, climb, slide and shriek. Lucy continues to be a delight -- affectionate, kind, creative, animal-loving, energetic, and perceptive. Often my favorite part of the day is reading her a chapter at bedtime. We recently read and both enjoyed "The Secret Garden," followed by "The Borrowers," and yesterday we began "All Creatures Great and Small." All three are books that I read as a child, and two of them I also read to William when he was younger.

11 September 2011: Remembering

Ten years ago, I was with William -- then two years old -- for his second ever morning of preschool. Part way through the session, the director of the preschool entered and told us that the school was closing "because of the situation." Not sure what was going on, I walked home with William. We didn't have a TV, but I listened to the radio and sat with William, and heard about the 9/11 attacks.

I wish I could thank all the people who helped out that day and in the days that followed: firefighters, police officers, paramedics, doctors, nurses, ordinary people. I wish that all those who were killed were still alive and sitting with those who love them.

2 September 2011: Progress report

Poems: 49 written so far in 2011. Exercise: 58 gym visits in 2011, 12 swimming sessions.

Lucy and William went back to school on Tuesday. Having written nothing since June, I wrote two poems this week. I have much to catch up on. Poems came back over the summer, but I only sent out a few. I have poems that I wrote in June that have yet to be submitted for the first time. Then there is a stack of non-writing tasks, of which the most urgent and the most enjoyable is preparing for Lucy's seventh birthday, which is coming up soon.

20 August 2011: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

My poem "Before" is in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and also in their online edition. I found out yesterday afternoon that the poem had been accepted, and I am very happy to be in the Post-Gazette again (this is my ninth poem that they've published).

9 August 2011: Yellowstone

We went on vacation to Yellowstone and it was excellent. We hiked, swam, rafted, rode horses, and sat in hot springs. We saw bison, elk, antelope, deer, osprey, bald eagles, bears, and I saw a wolf while the rest of my family were asleep. We went on a trip organized by Austin Lehman, and they did a fantastic job. It was very nice to be with three other families (for a total of 9 children including our two). The guides were wonderful. Matty K, one of our guides, carried Lucy for a mile -- mostly uphill -- to get her to a doctor when she had a very bad nosebleed. And it is quite delightful to hike for a couple of miles and then be served delicious fruit before finishing the hike. I think it's the best vacation we've had in twenty years.

27 July 2011: Main Street Rag

My poems "On the Shelf" and "Aloud" have just been published in the Main Street Rag. The second of the two poems is about reading aloud to William and was written in May 2010, when I was still reading to him fairly regularly, though not at the many-books-a-day rate of his early childhood. I love reading to him, but it has become a much rarer event over the past year. On the plus side -- and it is a big plus -- it is a delight to see him reading to himself. He nearly always brings emergency reading material with him, sometimes cartoon books, sometimes fiction, and reads in the car, while eating breakfast, etc.

20 July 2011: Much Ado About a Mouse

One afternoon I spotted a dead mouse lying outside near our house. I was unhappy, but not too unhappy -- I expect there to be mice outside, though I prefer not to meet them. The following morning I found a dead mouse in my hall -- inside my house! -- near the front door. I was very unhappy indeed, and had to put on a double layer of gloves before I could pick up the small gray lump and drop it into a jar to get rid of it. Later, I saw a live mouse hopping across the floor near my office. I panicked and ran upstairs. Perhaps I screamed. I do not like live mice in my house. I do not like them at all. I do not like them with green eggs and ham.... Eventually, with two overly interested cats nearby, I dealt with the mouse. Then a very kind friend came and installed a clever cat-safe mouse trap that he invented, plus the man who looks after the mouse baits outside our house replenished them and added one new mouse bait (and plugged up some holes in our mortar). For a couple more days, I inched around the house, anticipating terrifying rodent encounters at every turn. But we have had no more mice sightings, dead or alive. And long may it stay that way....

8 July 2011: Progress report

Poems: 47 written so far in 2011. Exercise: 48 gym visits in 2011, 12 swimming sessions.

I wrote a few more poems in the closing days of the school year, but have written no poetry (or short stories!) since William and Lucy started summer break. I am very much enjoying the relaxed pace of most of our days; yesterday, I felt almost indignant when I had to get up early for a dentist appointment.... Lucy has had her first few swimming lessons, which she greatly enjoyed, and we had quite a few friends over for July 4th.

