New Author Website

Hello, anyone possibly reading this!  I finally went ahead and made that author website, and all my writing-related news and updates will now be found there:

https://jekihlstrom.wixsite.com/work

Thank you for reading!

July

I figure that if I title a post "July" that follows a previous post entitled "June," my 0-3 readers won't notice that an entire year + 1 month, rather than simply 1 month, has elapsed since my last post.  But I guess this paragraph kind of ruined that whole plan, didn't it?  I've foiled my own undoing yet again.

I guess it would suffice to blame a new baby with a toddler already on hand for the blog-less year, but in truth it was an older family member's illness, combined with the time devoted to the kids, that pretty much completely took over my life from about the time of that last post until early this April, when my family member finally and rather suddenly recovered.  

I don't usually write plainly about very personal events in poems that I attempt to publish, but one of the poems that was just picked up by Ginosko for publication this Fall/Winter (yay!) does talk about this experience.  Caring emotionally for a very sick and very close family member, while also caring for a new baby and another very young child, was such an overwhelming experience that it's hard not to commemorate it in some way, because it really did alter my whole relationship with reality, in a way probably only surpassed by the birth of my children.  

Basically, life as I knew it in August 2012, before my daughter was born, is barely recognizable to me now.  I guess that's how it is with most parents.  And it's not like I hadn't heard that line before.  But if I'd listened enough to believe it, maybe I would have had kids earlier, so I could get on with this new phase of my life earlier.  Because, whatever its drawbacks, it's so much more, well, real.  And now that my "real life" is here, all I wish is that there were more of it left.  There's so much I want to learn and do, but not so much for myself anymore, to accumulate accomplishments, but instead out of some drive to participate in the world, a drive that's much stronger, for me, than the drive to achieve ever was.  I'm brimming with ideas, but my entire outlook has changed, and I'm not sure yet exactly what to do with them.  And the unfortunate thing is that, even though my outlook has changed, not every messed-up attribute and maladaptive behavior or cognition has fallen immediately into line.  What takes a lifetime to learn to do badly and view erroneously takes more than a few years to learn to do productively and in good health.  All the mindfulness training and life-affirming philosophy in the world won't work miracles.  During that "lost" year of being entirely engulfed in the role of a caretaker, I thought I had managed to make some kind of leap that would have been otherwise impossible, without that experience of almost losing myself, or my "self."  The last few months have reminded me, at times harshly, that I'm not there yet, not even close, really, but maybe closer than I was before, and I guess that's something.  So on, on.  My biggest challenge lately has been maintaining focus.  I have a billion things to read and find it difficult to get through more than a page of anything, and my memory is utter crap.  Lack of sleep is a big part of it, and I can try to blame the kids in part for that, but there's also the trap I've fallen into of overthinking everything except the things that could benefit from a little reflection. 

So, yeah, that bit of oversharing aside, there's the only real literary news I've had in quite a while, the two poems forthcoming in Ginosko, about which I'm pretty excited because they're poems I'm proud of; they came from an authentic place.  Now to try to find more of that, the poems and the authentic place.  More difficult than it sounds.

Last Year's Resolution

Well, finally I kept them all, 100 percent of 'em.  OK, there was only one, and I kept it.  Boy, did I ever.

Resolution '12

Although, honestly speaking, I only kept it in some senses.  I didn't completely change everything.  One of the less welcome side effects of parenthood is that it seems to shine a harsher light on all one's hidden and not-so-hidden flaws, as if one's self-esteem was particularly high to begin with.  I sometimes wonder how I ever fooled myself into thinking I was ever competent at anything.  So needless to say, I have been writing and submitting less lately.  Mostly that's about finding the time, though.

So there are a boatload of things I could resolve about this year; it's difficult to pick just one.  There seem to be two categories:  things I suck at (which is a mammoth category) and things I am OK/fairly good at.  So I'd like to shorten the first list a bit but also put more work into the stuff in the latter one, because frankly I'll never be a Renaissance woman, and I need to choose where to put my energy.  The exception there would be trying to reach out to people more and contribute more despite inhibition/social anxiety/tendency to be bad at articulating nonwritten language/sheer laziness.  That's always on the list, but it's the one thing that's always worth continuing to work at, no matter how little progress I seem to make.

On that soberly prudent note, happy new year.

For the Holidays

It occurred to me why images of the Madonna and Child are so moving, even to me as a nontheist.  After aeons of hot and cold stars and crashing meteors, in at least one place in the universe life gave rise to mammals, with their chemical capacity to bond, and then to self-conscious mammals whose look of recognition implies their shared awareness of that moment of mutual animal trust, which is kind of beautiful. 

So merry Christmas, after all.

Poems Accepted for New Anthology

I just learned that four of my poems were accepted for the Reckless Writing anthology.  I'm not sure if that means they seem to have been written recklessly or with reckless abandon (well, either way, it's probably a good thing for me, if I've been found erring on the side of caution and hermeticism in the past.)

In other news, baby is swiftly on her way into our world.  This time next week, I will probably not be sitting at this computer, although I will no doubt have some kind of electronic device connected to the Internet close at hand, maybe even this laptop, although both I and the laptop will probably be found in a more babycentric location.  Seriously, though, I'm excited.  It takes a long time to grow a baby, but for the most part, it's been a fascinating ride.  But now my back hurts when I sit to type, and so I'm about ready for the next phase to begin, as crazy as it no doubt will be, and also no doubt fascinating.

