​Hello from San Diego, where all the wonderful, literary things appear to be happening while I'm at a medical conference! Yesterday, my second guest post Define Your Goals and Theme to Unify Your Manuscript went live through the generous poet and blogger, Trish Hopkinson’s site. If you haven’t read the first of the installment, feel free to visit The Art of Reframing Your Poetry Manuscript. I hope you’ll find the information useful for reframing and reshaping your collections. Oh, and did I mention that I do market and manuscript consultations? It’s true! Click on Hire Natasha for more information.
 
Beyond that, what a lovely surprise to hear that a new and beautiful review of my latest chapbook, A Nation (Imagined), published a year ago by Floating Bridge Press, just went live through Risa Denenberg’s site. Thank you, Risa and Linera Lucas!
 
And the above photo, I reposted from an earlier blog. When I first returned to the NW in 2011, I had quite the rejection streak (something like 60+ rejections in a row). I strung them along my wall. Today, I'm sharing the photo again. For me, it serves as a reminder that sometimes acceptance is right around the corner. 

Since July, I have been working many 10-12 hour days to launch my new business, Helios Center for Whole Health, PLLC, located in South King County, WA. While the official website (helioswholehealth.com) won't be up until next week, I want to share a sneak peek of the services I offer. As a licensed naturopathic doctor, I treat my patients with a blended approach targeting the nervous and musculoskeletal system. Although my work is rooted in the naturopathic principle of least force, my hands-on treatments, derived from visceral and craniosacral therapies, have been described as unique, gentle, and effective. For more information, please contact me at dr.natashamoni(at)gmail(dot).com. 

Does this mean that I will be stepping back from writing?
​No, in fact I am leaning into my work just in a slightly different form. In addition to accepting new clients for my freelance medical writing, I am now offering poetry chapbook and market consultations. As a self-taught poet, who has had the excellent fortune of being mentored by world-class writers, I know how important it is to receive honest, constructive criticism. As a former editor of a small, literary magazine, a panelist and judge for local residency, grant, and chapbook contest committees, and a well-published author, I want to share my decades of research, experience, and competitive edge. Visit "Hire Natasha" for more details. 

What about readings, events, workshops?
My next scheduled reading is Thursday, November 14, 2019 at Everett Poetry Night. Beyond this, I am available  in late 2019 depending on time, travel, and compensation. Keep an eye out for health, wellness, and writing workshop information as I transition further into my role of practitioner and teacher.

I am happy to answer any of your questions and/or start a dialogue to see whether we are a good fit. Contact me via my "Contact Page" or directly at dr.natashamoni(at)gmail(dot)com. 

Thank you for your continued support and referrals!

Hello Portland! I'll be dropping into AWP on a Saturday pass to sign books for Two Sylvias Press at the AWP bookfair and Floating Bridge Press at the NW Micropress Fair. Also, I'll be reading Saturday night at the NW Micropress Fair After Party. Hope to see many of y'all there!

Saturday, March 30, 2019
NW Micropress Fair 
The Cleaners at Ace Hotel
1022 SW Harvey Milk St.
Portland, OR 97205
Chapbook Signing for Floating Bridge Press
1:00-1:30 p.m.

AWP Book Fair
Two Sylvias Press Booth 9097
Oregon Convention Center
777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Portland, OR 97232
Book Signing from 2:30-3:00 p.m.

NW Micropress Fair After Party
The Cleaners at Ace Hotel
1022 SW Harvey Milk St.
Portland, OR 97205
Doors Open at 7:30 p.m. 
Readings from 8:00-11:00 p.m.

You know that story we tell ourselves? The one about our songs, poems, and books having an expiration date. While that may be true, when it comes to best sellers, I'm here to say it just doesn't hold, when it comes to impact. Sometimes the work needs to sit, before it finds the right market. Or it needs to be repackaged or rediscovered, to be positioned well for publication or to win a contest or an audience's attention. 

Two weeks ago, my newest chapbook A Nation (Imagined) (winner of the 2018 Floating Bridge Chapbook Contest) successfully launched at Elliott Bay Book Company. All of the poems included were written around a decade ago and yet, it took that long for me to recognize that the central poem (18 pages), when coupled with 2 additional poems (written around the same time in a similar voice) was screaming to be a chapbook. 

We don't often discuss the time and process it takes us to get our babies into the world. But maybe you, too, are working on something and you are so very close to having it reach the right market. Maybe all you need is just a little shift of perspective or a nudge to say, you might be around the corner from a great discovery. Or maybe the album you consider old is still making its rounds into people's song circles and daily commutes? And that, too, is a kind of success. 

Today, I want to share the opening poem of A Nation (Imagined) with you. Thank you to Sara Kearns for first publishing "And what if everything" in Sirenlit. Big thanks to the editors of Pontoon and Floating Bridge for believing so strongly in my work, regardless of the date of origin.

My newest collection A Nation (Imagined), winner of the 2018 Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award, is now available through pre-order. If you're local, I would love, love, love to see you at The Elliott Bay Book Company on Sunday, October 21st at 3:00 p.m. for my official chapbook launch. If you can't make it, celebrate with me from the comfort of your own couch, by pre-ordering a copy for only $8 today.

