Happy Booker/ Party Girl

The Happy Booker attended a wonderful book party this weekend at the home of writers Howard Norman and Jane Shore in honor of David McAleavey’s new book of poetry, Huge Haiku.

Creative writing instructors from George Washington University were out in full-force, including Vikram Chandra, Maxine Clair, Patricia Griffith, and Faye Moskowitz . All gathered to hear McAleavey read from his new book, a collection of seventeen sets of seventeen poems, each with seventeen lines, each with seventeen syllables. Got that? I wasn’t sure I did, but after hearing “Mayo, ham & cheese (originally in Ploughshares ), and “The contest between" (from Poetry), the Happy Booker was hooked and gladly parted with her hard-earned cash to get a copy!

The Happy Booker had a chance to catch up with new friend, Joyce Hackett , the Jenny McKean Moore Writer at George Washington, and hear how she’s making the adjustment to living in DC. Hackett has a great project in mind for the fall, and has been busy contacting local writers about hosting community workshops in some very “un-workshop” type spaces—stay tuned for more info!

Also in attendance was Deb Ager, the creative force behind 32 Poems, and Richard Peabody— the latest edition of his literary magazine Gargoyle is reviewed here .

There was a lot of buzz at the party about Liz Poliner’s first book Mutual Life and Casualty , and her recent reading at Politics and Prose. The book, published by Permanent Press, seems to have a very good DC fan-base; the Happy Booker is looking forward to reading it.

Another book that I cannot wait to get my hands on is Mother of Sorrows, by Richard McCann. Eighteen years in the making, this new book contains one of my all time favorite short stories: “My Mother’s Clothes: The School of Beauty and Shame." And if you don’t believe my raving praise, check this out:

"Richard McCann’s Mother of Sorrows is almost unbearably beautiful. It is, purely and simply, the real thing–a book so intricately felt, so magnificently written, that it can stand unembarrassed beside the mystery of life itself. It has immediately joined the small body of books I keep close by, for the times I need reminding of the heights we can attain using only ink and paper.”
—Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

Mother of Sorrows releases in a few weeks and we’re going to try to get Richard McCann to come over to the blog for a little visit to talk about his new book and why we had to wait so damn long for him to write it!