What Are YOU Reading?

March is NZ Book Month in New Zealand - a celebration of books and reading and words. I thought I'd let you know what I'm reading this March: I always have at least one book each of poetry, fiction and non-fiction on the go at any one time so that I have something to read no matter what mood I'm in.

Poetry:

• Stepping Stones: a way into haiku by Martin Lucas (British Haiku Society, 2007)
• And poetry journals that have arrived in March - Kokako 16, paper wasp: a journal of haiku 18:1, Ribbons 7:4.

Fiction:

•  The Carpathians by Janet Frame (First published in 1988)
• And I have just finished reading The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker (Simon & Schuster UK, 2009)

Non-fiction:

• Dreams and the search for meaning by Peter O'Connor (Methuen Haynes, 1986)
• And I'm reading aloud to hubby Marie-Louise von Franz: The Classic Jungian and The Classic Jungian Tradition edited by James A. Hall and Daryl Sharp (Inner City Books, 2008)

I've also bought five books so far this month (all 2nd-hand). At the NZ Book Month website you can download a $5 book voucher to discount your next book purchase. That’s for ANY book you choose priced over $10 from participating bookstores. Get all the details here.

I'd love to hear about what you're reading. Please feel free to share in the comments section, whether it's a book, journal or blog!

My 2nd Cancerversary

Yep, today is the day that I was diagnosed with leukaemia two years ago. I'm still in remission (yay!) and I have about five months of maintenance treatment left (double yay!) so almost at the end of it all now. If you haven't already, you can read a bit about my leukaemia journey here on the Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand website (don't worry, there are no gory details!).

I wanted to take a moment to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has been part of my treatment and recovery over the past two years: my family and friends, my doctors and nurses, my fellow writers, bloggers, Facebookers and haiku poets. I greatly appreciate your support and encouragement, your kind words and friendship :) You all have made this journey a much easier one to get through. THANK YOU!



          as I'm driven

          to the Cancer Centre

          an old man

          sits on his porch

          playing the guitar 

Ribbons 7:4 Winter 2011

Writing haiku and tanka over the past two years has also helped me enormously in processing my journey through leukaemia. I was so pleased to get an email yesterday telling me that I had four tanka short-listed for this year's Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume 4, all of which are part of my cancer collection. (And yes, it was one of my secret 2011 goals to get in this anthology:) Maybe this time next year I will have my book (with the working title, Patient Property) ready and published: my third anniversary would be the perfect time to launch it! 

November Round-Up - The Hills Are Alive With Haiku

Gosh, so much happened in November that I don't know where to begin! Definitely the busiest month this year, jam-packed with good things. It started with a short honeymoon after my partner and I were wed on 31 October. A week after getting back we bought a house. Then about two weeks after that we moved!

We've been in our new home a week now and are enjoying the quiet and quirks that come with a life lived in the country. One change that we weren't expecting was the downscale to dial-up Internet. Although it is kinda cool to be so rural that we can't get broadband. It means you have to slow down. Perfect!

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week four-four - submitted ten haiku to Notes From the Gean, three haiku accepted!
• week forty-five - submitted ten tanka to Ribbons, one tanka accepted!
• week forty-six - submitted five haiku to the Thom Williams Memorial Contest (first time submitting here)
• week forty-seven - submitted five haiku and five tanka to paper wasp (awaiting outcome)
• week forty-eight - submitted five haiku and five tanka to Kokako (awaiting outcome)

November saw my poetry appear in a handful of stones twice, and my first week of haiku published on DailyHaiku, which you can read here. I was very pleased to see that the 'bride-to-be' haiku went on-line the day before I got married!

Only four weeks left now of submitting each week and I would have achieved the goal I set for myself in the first week of January. I won't be keeping it up in 2012 (especially not with dial-up!) but I'm sure I'll find another challenge to excite my senses. There is certainly a lot of haiku to be found around these parts :)

August Round-Up - It Was All In The Cards

August saw me getting crafty making birthday cards for family members: see my mum's one here and the ones for my niece and nephew in Canada here. I also began on a card project of a different kind: thinking about a collage I could make with all the cards I received while in hospital. You can read my post about that here, and I will keep you updated on my (very slow) progress.

I had a haiku appear in Melissa Allen's Red Dragonfly blog post about dragonflies: see my contribution here and the full post in all it's glory here. A recommended read, for sure! And speaking of reading: I'm doing a daily one from Martin Lucas' Stepping Stones: a way into haiku. The haiku are top drawer and I'm learning new things all the time. You can get your copy here.

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week thirty-one - submitted five haiku, seven tanka and one haibun to Presence, one tanka accepted!
• week thirty-two - submitted ten haiku/senryu to Chrysanthemum (first time submitting here), one haiku accepted!
• week thirty-three - submitted ten tanka to Ribbons (first time submitting here), awaiting outcome
• week thirty-four - submitted five haiku to the Katikati Mural Festival collaborative arts project

August was a very low energy month for me so lots of resting was done.
This is a sight I saw often: the shadow of the trees and a bird ornament
with a crystal casting many shapes and rainbows on the drawn curtains.

September is already in full swing: the September issue of Kokako has come out with my paper cranes image on the cover, the new edition of The Heron's Nest has been released containing one of my haiku, and my first column as editor of the haikai section of a fine line (the Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society) is in NZPS members' in-boxes and mailboxes. Happy haikuing to you!