What a joy to share the reading stage here at week 1 of the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing with Samantha Ocena, reading her poetry, and Randi Ocena, reading her poetry and fiction!
Samantha Ocena, reading her poetry
Randi Ocena, reading her poetry and fiction
My poetry book has been out for over 3 years by this point but somehow seeing that there’s a copy in the library system of the university where I went as an undergraduate, seeing the book beneath the image of that library where I spent so many blissful hundreds of hours face pressed into books or writing endless poems in carrels on the upper floors… It brings me over all sentimental.
Many misty-eyed thank yous to editor Brian Daldorph and the Coal City Review & Press for this issue’s generous, insightful review of my first poetry book The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy published by Steel Toe Books in 2015.
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed about contemporary American poetry, prose poetry, and my book The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy (Steel Toe Books, 2015) on The Campbell Conversations on WRVO by Grant Reeher, Director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University. In case you missed yesterday’s broadcast, you can stream or download the show HERE. And thanks for listening!
As the flowers begin their tentative, premature piercings of the frozen topsoil here in sunny Syracuse, tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the publication of my first book of poetry, The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy. Thanks again to the wonderful poets who generously provided blurbs for my book: Erika Meitner, Catherine Bowman, Maurice Manning, and Amy Gerstler! Thank you to everyone who has read it, including those kind souls who have rated and reviewed it on Amazon, B&N, and Goodreads. It’s been a great year! If you’d like a copy, you can buy one from Amazon, Barnes and Noble Online, or direct from the publisher Steel Toe Books. If you’d like to request a review copy, just contact me directly. And thanks again for reading!
A huge, massive, thundering thank you to Phil Memmer, Georgia Popoff, and to my students and my fellow instructors at The Downtown Writer’s Center August Occasion Writing Retreat last month at the Harding Farm in Clinton, NY. That was an amazing and inspiring day.
This was also the first time I read aloud from my new book, The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy. An experience I won’t ever forget.
Three months ago my first book of poetry, The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy, was published by Steel Toe Books. I’ve made an author page at Amazon to celebrate.
My first book of poetry, The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy by Christopher Citro, has just been published by Steel Toe Books, an independent press affiliated with Western Kentucky University. The price is $12 plus shipping and handling.
You can order today from Amazon and Barnes & Noble Online.
Visit my website to read sample poems and blurbs about the book from poets Amy Gerstler, Catherine Bowman, Maurice Manning and Erika Meitner.
Bookstores and educators can contact the publisher directly for information on discounts and ordering in bulk.
I am overjoyed, over-the-moon, overwhelmed and quite frickin’ excited to announce that my first poetry book manuscript, The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy, has been selected for publication by Steel Toe Books, an independent poetry press founded in 2003, directed by Tom C. Hunley and associated with Western Kentucky University.
I love this press and I’m so excited that they’ll be publishing my book, which is scheduled to appear in the first quarter of 2015.
It is indeed a Happy New Year!
[Author photo above looking a bit pensive with an early version of the manuscript taped up on my office wall, wondering if it would ever find a home…]