22 June 2011: Summer :-)

Two weeks in, I can report that I am enjoying summer break :-) We went to Walt Disney World for a family vacation, and almost had a great time. Specifically, we had a great start to our stay there, but then William caught a stomach bug and spent the end of the trip being sick in the hotel room, while Andrew and I took turns taking Lucy to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Now we are home and having a laid-back week. Our biggest excitement will be taking Lucy for her first swimming lesson in several years -- she is, in fact, very excited about this.

8 June 2011: Summer :-)

It's official. William and Lucy are now on summer break :-) :-) :-) School ended at midday and afterwards we had twelve children at our house to celebrate (pizza, cookies, lemonade and many flavors of ice cream). Now we are just settling into our first evening. Hooray!

31 May 2011: Progress report

Poems: 42 written so far in 2011. Exercise: 39 gym visits in 2011, 12 swimming sessions.

May was an abnormally productive month for me. I wrote 21 poems, half my tally for the year so far. In addition, I revised a dozen older poems. This activity spurt was partly due to having fewer disruptions, and partly because I have been trying to settle down and write before the long summer vacation starts. I do not expect to get much -- if any -- writing done over the summer. Last summer I managed one, yes, one poem over the summer break. Maybe this year I can manage two!

25 May 2011: Home

It is almost the three-year anniversary of our move to our current house, and I am very happy in it. The back yard is particularly appealing now that the warm weather is just starting and everything is green. William and Lucy and I are spending more time outdoors; often we eat our supper outside while it is still light. (I love the long evenings of May, June, and July.) We have made few changes to the inside of the house, but we did get magnificent bookshelves made for my office, plus we had the living room nicely repainted and new lights installed in it last year. I would be happy to keep living here for thirty years :-)

19 May 2011: Concho River Review

My poem "Numbers" has just been published in Concho River Review :-) Alas, a line was omitted from the first stanza. Just in case anyone out there is puzzling over this, the first stanza should read:

   She craves the vague and willful ignorance
   of those who would say, with easy charm,
   that the glass before her is half empty,
   the glass her date filled
   twenty-eight minutes ago,
   and, which, four swallows later,
   stands five eighths consumed.

Three weeks from now, William and Lucy (and I) will be enjoying the first day of their summer vacation!

17 May 2011: Sequences

Now that the total number of poems I have written is in the hundreds, I can see that there are topics I return to, such as (surprise, surprise) writing about William and Lucy. This is usually accidental, but sometimes I find it satisfying to deliberately create a group of poems that go together. The first sequence I created was back when I was just switching over from mostly-writing-short-stories to mostly-writing-poetry, when I wrote a short sequence about Household Appliances. Sometimes I add to a sequence months or even years after I started it (e.g. I still occasionally add to the Household Appliances sequence), and sometimes a sequence never gets very far at all. I have one sequence with just three poems in it, which has so far stubbornly refused to yield a fourth poem. Maybe that should be my writing challenge for the rest of the day....

9 May 2011: Improvements

So far, I am happy to report that May is going better than April in our household. Everyone is healthy. Summer is well on its way. Our air conditioning is working. Nothing is dripping in my office. And I have written 7 poems since May 1st :-)

1 May 2011: Progress Report

Poems: 21 written so far in 2011. Exercise: 30 gym visits in 2011, 10 swimming sessions.

April was a rather disrupted month. First Lucy was ill for a week with strep throat, then William was ill for a week with, yes, strep throat. When we tried to turn on our air conditioning due to unseasonably warm weather, it didn't work. My office has a drip, which we have been trying to stop, but no luck so far -- I have three bowls catching drips behind me as I type this. But we are all basically well; we hosted a small but lively Easter egg hunt (10 over-excited children rushing around); I am eager for summer.

22 April 2011: William

William (my son) is 12 years old today. In about half an hour three of his friends will arrive, and the four of them will all play computer games together, after which we will go out for a fondue supper. William has been home all week with strep throat, but happily seems better today -- which is a school holiday -- if a bit tired, partly because he got up early to open his presents.... Of course, I am biased, but I think William has grown up to be a remarkably nice individual :-)

12 April 2011: Yuri Gagarin

Here's to the memory of Yuri Gagarin, who, fifty years ago today, became the first human in space when he orbited the Earth.

On the home front, this will be Lucy's second day missing school due to a fever.

