It’s been a crazy fall, people. Bearnice has barely had time to breathe. Still, I think it would be good if she reminded everyone that Bear Star’s annual competition for the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize will end on November 30. Polish up that manuscript and send it to us, or take advantage of our new online submission process—all reading fees support the publication of the winner’s book.

In other news, Bear Star poet Rick Bursky has a new book coming out with Sarabande this fall and I can’t wait to read it: Death Obscura. It sports another stunning cover, right up there with the one for The Soup of Something Missing, but when you work for an ad agency and teach at an art school you have no shortage of creative friends with whom to collaborate. Congratulations, Rick! Don’t forget you promised to let me interview you sometime soon.

Meanwhile, Steve Gutierrez has an essay in the fall Redwood Coast Review—“The Big Fresno Fair” (online at http://www.stephenkessler.com/rcr/rcr_2010fall.pdf )—that I loved. Here’s his description of his Aunt Ella. “She was the younger one: the rebel who had been a 'career girl' into her late twenties, daring the barrio to call her an old maid, working as a secretary for a corporation and saving enough money to travel. She conquered Mexico with Capri pants that stirred the natives. She dropped in on Hawaii and broke some hearts.”

Also, I’m excited to announce that Bear Star will be publishing a book of poems by Quinton Duval, beloved Sacramento-area poet who passed away unexpectedly last spring. Gary Thompson at Cedar House Books (Friday Harbor, WA) has taken Quinton’s unfinished manuscript and added to it from various files the poet was working on at the time of his death. The book is called Like Hay and will come out in Spring 2011. I can’t wait to begin setting it up in InDesign.

Finally, it’s been a pleasure to enter The Kilim Dreaming for some awards I feel it deserves. Each poem (there are only four) would make a terrific film, but you’re just going to have to order a copy if you can’t wait for Hollywood to come to its senses and make something good for a change. Robert Hill Long is a fabulous storyteller and one of the best sonneteers around.

Congratulations, Steve!

At last it can be revealed: Stephen D. Gutierrez has won an American Book Award for Live from Fresno y Los. The entire list is as follows:

Amiri Baraka, Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music University of California Press)

Sherwin Bitsui, Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press)

Nancy Carnevale, A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890-1945 (University of Illinois Press)

Dave Eggers, Zeitoun (McSweeney’s/Vintage)

Sesshu Foster, World Ball Notebook (City Lights)

Stephen D. Gutierrez, Live from Fresno y Los (Bear Star Press)

Victor Lavalle, The Big Machine (Spiegel & Grau)

François Mandeville, This Is What They Say, translated from the Chipewyan by Ron Scollon (University of Washington Press)

Bich Minh Nguyen, Short Girls (Viking)

Franklin Rosemont and Robin D.G. Kelley, editors, Black, Brown & Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora (University of Texas)

Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson, editors, Poems for the Millennium: Volume Three: The University of California Book of Romantic & Postromantic Poetry (University of California Press)

Kathryn Waddell Takara, Pacific Raven: Hawai`i Poems (Pacific Raven Press)

Pamela Uschuk, Crazy Love: New Poems (Wings Press)

Lifetime Achievement:

Quincy Troupe

Katha Pollitt

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From the press release:
"The American Book Awards were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America's diverse literary community. The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions. There are no categories, no nominees,and therefore no losers. The award winners range from well-known and established writers to underrecognized authors and first works. There are no quotas for diversity, the winners list simply reflects it as a natural process. The Before Columbus Foundation views American culture as inclusive and has always considered the term “multicultural” to be not a description of various categories, groups, or “special interests,” but rather as the definition of all of American literature. The Awards are not bestowed by an industry organization, but rather are a writers’ award given by other writers."

The awards ceremony will be on Sunday, September 19th, from 1:00-4:00 p.m. at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street (at Grove), San Francisco, CA. A reception will take place following the ceremony. This event is open to the public. For more information, call (510) 642-7321.

See you there!