it's here!

I'm so excited and tired today. After a morning of washing and drying two huge comforters at the laundromat in town while reading poems by Jack Gilbert and Ted Kooser and then going to the recycle center with five bags of bottles, tin cans, newspapers, then grocery shopping, I'm pooped. But excited because the SOMOS retrospective anthology, Chokecherries, finally arrived from the printer and it is all I'd hoped for!

This is the editing job I've been working on forever and hinting at for weeks. The covers display two panoramic photographs by Gus Foster - one on the front, another on the back. Foster is an amazing photographer whose panoramic photos (when not reduced to standard book size) are 12-17 feet long! He uses special cameras and prints using a huge enlarger of his own design. Inside, is an interview with him. This annual edition is a retrospective of the works of writers who were invited by SOMOS (The Society of the Muse of the Southwest) to read their work in various series and events during 2009. This is the 15th edition of Chokecherries and it's one of the best. There are also photographers, artists, and a fiber artist within its pages, as well as poems, prose and essays. It will be officially introduced on Friday night during the Summer Writers Series and can be ordered from somos@somostaos.net.