4 April 2011: Progress report

Another month, another progress report. I have now written 16 poems in 2011, and both of my current favorites for the year-to-date were written in March. (I note, however, that I sometimes like a poem when I first write it, then decide on later reading that it is worse than I thought, so my opinion of the March poems may deteriorate over time.) On the exercise front, I have been to the gym 24 times and swum 9 times. I wrote no new poems during the two weeks of William and Lucy's spring break, which bodes badly for the longer summer break. And looking back through my records, I have just uncovered the ugly truth that I wrote exactly one new poem during the twelve weeks of last year's summer break. Ack! Maybe I can manage two poems this summer break :-)

23 March 2011: England

We returned yesterday evening from a brief 5-night visit to England. We would have preferred to stay longer, but we needed to be there for a particular date (my mother-in-law's 70th birthday) and had to squeeze the visit between Andrew's work commitments. Nonetheless we had time to see many, many relatives who had gathered for the birthday celebration. I think William and Lucy particularly enjoyed playing with their cousins. The birthday event took place in Bath, and while we were in Bath we did the most predictable tourist activity and visited the remains of the Roman baths. We also spent one night in Bournemouth where we saw Andrew's dad and the house that he grew up in. On the final night, we stayed at an airport hotel, and I was very grateful to my sister and my best friend from my childhood who both traveled to the hotel so that I could see them over supper. A good, but busy trip.

12 March 2011: Spring Break

Today is the first day of William and Lucy's spring break, and in our own corner of the world all is going well. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, William has no homework for the next 16 days. Beyond our corner (Libya, Japan) clearly things are worse. I don't think I have anything more profound to say than that I am very sorry that the earthquake struck Japan, and I hope their recovery efforts go as well as possible.

5 March 2011: Progress report

Once again it is time to assess my progress so far this year. On the writing front, I have written 11 poems in 2011. On the exercise front, I have exercised at the gym 16 times and swum 8 times. Plenty of room for improvement on both fronts, but it could be worse. And at least I no longer have any dental work pending. My final filling in the batch of three filling-replacements took place on Monday.

22 February 2011: Snow Day

It is a snow day here in Pittsburgh. William yelled with delight at the news that he didn't have to go to school :-) Even shoveling has been okay, as it is so bright and beautiful outside.

17 February 2011: Demotion

Yesterday I set myself the task of demoting ten poems, i.e. flagging them as ones not to be submitted to magazines. If I like a poem, I will keep on trying to find it a home, but those I am less enthusiastic about get only a few tries at publication before I demote them. A few poems never get sent out at all. Today I tallied up all the poems in my do-not-submit pile, and found there are 135! Egads!

11 February 2011: Concho River Review

My poem "Numbers" has been accepted by Concho River Review :-) This will be my third appearance there. The timing of the acceptance was particularly good, as I have been feeling rather dejected due to minor dental woes. In January, I learned that three of my elderly fillings needed to be replaced. Two of them have been replaced thus far, with one more to follow, and I am temporarily restricted to soft food.

7 February 2011: Progress report

Alas, the Steelers lost the Super Bowl :-( And on this gloomy day, it is time to measure my progress so far this year against my good intentions. On the writing front, I have written 8 poems so far in 2011, which is satisfactory. Of course, it would have been nice if I felt that any of the poems were stunningly brilliant, but at least I like some of them. On the exercise front, I have exercised at the gym nine times and swum five times, which is better than last year, but I would like to do better.

25 January 2011: All clear

I get anxious about medical problems, both real and potential, so I am very happy to report that this morning I had my annual mammogram and all was well.

24 January 2011: Pittsburgh's Going to the Super Bowl

Go Steelers!

14 January 2011: In Memoriam, Ann Cecil

Today I learned that Ann Cecil died earlier this week. Ann Cecil was the person who welcomed me to the Pittsburgh science fiction community back in 1993, and she was always intelligent, witty and kind. She was a major force in Pittsburgh fandom, both in PARSEC and the associated annual convention Confluence. I am very sorry indeed that she has died.

3 January 2011: Resolutions

I am repeating my poetry-writing goal from last year of 52 poems (an average of a poem a week). I shall also try to write at least 1 short story: it is over five years since I last wrote a short story and I am nervous about returning to prose.

I am also going to try to be fitter. Last year I tried to swim twice a week, but failed rather spectacularly -- averaging little better than one swim a month.

So here we are, 3 days into the new year, and I have managed to swim once and to write one poem. The trick will be to sustain this past the end of January. Happy New Year!

