Columbia, SC launch site for "The Botleys of Beaumont County" set

      Right now I am not going to reveal it, except to say that it is very accessible and welcoming!

     I need to get the books in hand. We are a few days from having it available. There will be a virtual event for that!

     More to come.....

Interview with Poet Kelli Russell Agodon

      One of the best things about being a poet is getting to know other poets. I am honored that Kelli Russell Agodon agreed to this interview. 

     1. What inspired you to be a poet? It could be someone you know or someone you read.

           For a long time, I didn't realize one could "be a poet." I'm not sure what I thought- that poets were dead or in Ireland, or that one may write poetry but didn't call themselves "a poet." At the University of Washington as an undergrad, I took a class from Linda Bierds and realized that one could actually be a poet in the world. She was the first person who suggested I send out a poem. Within the next year, I started to see myself as a poet and change my life over the next six years to follow that path.

     2. Where you live appears often in your poems. Have you lived there a long time? Why is place important to you?

          I was born and raised in Seattle and have lived my entire life here in the area- in fact, all of my homes are within a 30-mile radius as the crow flies- though now I am separated from Seatlle by a ferry ride and a floating bridge. The Pacific Northwest has always been my backdrop. As a kid, I hated it, Seatlle seemed so boring. I wanted to move to California where there were palm trees and warm beaches. Seattle became a little more interesting in the 90s with the grunge scene and as I've grown older, I appreciate it so much more- our seasons, the clean air, the evergreen, the hiking trails, the bodies of water with their orcas, porpoises, seals, and others. I feel this area knows me and I understand it in a deep way that I know no other place.

     3. Copper Canyon sounds like a wonderful publisher. Tell about your experience with them.

          They have been a dream to work with- every editor, publicist, intern, everyone on the team has been a joy and acts with kindness. Things are very well organized and I appreciated how much care my book received. I also see how everyone at Copper Canyon Press has a fierce devotion to poetry and making the world a better place with what they publish and with their action in the world. And because they are local and my editor, Michael Wiegers, is also a paddleboarder, I have been able to have meetings with him on our paddleboards, so that was an unexpected treat of being part of the Copper Canyon family!

    4. Two Sylvias Press fills a real need. How did it come into existence?

        Accidentally. Around 2009i, my friend, Annette Spaulding-Convy and I were coming back from Seattle on a ferry and we decided to publish an eBook anthology of contemporary women's poetry because there wasn't one in the world at the time. We created the anthology, then realized there were no poetry presses that had any idea how to do an eBook and the formatting for poetry was a mess back then. if you remember. So we thought-- we'll just publish it ourselves! And Two Sylvias PRess was born to publish that book.

       Once we had a press, we publish The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice and then reprinted some of our friends' poetry books where their press had folded. The next thing we knew, e had several titles and we just didn't stop.

     5. You devote a lot of your time to teaching and mentoring. How do you manage to nourish your creativity?

        Nature. Devoting time to myself for my own writing. Solitude. MEditation. Hikes and walks. Long hours of paddleboarding and observing the sea and local seabirds. Reading books. Napping. Keeping the kind and supportive people around me. Turning off my phone. Signing offline. Spend less of my time looking at a screen and more of my time looking at sky.

     6. Is there anything else you would like to mention?

        Just that I am raising money for the Skagit River Poetry Foundation by teaching a generative writing class where we will spend the afternoon writing poetry from fun and surrealist prompts. It's open to all levels of poets and you didn't have to know ANYTHING about surrealism, just come with a sense of adventure, openness, and play and we will write some poems! Also, everyone who signs up receives a copy of my new book, Dialogues with Rising Tides. Here's the link to learn more: https://www.agodon.com/classes.html

BIO

Keli Russell Agodon is the author of four collections of poetry. Her newest book is Dialogues with Rising Tides published by Copper Canyon Press. Kellis is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press, where she works as an editor and book cover designer. She lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State on traditional lands of the Chimacum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam, and Suquamish people where she is an avid paddleboarder and hiker. She teachers at Pacific Lutheran University's low-residency MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com

    

Genesis of the Novel

   Getting closer to the launch! About 40 years ago I started writing a novel. Parts of it appear in this one. There was a church whose pastor went off the deep end. I based that on a story I read in the Philadelphia Inquirer who claimed there was a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary in his church. There was a lot of excitement over that, and eventually, the bishop wanted to stop it. The priest then declared himself to be the true pope, and a week or so later also declared himself patriarch of Constantinople. He later went off with his followers somewhere.

    St. Clement's Episcopal church plays a major role in my novel. Especially in the South, this was the prestigious denomination. Years ago I met someone who told me when his career took off, he was invited to join the local parish. I have been licensed as a supply priest in a few dioceses, and know the lay fo the land, so to speak.

    Obviously, the Botleys have been long-time members of the parish. And it has had some excitement@

The Botleys of Beaumont County"- How Slerd Botley Morphed Over the Years

 

     When I was in high school near Philadelphia, Ronzoni Pasta had ads about expanding its market from Italian-Americans. There was a very upper-class person from the exclusive bastions of WASP-ness, extolling how good Ronzoni products tasted. His name was something like J. Bryce Cadwallader IV. The ads always ended with him chanting "We want Ronzoni, out here in Devon! Out here in ___!"

     The Main Line was across the Schuykill River from us. It was for the elite, the rich, for families that had been there forever. Practically everyone was a WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant). MY are was not that way at all. 

     Since I was on the staff of the school newspapers and ended up as editor-in-chief, I wrote a lot;: mainly satire.  Slerd Botley was my quintessentially clueless WASP. 

     When I revisited my novel after many years of doing other things, I kept the name. But Slerd moved south and is not all that clueless. Conflicted, confused, yes. But he is the type of guy I would hang out with.

     The Botleys of Beaumont County...out this month on Blurb.

    I could not find those ads, but here is one from about a decade later. It is a gem!

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IwM9nV25m8

  In the meantime, why not read some of my poetry if you haven't already?

https://www.amazon.com/Arthur-Turfa/e/B00YJ9LNOA%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

https://www.blurb.com/b/10335105-all-in-the-family-2nd-edition

 

Location of "The Botleys of Beaumont County"

    This story could actually take place anywhere because human nature really is the same all over. I set the story in the Southeastern USA since I have lived here for over one-fourth of my life. That gives the book a southern flavor, and I am not speaking only about the mustard-based barbecue! Actually, that is my favorite, although I do not turn any of it down.

   Where I am from (Pennsylvania), barbecue is a verb. It really means grill. In the South, it is a noun and refers to another process altogether. 

    Incidentally, the German colonists added mustard to barbecue. I am very glad that they did!

    The Botleys of Beaumont County will be out later this month on Blurb!

 

Final edits on the Botleys...but working on a poem

 Carol and I are still editing "The Botleys of Beaumont County" (coming soon on Blurb). Now I'm taking a break and editing a poem!

Cover Reveal Today for "The Botleys of Beaumont County"

     It's finally here! The book will be available soon on Blurb. Carol Worthington-Levy has created another stunning cover for me.

     My first novel starts on Election Day 2008 and follows a once-prominent family coping with changes in every phase of life.

     Want to read some of my poetry in the meantime? 

 https://www.amazon.com/Arthur-Turfa/e/B00YJ9LNOA%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share