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

***

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!

Excitement in the 'hood

Bearnice (the press logo bear) is doing a happier jig than usual, and it’s not because someone heated up a piece of tin for her to jump around on or prodded her big hairy backside. No, she’s extremely pleased to have recently learned one of the authors here has received an American Book Award. The news isn’t official yet, but we will link to it as soon as we can.

Speaking of links, Cohasset finally has high-speed internet—insert vuvuzela chorus here—or at least higher speed. Fact-checking, blog-reading, YouTubing, etc., has never been easier. And watching old episodes of 30 Rock on lazy days more tempting than ever.

Have you seen this? http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid96978243001?bctid=221111468001
Simply mesmerizing. But after a while questions arise. What to make of the fact that large portions of the Midwest and East seem permanently sad? Or that Oregon is less happy than Washington and California? Most perplexing, how is it possible that California’s mood remains one of the highest in the nation despite the myriad ways this state is failing its citizens? Is it our generally warmer clime? The quality of our wine and weed? The vast number of people practicing yoga, zen, and veganism? Or simply that the homeless don’t tweet?

Mama's Got an iPad

Maybe you saw the video of Virginia, an avid reader in her hundredth year who suffers from glaucoma and, after receiving an iPad, loved it enough to compose a limerick extolling its virtues. If not, here you go: http://mashable.com/2010/04/23/ipad-99-year-old-woman/

The first person I thought of when I watched it was my mother, Dorothy Brunsman Spencer. She’s only 88, but she also lives to read, despite suffering from severe macular degeneration. Knowing she might find it easier to enjoy novels, not to mention the Nation and New Yorker, if she could increase the font size and the contrast between the text and background, inspired me to join wallets with my brother and father to get her an iPad of her own. (As a small publisher gouged by Amazon there was no effing way I was going to get her a Kindle.)

Then I waited. One never knows with Ma. Sure, she loves reading, but she’s also stubborn about things like paper. She prefers newsprint to shiny pages, for starters, so maybe reading on glass would just feel weird. Still, watching her slowly make her way through T.C. Boyle’s The Women when she visited here last month was heartbreaking. In the old days, when her eyes were stronger, she could have finished five novels in the time it was taking her to get through Part 1 of this one.

She called today, having just downloaded another novel by T. C. Boyle, her new favorite writer. I haven’t heard her sound so happy since the day I told her I was finally going to finish college. “I love it,” she said. “I can see the pages so much better.” She also likes the way it saves her place from one session to the next, how she can curl up on the couch with it and read in dim light. “You may not get a thank-you card from me,” she warned at the end of our conversation. “In fact, I don’t want to see anyone, go anywhere, or do anything else but READ!”

You go, Ma. I can’t wait to hear about your downloads. Maybe you’ll even be willing to show me how to use that thing when I see you next.

In Memoriam: Quinton Duval

Quinton Duval passed away on May 10. A fine poet, a teacher, and the editor and publisher of Red Wing Press, Quinton was a big-hearted man who will be greatly missed. He is the author of four poetry collections, including Joe’s Rain from Cedar House Books. More recently, Rattlesnake Press published his chapbook Among Summer Pines. I have been reading and rereading “Morning Tea,” that book’s last poem since hearing of his death. Here are the last several lines:

Before I left, I saw you set out

the blue bowl full of speckled eggs

and a plate of June peaches.

After breakfast, find Bobo the fisherman

and his four sons. Tell them to bring rope

and a sheet of plywood. I’ve never had

a ride on plywood. I’ve never loved anywhere

as much as here, with you. I’d do it again

in a minute. You know me.

I’ve never had enough.

Linda Dove just alerted me to this wonderful review of Eleanor, Eleanor, not your real name over on the Rattle blog: http://rattle.com/blog/2010/03/eleanor-eleanor-real-kathryn-cowles/ And in case I haven’t mentioned it, another Bear Star won the most recent Rattle prize of $5,000. That would be Lynne Knight. Both these poets are a bit shy about self-promotion, so I’m happy to step in and ballyhoo their success for them. That’s what the Bear is for, after all.

And speaking of bears, I liked the one above, trying hard to see what was going on last week inside the Denver Convention Center.

AWP/CLMP

Yes, it's that time of year again. The time when hundreds of small literary presses hump their goods to the annual conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, this year in Denver. It's a crazy, chaotic adventure every time, but I always enjoy the chance to talk with other editors and publishers, to meet writers, and to share information about Bear Star. And of course to sell a few books. AWP has for several years now joined forces with the Council of Literary Magazines & Presses, a shrewd pairing that serves both organizations in myriad ways. I am looking forward to the CLMP panel on ebook technology, and I always love seeing the array of books my colleagues display. It's humbling and exhilarating.



If you're going, I hope you stop by Bear Star's table in Exhibit Hall A--Table J22--which is shared this year by Helicon Nine Editions. The following Bear Star writers will be signing books at the table:

• Steve Gutierrez (Live from Fresno y Los): TH at 1 pm


• Jeanne E. Clark (Gorrill's Orchard): TH at 2 pm


• Linda Dove (In Defense of Objects): F at 1:30 pm

Feeding the People

There's a Bear Star there in the photo above. Last night Stephen Gutierrez (r, with host Rob Davidson, professor & fiction writer at CSU, Chico) gave a rousing reading of two stories from his book Live from Fresno y Los. Though he claimed never to have presented "Feeding the People" before, we wouldn't have known it from his inspired performance, the way he channeled Walter, the two Helens, the Wetbacks Extempore, and the fictional audience hungry--no, starved--for a miracle. Bravo, Steve, and big thanks to Chico State's Writer's Voice series for bringing him to campus.