21 December 2010: 5 AM

My poem "Monongahela River" appeared in 5 AM #32 :-)

16 December 2010: The books I've enjoyed reading aloud this year

Today is William and Lucy's last day of school before the winter break, and so probably my last uninterrupted computer time for a couple of weeks. So I thought I would take the opportunity to mention the books that I've most enjoyed reading aloud to them this year.

William is now in 6th grade, and I don't get nearly as much chance to read aloud to him as I would like, but this summer I had the great pleasure of starting to read him the Aubrey and Maturin Napoleonic-era nautical novels by Patrick O'Brian, and we are now on the fourth book in the series. Earlier in the year I read him "All Things Wise and Wonderful" by James Herriot, autobiographical stories of a vet's life ("All Things Wise and Wonderful" is circa 1940s.)

Lucy is in Kindergarten, and I read aloud to her quite a bit. In the day, we usually read short picture books, but at bedtime I read her chapters from longer works. This year I read her eight Mary Plain books (childhood favorites of mine, written by Gwynedd Rae, and now, alas, out of print). I also particularly enjoyed reading her four books by Jill Tomlinson about different animals growing up. This year we revisited Tomlinson's books about aardvarks, otters, gorillas, and penguins (each of which we had previously read three times before). I've also had fun reading her some children's poetry, including A. A. Milne's two collections and one by Hilaire Belloc.

9 December 2010: The books I've enjoyed most this year

We're approaching the end of 2010, and I thought I'd mention the books I've most enjoyed reading so far this year:

In January, I read my first book by Michael Connelly, "The Black Echo," the start of his series about detective Harry Bosch. Less than a year later, I have read ten Harry Bosch books, despite my (evidently pathetic) efforts to ration them. This is a dark, intelligently written, compelling series.

"Out Stealing Horses" by Per Petterson. A beautifully written, beautifully translated novel set in Norway, narrated by an elderly man settling in a remote forest, who also describes a summer he spent with his father. The book conveys a love for its characters and the landscape, and is very bittersweet.

"The Path Through the Trees" by Christopher Milne (son of A. A. Milne), his second autobiographical book. While I found this one notch less fascinating than its prequel ("The Enchanted Places"), it is a moving, thought-provoking book.

"The Help," by Kathryn Stockett, an excellent novel about the relationship between the black women and their white employers in 1960s Mississippi. As one would expect, some sections were upsetting, but I managed not to cry during the story -- only to weep as I read the author's afterword.

"The Unbearable Lightness of Scones," by Alexander McCall Smith. I am a fan of Alexander McCall Smith's books, especially his "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series. "The Unbearable Lightness of Scones" is part of another entertaining series ("44, Scotland Street"), which was written in daily installments for a Scottish newspaper. I particularly liked the sections involving the dog, Cyril.

"The Name of the Wind," by Patrick Rothfuss, the lengthy and most entertaining first installment in his epic fantasy "The Kingkiller Chronicle." I would be lying if I said this was my favorite fantasy work of all time (which remains a contest between Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books and Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings.") But I haven't enjoyed a fantasy book as much in a long time. I have pre-ordered the second installment from Amazon....

1 December 2010: 5 AM

I am happy to report that 5AM accepted my poem "Monongahela River." This is a fairly recent poem, written in September 2009. On the non-writing front, we have a little snow here in Pittsburgh, and I feel that Christmas is approaching too fast. The Christmas school break is my favorite time of year, but I am not yet ready for it: no cards written, not enough presents bought, etc.

25 November 2010: Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving :-)

22 November 2010: Fictionwise

Today I received a royalty check from Fictionwise, who have twenty-two of my short stories available for download. I sold Fictionwise reprint rights to these stories between 2000 and 2003, and now it seems very strange both to get these (small!) occasional payments and also to think that someone out there is reading my fiction. For the past five years, I've only written poetry. Next year I hope to write at least one story as well as fifty-two poems.

16 November 2010: Market precedence and rejection notes

Editors are busy and I understand the need for form rejections, so I always appreciate it when someone comments on my submission. Yesterday I received a friendly and encouraging note from River Styx. It was my first submission to them, but I made a note in my file to try them again next year. I have a lengthy list of markets, which I attempt to prioritize -- factors such as being a local publication or sending me positive feedback give a magazine higher priority; being very slow to respond gives them lower priority. Charging reading fees eliminates a market from consideration altogether (although perhaps I ought to relax that constraint and submit to a few contests despite their charging reading fees).

