wow!

It's been nearly a month since I blogged! Partially, this is because I have been busy revising The Pleasure Palace, my new novel, and getting my poetry manuscript ready for submission to a small press, an imprint through the literary magazine in which one of my poems has just been accepted. No guarantees about the poetry book, but I will have a short interview through the magazine, which is called The Collagist and can be found by clicking the title of this post. My poem is going to come out around March 15th and I am going to do a short interview and possibly a podcast for the magazine, the latter to be determined.

I just did a reading for Poet Speak of Santa Cruz, a long-standing reading series. I saw many old friends, got a couple of contacts, and had a marvelous time on a rainy day. I have begun to write poetry again after a long absence and it feels good.

And I've been cooking soup. Lots of soup. I don't eat meat much anymore, and am straying into vegan territory, so have been experimenting with vegan soups. Recently made a butternut squash/sweet potato soup with cardamom, ginger, coriander, and garam masala, with a touch of chipotle powder for a bit of smokiness, and tossed in a roasted apple also, and blended it all up. Curiuosly, when blended, the cardamom (whole pods, crushed) made it quite spicy. A good meal for this rainy Santa Cruz weather, bright orange and lovely in a white bowl.