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There are a few copies left of Pebble Lake Review vol. 2. Shop our Year-End Clearance Sale: back issues from this past year are only $4 each or you can purchase the bundle pack for $20. Visit our subscription page for more information.

Click on over to Steven Schroeder's Blog to see Andrew Kozma's poem (from Pebble Lake Review) listed on his updated "Best Of."

Auld Lang Syne

What are your New Year's Eve Plans? My friend Halli and I are going to have dinner (the place is TBD) and my friend Eddy and I are going to ring the new year in at a decidedly dive-ish bar, probably somewhere similar to Cecil's, since most places around town, even the standbys are charging $20-40 just to get in the door. So ridiculous.

Tonight, my husband and I are headed over to the hospital to visit my mom and my sister, then to Brasil to hear The Scattered Pages perform from 10-midnight. I love this new local band. I think my favorite song is "Virginia Woolf." If you are in the area and get a chance, go see them tonight (and say hello to me and Jeff).

Tomorrow night, Jeff and I are going to make another attempt to see a movie. Any suggestions?

Update on my sister Samantha: This is day 12 of her coma, unfortunately. She has been moved to a tracheotomy and a J-tube (a feeding tube inserted into her large intestines). She has developed shock-diabetes and is using an insulin pump to regular her blood sugar. She also has developed an infection and is being treated with three different antibiotics (at one time, her fever reached 104). However, the most recent CAT-scan shows great improvement in her brain and it looks to be healing very nicely and is almost returned to normal. Everyone has been asking when Sam might wake from her coma. According to her doctors, "each patient has a different timeline for healing."

Thank you all for you continued comments, emails, and phone calls. Have a fun and safe New Year's!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of you! I hope you received (and gave!) many special gifts and enjoyed this season with light-seeing, tree-decorating, and hot chocolate. I am very thankful for the gifts I received:

1. Happy Endings and Me and You and Everyone We Know DVDs
2. James Avery oval hoop earrings
3. Very Sexy for Her 2 perfume
4. Moleskine Journal
5. The Voice of the Poet: Robert Lowell
6. Too Faced Sugar Smack
7. Selected Poems of James Wright and First Four Books (Louise Gluck)
8. Writers: Photographs
9. KitchenAid tea kettle
10. Word of Mouth: Poems from NPR
11. Panasonic Microwave
12. Jolie Holland (Escondia) CD
13. Fleece sweater, Sparkle tunic and V-neck
14. 2006 Desk Diary and Poetry Speaks boxed calendar

I appreciate your support during this difficult time. It was nice to be with my friends and family during this holiday season and do "normal" things. Some sad news: the 18 year-old boy who was riding in the SUV with my sister died this morning. We are all thinking about him and his family. I hope you all have a safe, joyous holiday and please keep us in your thoughts.

Update

I would like to give a big thank you to those of you who have called, blogged, or emailed your concerns and thoughts. It really helps during a time like this. I'm trying to cope by keeping things as normal as possible--laundry, Christmas shopping, grocery shopping, phone calls--between hospital visits.

An update on my sister's condition: she has been in a coma for one week today. Her breathing tube was changed yesterday to a larger one to give her more air. She is also still on the feeding machine. She is non-responsive to verbal commands (such as "raise your hand") and has yet to open her eyes on her own in reflex. Her brain swelling still fluctuates, but has gone down with the assistance of a morphine drip and a steroid injection. Samantha gets a CAT-scan every day and there is evidence of fractures on her back, but luckily there is no spinal cord damage. Her body reflexes are good as well. Surgery is planned to repair her crushed pelvis later this afternoon.

Critical

Please pray for my little sister, Samantha. On Friday night, she was riding with her friend and his little sister (his mother was driving) when they were struck from behind by a drunk driver who was trying to evade arrest and driving at a high speed. She is in extremely critical condition with severe head trauma. She is in a coma and on a breathing machine and a feeding tube. There is damage to her lungs, liver, and spleen and she has a broken leg, clavicle, and ribs.