5 November 2010: Hayakawa Publishing

Fifteen years ago, my short story "Ebb Tide" appeared in F&SF. Since then the story has been reprinted nine times, including Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish translations. Yesterday I received a letter from the Japanese publisher (Hayakawa Publishing) saying they would like to reprint "Ebb Tide" in a paperback edition of their anthology. I am delighted that this story will be appearing again :-)

30 October 2010: The Fourth River

My poem "No One Could Love It" has just been published in The Fourth River, Issue 7, Autumn 2010. The Fourth River is published within walking distance of our house at Chatham University -- indeed I will be walking over to Chatham University on Tuesday as it is where I go to vote.

28 October 2010: Slow replies

A few days ago I mentioned that I was querying two places about poems submitted a long time ago. Today I heard back from The Carolina Quarterly, who sent a very friendly form rejection apologizing for slow response times (and they were indeed slow -- over a year in my case). The rejection came in the SASE that I sent with my original submission, so it may be just a coincidence that I had queried them recently. In any event, I am glad to have the poems freed up, and the wording of the form rejection took the sting out of it.

22 October 2010: Online or snail-mail?

When I first noticed magazines offering -- or sometimes even requiring -- online submissions rather than old-fashioned snail-mail manuscripts, I was distinctly unenthusiastic. While my resistance has been whittled away, it is still a small inconvenience to find the files for different poems, bundle them up into a set, and then save the poems in whatever form a magazine requires. But it is extremely handy to be able to check the status of a submission online (a feature offered by most places accepting online submissions). I have two batches of poems that I am querying at the moment, both submitted via the US Postal Service, and it could take months before I receive a reply saying they never received the manuscripts, or rejected them, or (unlikely) are still considering them over a year later.

16 October 2010: Atlanta Review

My poem "Details" is in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of the Atlanta Review :-) This is my third appearance in The Atlanta Review.... When I first started writing, I used to be less eager to submit to publications that had accepted me in the past. I can't remember my reasoning very well -- and it wasn't very good reasoning anyhow! -- but I wanted to try to be published in many different places, rather than appearing many times in a few places. Now if I like a magazine, then I am delighted to appear there repeatedly.

5 October 2010: Iodine Poetry Journal

My poem "A Fabric Album" has been published by Iodine Poetry Journal :-) Since I last updated this mailbox page, I have also met my self-imposed goal of writing 52 poems in 2010 -- I wanted to average at least a poem a week over the course of the year. Even though that still leaves me as one of the least productive writers in existence, it is the most productive I have been since Lucy was born.

18 September 2010: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

My poem "Inside the Suits," accepted for reprinting two days ago, has now indeed appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Hooray :-) This poem was first published by Main Street Rag.

Also, I have had more good news to report than usual this month, but, in case it isn't obvious, I get far more rejections than acceptances. Since I usually submit five poems in a batch, even if one poem is accepted, there are typically four poems that get rejected at the same time.

17 September 2010: Unexpected possible reprint

This morning I received email requesting permission to reprint my poem Mall-Fever in an educational series for English as a second language (the poem first appeared in Atlanta Review). It's satisfying to think that the poem -- which is definitely on the light side -- may end up serving a useful purpose.

16 September 2010: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

John Allison of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette phoned to accept my poem "Inside the Suits," which was first published by Main Street Rag a couple of months ago. I am delighted that the poem will be reprinted and I am particularly pleased that it will be in the local newspaper.

13 September 2010: Lucy

Lucy is six years old today, and, as usual, a delight, very excited and very enthusiastic about everything (including her presents) :-)

9 September 2010: Main Street Rag acceptances

In my previous message, I mentioned that I had only made one submission in the past two and a half months. Today I heard back that Main Street Rag is accepting my poems "On the Shelf" and "Aloud" :-) They have published eleven of my earlier poems, and I am very happy that they will be publishing these two, especially as "Aloud" is a personal favorite of mine.

Inevitably, I do have favorites among my poems and stories. Some of those favorites fare well, e.g. "Aloud," which was accepted on its second try. Others spend ages trying to find a home..... N.B. Now that William and Lucy are back at school, I have managed to write a few new poems, revise half a dozen older poems, and to send out more submissions.

