First book happiness
The deadline for the SC Poetry Initiative’s poetry book contest passed earlier this week. I’ve been thinking a lot about the first book contest, because I won only a year ago, and my book will be out very soon, scheduled to be published on March 15. Most poets nowadays get their first book published through a contest, and we’re lucky to have something like this here in South Carolina. I got a copy of the uncorrected page proofs on Tuesday–the day of this year’s deadline– and what a thrill! A brief moment of panic, before someone from USC press reassured me that those were “uncorrected” page proofs, and all the edits I’d submitted would, indeed, be in the book as published. And then I was giddy all day paging through it. There’s a painting by Mike Williams on the cover– he’s a Southern painter whose work I really admire, and I’m so thrilled to have his work on the cover. And it’s just so beautiful! The press sent me a copy of the cover on Wednesday, and I was giddy all over again with the beauty of it. Ray McManus told me when he got his first copy of his book (he was the previous winner), he wanted to go to bed with it, till his wife told him that was sick. Two more weeks and I’ll see mine!