Things That Are New

Sorry it's been so long since my last post.  I can't say I haven't had news, but it hasn't been of the literary variety.  I do have some lit news now, though.  The Spring/Summer issue of Melusine has finally launched, and you can see it here.  I really rather like this one.  OK, I've liked them all, of course, but this is one of my favorites.

As for the non-literary news, I snuck it in the issue's editorial.  But, OK, I can summarize:  I am expecting my first child in early September, and her father and I are very excited.  It looks like she will be a girl.

For various reasons, I have been spending less time blogging, Facebooking, Google-plussing, and tweeting this year, but I will probably begin embracing some of these outlets again as I inevitably find myself seeking ways to express how I'm processing all the new things I'm going to soon be experiencing.  When I'm not writing (because at times, when writing, I can be loud, not unlike, at times, when I'm drinking, but that's another story and also something I haven't been doing much of in the last year) my natural mode of being is quiet, and it's been good to be quiet.  I'm beginning to feel a disturbance in the quiet, though, and that's OK, too.  And I think I know what her name is.

First Review of Blue Trajectory

That's Blue Trajectory my chapbook, not to be confused with the current name of this blog, of course, since that would probably be a very short review given how often I update it.

Livia Kent reviewed the chap for the new issue of Lines + Stars.  Her review was so beautifully and thoughtfully written, it made me very happy.  Please check it out here, if you like.

It's a warm but rainy February day and I am feeling sleepy (decaf was probably a bad choice) but still happy.

Spring is coming soon.  AWP is coming even sooner, although I unfortunately won't be going.  I am planning for next year, though, which reminds me I need to get to work on the Melusine print issue so I'll have something to bring to the table, so to speak, Melusine-wise.  I have the lineup selected; I just need to find a good layout tool... This next month's big project, I think... Then for April, I'm finally doing NaPoWriMo.  I've resisted it thus far, but I've hit a long patch of writer's block and I think I really need it this year...

A Couple of Mentions

Just a couple things I noticed whilst shamelessly Google-stalking myself:

Thanks so much to Eclectica, the very first journal that published me, for mentioning my chapbook in their new issue's editorial.

And I just noticed that this here blog is listed in New Pages' directory, here.

Cool.

What else?  It's January -- not much to say about the weather, although to its credit it's been unseasonably warm.  More importantly, it's a new year, and I'm still feeling good about that.

This Year's Resolution

Change everything.
That's all.
No, I don't mean that literally.
Of course.
I mean it, though.

In the Book, So to Speak

Daylight Savings Time hasn't even ended yet and there are still plenty of green leaves on the trees, but I'm already feeling that late autumn melancholy.  Maybe it was the freak October snowstorm last week, which was just an annoyance for me in that it reminded me winter's going to insist on coming around again this year, but it knocked out my parents' power up in Pennsylvania for almost a week, which was pretty scary.

And maybe I drank a few too many jack-and-cokes last night because I was feeling stressed about various non-writing-related things that just haven't been going so well lately.  But at least on the writing front, life has been kind lately.  It's good to have at least one area of life going one's way at a time.  At the least.  More would be OK, too.

So here's my entry in the Poets & Writers directory:  http://www.pw.org/content/janelle_kihlstrom

Another Month, Another Random Update...

So now it's October.  (I always feel proud when I manage at least one blog post a month.)  In lit news, I got word yesterday that one of my poems, published in an online issue earlier this year, will be featured in The Medulla Review's second print anthology -- good times! 

Before long, I'll need to start work on Melusine's first print edition -- kind of a daunting task, I must admit, since I haven't dealt with the offline printing process since my college's lit magazine, and that was not self-funded.  But it will be kind of exciting.  I'm looking forward to starting the selections at the beginning of the year -- the fun part.  The new online issue is slated for late November, which has been the pattern for the past few years.

In more monumental lit news, I was happy to hear that Tomas Transtromer got the Nobel.  Yes, he happens to be Swedish, but he's a hugely influential poet, not just in Sweden or in Europe but the world over, and has been for some time.  And the man is 80.  Now is the time.  He fully deserved it, and I think it was a good choice.

Resolutions

As a kid I made at least 20 each year.  Now I am more realistic, and just barely managed to come up with nine:

1. Write stuff in this blog, like this, even if it's silly, because that is what a blog is for.
2. On the other hand, take breaks (whole days, if possible!) from the Internet now and then, because sometimes I suspect I am losing touch with three-dimensional reality.  Also, the iPhone.  It's neither a wedding ring nor a medical bracelet and shouldn't be treated like either.
3. Reach out more to friends and engage in simple kindnesses to acquaintances, even if it means risking occasional failure.
4. Worry less about deadlines and goals in terms of how they may validate my existence and enjoy more the process of getting there.
5. Cook food from scratch more often, or ever.
6. Clean the house more, because doing so always makes me feel better about life in general, and besides that, I'm less likely to trip on things.  Also, be more responsible in general (although I didn't want to jinx that one by giving it its own number ;) 
7. Learn to play the Moonlight Sonata.
8. Read more books, and less random Internet miscellany.
9. Write more—poetry, fiction, nonfiction.  Write better, sure.  That's always the goal.  But, especially, write more, since the one has a way of leading to the other.

Happy New Year!