31 August 2010: Back to school

William and Lucy returned to school this morning; William is entering 6th grade and Lucy is starting Kindergarten. I spent a few minutes with Lucy in her classroom, but once she started chatting to a friend, she was completely absorbed. She is very outgoing and I think she will have a great year.... On the writing front, I am about to tackle five sets of poetry rejections that piled up over the summer. I have only made one submission in the past two and a half months (to a magazine I like that has published me several times) and need to get back into the routine of writing, revising, and submitting.

14 August 2010: Slowest rejection

In what I think is my slowest-ever rejection, I received a slip from The Plastic Tower saying that they had unearthed a couple of boxes of mislabeled submissions. My submission returned to me seven and a bit years after I sent it. Since then the magazine has been put on indefinite hiatus :-(

Speaking of slow, I am doing a very poor job of keeping up-to-date with this mailbox page over the summer. But I am very much enjoying the company of William, Lucy and our two kittens.

10 July 2010: Main Street Rag

I received my contributor's copy of Main Street Rag, Volume 15, Number 3, Summer 2010, containing my poems "Inside the Suits" and "It's a Small World" :-)

17 June 2010: Kittens

We adopted two eleven-week old kittens on Sunday. They are brothers, both ginger and white, and both exceedingly cute :-)

4 June 2010: Summer Break

William and Lucy finish school for the summer this afternoon, and I am very, very much looking forward to turning off our alarm clocks, relaxing, and having more time with William and Lucy. On the downside, I expect to switch from a writer of low productivity to one of near-zero productivity over the summer....

18 May 2010: Voted

I just voted in the primaries. If you are eligible to vote, try to do so....

11 May 2010: iPad

Andrew (my husband) gave me an iPad!!! And it arrived today :-) So far it seems a very lovely device, and I am looking forward to getting to know it better.

1 May 2010: Ship of Fools

My poem "Christmas News" was published by Ship of Fools :-) On the non-writing front, we are hoping to get a kitten in about a month, an event we are eagerly anticipating.

31 Mar 2010: England + Paris

Yesterday we returned from a 10-day family vacation to England and Paris. Lucy and I hadn't been to England for nearly five years, so friends and relatives skipped straight from the 2005-baby-Lucy edition to the 2010-5-year-old Lucy. (Andrew and William have been to England more frequently.) We saw Andrew's father, mother, mother's husband, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew, plus my sister and some of my family friends, so there was much catching up. We also played on Bournemouth beach, toured the H.M.S. Victory (Nelson's flagship), and Lucy and I rode the London Eye.

Toward the end, we caught the train through the Channel Tunnel to Paris, where we spent a day sightseeing. Lucy and William climbed to the second level of the Eiffel Tower (equivalent to climbing to the 43rd floor of a skyscraper) with impressive ease and only a few complaints from Lucy, then we rode a boat along the Seine, and ran around outside Notre Dame. Overall, a very successful but exhausting trip.

18 March 2010: Ship of Fools

My poem "Christmas News" was accepted by Ship of Fools :-) And on the weather front, although the snow stayed through the start of March, it has finally disappeared from our yard and a few crocuses have surfaced.

18 February 2010: Iodine Poetry Journal

My poem "A Fabric Album" was accepted by Iodine Poetry Journal :-) On the weather front, we still have a LOT of snow around, and I am wondering if I will get to see the grass in our yard before March.

9 February 2010: Snow

I see it has been nearly a month since I updated this webpage, and once again the weather is on my mind. We have had about two feet of snow here, and I have spent about four hours shoveling. People can now walk along our stretch of sidewalk, and my car is now able to drive away from our house. But I don't plan to start driving until the streets are safer (unless we have an emergency). We have been fortunate: our electricity, gas, water, and even internet have all stayed in operation. Last night I woke up at 4AM, hearing voices in our back yard; it turned out to be the electric company restoring service to some less fortunate people. The forecast says we can expect about another 6 inches of snow in the next 24 hours, so I shall keep my fingers crossed that everything keeps on working!

10 January 2010: Weather

It feels as though it has been below freezing here in Pittsburgh for weeks, but apart from snow coating everything, things continue much as usual. William and Lucy have only had one snow day and no snow delays. However, my husband had considerable difficulty flying to England. For a start, his flight didn't make it to England, but was diverted to Scotland. From there he had to first travel to a different Scottish city, then catch a flight to England. His return flight took off from the correct airport, but left six hours late.... Although I would appreciate some warmer days, the snow makes our backyard look completely beautiful.... A belated Happy New Year to anyone reading this!