Moreover, no one notified our family until today (Sunday). A family friend read the article about the accident in the Baytown Sun and called my Mom. The police failed to contact my parents, as did the hospital.

New Issue of PLR & a Sale

The Fall/Winter 2005 issue of Pebble Lake Review is now online!

In this issue: work by Edward Byrne, Ilya Kaminsky, Erin Lambert, Lyn Lifshin, Erin Elizabeth Smith, and more. Check out reviews of Leilani Hall's Swimming the Witch, Peter Covino's Cut Off the Ears of Winter, and Rachel Contreni Flynn's Ice, Mouth, Song.

Pebble Lake Review is having a Year-End Clearance Sale! Back issues from this past year are only $4 each or you can purchase all five PLR 2005 issues for $20. Visit our subscription page for more information.

The print version of PLR 2005 has been shipped to our contributors and subscribers. If you would like a copy of this issue, please visit our website for ordering information.

Gossip Hound

My friend Addie just told me that Columbia bought the film rights from Nick Flynn (her good friend and next-door neighbor when he's here in Houston) for his astounding memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.

If you have never heard of Nick (and shame on you), he's the author of two excellent collections of poetry, Some Ether, Blind Huber, the above mentioned memoir, and co-authored A Note Slipped Under the Door: Teaching From Poems We Love. He's a former poetry instructor of mine and wrote my recommendation for the Bucknell Younger Poets Seminar and for my current MFA apps. He's also dating the actress Lili Taylor.

OK, enough gossip for now. Go read his books. Go see Six Feet Under. Wait for the movie. Repeat.

Prize Update

Addendum to my most recent post:

I found out today that I am the recipient of the 2005 James Wright Poetry Award from Mid-American Review, judged by Virgil Suarez.

I've been working on final exams (just completed) and on my honors thesis, so I've been pretty stressed out and overwhelmed. I'm glad to go into the holiday season with some great news!

Overwhelmed

I received an email this morning from Karen Craigo at Mid-American Review saying that one of my poems is a top 5 finalist (to be judged by Virgil Suarez) for the 2005 James Wright Poetry Award. The winner of this prize has not been decided, but whether I win or not, I am so thrilled to be a finalist for such a great award!

I also got an email from D. Antwan Stewart at Bat City Review saying they will be publishing two of my poems in their next issue. Poets who have appeared in BCR include: Norman Dubie, Paul Muldoon, C.K. Williams, Franz Wright, and C. Dale Young. Overwhelmed, indeed.

One Long Blue Streak

Exciting-just-heard-it-oh-my-gosh-news: Catherine Dent from Harpur Palate left a message on my answering machine today telling me that I won their Milton Kessler Poetry Contest for my poem "Dark Sky, White Sands New Mexico, 1956."

This makes me feel a lot better (especially when I'm in the middle of applying for MFA programs, which is completely exhausting and nerve-wracking.) I plan to finish my application letter this weekend and finalize my portfolio. My writing resume is completed and the three letters of recommendations have been sent off (thank you a million times Matthea Harvey, Nick Flynn, and David St. John). Still, I'm pretty much freaking out.

I've been really busy: final exams (French), studying for the GRE (Dec.12), writing two papers, preparing MFA applications packets (University of Houston, Warren Wilson, New England College, Antioch University, Bennington College, Goddard College, Fairleigh Dickinson University), and getting ready for the holidays (cleaning house, buying presents, wrapping said presents, decorating the house for the holiday party). A swirl of endless events. I plan to sit down tonight and work on some poems and begin reading for my honors thesis (on the poety of Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and Frieda Hughes).

I'm making something for a few of my poetry friends (but can't say it here for fear they will read this and then the surprise will be lost). I'm really excited about this project and it's got me thinking about some of my favorite all-time poems. God, that's a hard one to pin down. What I can say is that I am really enjoying A.E. Stalling's "The Man Who Wouldn't Plant Willow Trees," which you can listen to at The Cortland Review.

I also really love Louise Gluck's poem "The Red Poppy" and of course, "Skunk Hour" by Robert Lowell. What are your favorite poems?