publication

Poetry sale: ‘The Alchemist’s Lover’

Published on by Sara Norja

I’m amused by the fact that my most recent publications both have ‘lover’ in the title. In other words: ‘The Alchemist’s Lover’ will be published in the next issue (‘Alchemies’) of CSHS. Yay!

I’m currently applying for a PhD, and since my data consists of some medieval English alchemical texts, of course I had to submit alchemy-inspired poetry to the ‘Alchemies’ issue. I’m really glad this poem in particular has found a home. The issue will be up very soon – I’ll post a link when it’s available!

(Now back to tweaking my research proposal. Editing is fun but challenging – in academic as well as creative writing.)

‘Helsinki Love Song’ online in Wild Violet

Published on by Sara Norja

My poem ‘Helsinki Love Song’ is one of the featured works in Wild Violet’s Valentine’s Day week series.

‘Helsinki Love Song’

I don’t like Valentine’s Day much due to the focus on a very restricted type of love – Finland is better in that respect, because here it’s known as ystävänpäivä, ‘Friend Day’, and is marketed with less of an emphasis on the heteronormative syrupy give-her-roses type romance. Much more inclusive of all kinds of love. 🙂

‘Helsinki Love Song’ is described by the Wild Violet folks as “celebrat[ing] the emotion produced by a place”. Accurate. This city has its ups and downs, but I love it. At the moment I wrote the poem (in August 2012) I was feeling a particularly delirious love for Helsinki and the weird, wonderful things that can take place here.

Have a good Friend Day, and I hope you enjoy the poem! I love the picture chosen to go with it, too – very evocative of the late-summer beauty that inspired the poem.

Poetry publication: Two poems in Chantarelle’s Notebook

Published on by Sara Norja

Issue #33 of Chantarelle’s Notebook is now up! It’s full of good stuff (I especially liked the poems by Azar Blanca and Mark Mitchell). The issue includes two of my poems, ‘Ninety-Eight’ and ‘City of Stones’.

I wrote a little bit about the two poems in this post where I announced the publication. I’m especially happy that ‘Ninety-Eight’ is out now: my late granpa (on my dad’s side; pappa, we called him) meant a lot to me, and I feel I’ve managed to catch some essence of him in my words.

Poetry sale: Two poems in Chantarelle’s Notebook

Published on by Sara Norja

My poems ‘Ninety-Eight’ and ‘City of Stones’ will be appearing in Issue #33 of Chantarelle’s Notebook – yay!

‘Ninety-Eight’ is a companion piece of sorts to ‘Microhistory’. It’s about family history too, specifically my late grandfather (on my dad’s side).

‘City of Stones’ is one of several poems inspired by my walks in my local graveyard (which also happens to be one of Helsinki’s most historically notable graveyards). I’m more hippy than gothy, but nonetheless I find graveyards to be intriguing and inspiring places. I love wandering around looking at the oldest gravestones, struck by the personal histories still shining through in names, dates and epitaphs.

Poetry publication: Two poems in Snakeskin

Published on by Sara Norja

Two of my poems are now online in the December issue of Snakeskin:

‘Microhistory’ and ‘Rain-washed’.

Both of these were written last summer. ‘Rain-washed’ happened after a glorious thunderstorm. I always have to rush out to get drenched at least once a summer – there’s something wonderful about getting completely wet when the air is warm, and it doesn’t happen in Finland all that often.

I’m particularly pleased that ‘Microhistory’ has found an online home. I wrote it in August after a family gathering in Southern Ostrobothnia, where my dad’s side comes from. My grandpa would have been 100 years old this year, so we celebrated his birthday with reminiscences, laughter and excellent food. All of it got me thinking about family and my place in it, and ‘Microhistory’ was one of the results (another poem came out of that celebration, and I’m hoping to find a home for it as well).

Poetry sale: Wild Violet Magazine

Published on by Sara Norja

I’m happy to announce that my poem ‘Helsinki Love Song’ has been accepted for publication in Wild Violet. I’ll post a link when the poem is published!

It was great to get some good poetry news, because I’ve been bogged down with work and an insidious stress that chooses, at inopportune moments, to make everything feel overwhelming. In other words, haven’t really had the mental energy for writing – although I did write a couple of new poems on Saturday.

But my editing work with Dim Vanities has progressed very little: thus the total lack of Nanowrimo posts. I feel bad about that, but I’m trying to put things into perspective. If you try to do five billion things at once and most of them just have to be done, the things that don’t have an immediate deadline will inevitably get put on hold.

Interfictions #2 is out! Including my most personal piece so far…

Published on by Sara Norja

This wasn’t intended to be a two-post day, but I just checked the Interfictions webpage and noticed that Issue #2 is up!

Thus, I am extremely proud and happy to say that you can now read my piece ‘Orthography: A Personal History’ here.

You can also listen to me read it – God, it was terrifying to do a reading of this poem, but I managed it, and hopefully did not entirely mangle the piece.

Why was it terrifying? Well, even submitting the whole piece in the first place was terrifying. As I mentioned in this post, it’s the most personal piece I’ve submitted and had accepted so far. To have it online now is both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.

What the hell, I’ll just quote myself:

‘Orthography: A Personal History’ is a mixture of things. It consists of poetic prose and verse “lectures”. It deals with palaeography, orthography, multilingualism, language history, and (surprise!) my personal history.

It’s the most personal piece I’ve submitted so far, delving into my childhood history through writing and my relationship with my two languages, Finnish and English. Fictionalised, of course, but still: me, my deepest self. It’s scary and exhilarating to think that other people will read such a thing.

The fictional cover is so much thinner in this piece than in most of my others. Did I mention this is terrifying? But that’s part of what writing is about: having the guts to put your soul out there for others to see.

So, dear readers. Go forth and read a piece of my soul.

(And read the rest of the issue too! It looks amazing. I am in love with this magazine.)

‘Bitter Mnemosyne’ available online!

Published on by Sara Norja

Tonight, after my work day followed by two hours of volunteer work for a folk music organisation whose board I’m in, I’ve been doing poetry stuff. Submitted a few poems; edited a poem from February that I came across in my notebook; decided to read that and another short poem at tomorrow’s writers’ group meeting. This is one of the reasons I like writing my poems’ first drafts mainly by hand – by riffling through my notebook, I sometimes come across stuff I’ve totally forgotten but which is worth editing and sending off into the wide world.

In my poetry-related meanderings on the interwebs, I discovered that Issue 25 of Niteblade has got enough funding, so now the whole issue is free to read online. Read my poem ‘Bitter Mnemosyne’ in full here!

Also, I tinkered around with my publications page (with valuable input from a friend), trying to figure out ways to present the information logically and consistently. Yes, I really need to get back into academia…

Poetry sale: Interfictions

Published on by Sara Norja

I’m extremely happy to announce that my piece ‘Orthography: A Personal History’ will be published in Interfictions.

It’s really exciting to be part of a new, intriguing publication like Interfictions. And I’m so pleased my piece found a home! I call it a poetry sale, although really – true to the spirit of Interfictions – ‘Orthography: A Personal History’ is a mixture of things. It consists of poetic prose and verse “lectures”. It deals with palaeography, orthography, multilingualism, language history, and (surprise!) my personal history.

It’s the most personal piece I’ve submitted so far, delving into my childhood history through writing and my relationship with my two languages, Finnish and English. Fictionalised, of course, but still: me, my deepest self. It’s scary and exhilarating to think that other people will read such a thing.