Thank you Floating Bridge Press, writing mentors, and friends for all your encouragement and support! Hope to see you this Thursday, October 11th at Lit Crawl (I'll be reading at Spin Cycle at 7:00 p.m. with Jack Straw Writers) and/or at Elliott Bay on the 21st at 3:00.

Pre-Order A Nation (Imagined)
Elliott Bay Book Launch Details
​

Tomorrow, I'm driving from Seattle down to Portland just so I can read for The Whitenoise Project at Artists' Milepost. If you live nearby, I hope you'll swing by for at least three reasons:
1. This is one of your last chances to check out the De-canon Visibility Project, a pop-up literary arts project featuring artists/writers of color, currently hosted by Milepost 5. 

2. You'll get to hear the following six (!) readers: Melissa Bennett, Trevino Brings Plenty, Skyler Reed, Bella Hall, Manuel Arturo Abreu, and me. 

3. I will be donating 100% of my book sales from this event to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund (most likely through Kerala Association of WA, which will match donations and plans to send financial contributions in phases) which is instrumental in rebuilding/relief efforts in Kerala. Many of you know that my father is from one of the towns that was hit the hardest. The devastation from this most recent monsoon is unfathomable and those of us in the position to help are being called on. If you'd like to know more ways you can contribute, please feel free to connect with me directly and I will be happy to share more links or connect with me on Facebook. #StandWithKerala

Please come celebrate the De-Canon Visibility Project, give a listen to the many varied voices of color, and if you're in the market for poetry or would like to help me raise a little cash for Kerala, pick up a collection from me.

Thanks to Jake Vermaas for including me in another wonderful line-up! 

Friday, August 24, 2018
Artists' Milepost
8155 NE Oregon
Portland, OR 97213
Reading begins at 7:00 p.m.

On the heels of the Fourth, here are four ways to catch me this July.
 
1. Hollow Earth Radio's Glossophonics hosted by Bryan Edenfield and featuring Chelsea Jean Werner-Jatzke, a surprise guest, and me (taped tomorrow, featured in the near distant future, and available as a podcast.)

2. Poets in the Park hosted by Michael Dylan Welch in Redmond's Anderson Park (7802 168th Ave. NE, Redmond, WA 98052). 2018 Jack Straw Writers, Jalayna Carter, Bryan Edenfield, and I will read at 3:00 p.m on Saturday, July 7th. Enjoy a day's worth of poetry readings, workshops (including Jeannine Hall Gailey's PR for Poets talk at 1:00 p.m.) and pick up copies of readers' books at the Book Fair. 

3. Summer Visiting Artist Reading with Putsata Reang at Mineral School (114 Mineral Road S., Mineral, WA 98355) at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 19th. 

4. RASP reading with Jack Straw's Daemond Arrindell and Bryan Edenfield at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, July 27th. Please Note Change of Address: Brick and Mortar Books in Redmond Town Center, 7420 164th Avenue NE, Suite B105, Redmond, WA 98052.

When my phone rang last Tuesday evening and Michael Schmeltzer asked if I wanted to say "Hello" to Floating Bridge Press, I couldn't believe what he was about to tell me. My chapbook, A Nation (Imagined) won the 2018 FBP chapbook competition! I was floored. Having jokingly referred to myself as the bridesmaid's maid of poetry (my work has been named a semifinalist/finalist in numerous contests, but never a winner), I am thrilled to resign this title especially on this day, my parents' anniversary.

Thank you, Floating Bridge Press for selecting my manuscript! Having lived/found home in WA State for nearly twenty years, this win feels so dear to me.

I'm eager to read all of the incredibly talented WA State poets selected for Pontoon this year. Sweet congrats to finalist Rena Priest, Moonpath Press author, whose collection will also be published by FBP. Check us out this fall, when our chapbooks drop and we share our poems at the FBP release. 

Seattle’s Poem
 
Seattle is a house
perched
on the comings
and goings
of water and wind
ripple of fish
feather of crow
early morning
ferry yawn
 
Seattle I say
and invoke
a man and a place
the two inseparable
not proportional
not parallel
but as language
is to poem
and salt to sea
 
I watch bridges, bicyclists, boats
summer blankets tendered
on public lawns
I watch fiery sunsets
tango and sway above jagged peaks
and autumn trees bursting gold
up and down hilly streets
 
Nevertheless before
I postcard and gloss
and more sunsets
and more trees
find their way into my lines
I must confess
the house’s foundation
is in places brittle
and many rooms are dark
for windows lack
 
Plenty have I been
on the receiving end
of rehearsed indifference
heard enough shallow
arguments on who belongs here
to wake up scooping
ocean water with a spoon
we are all here
that need to be
 
The city is concrete and steel
plus the sum of its people
every day we destroy
our house
then race to remake it
those narrow windows
block future’s view
mute voices
that need to be heard
muffle the sound
of the falling tree limb
heavy with ripe plums
 
Every day we tread
over Chief Sealth’s legacy
his prophetic words,
“At night, when the streets
… will be silent and you think
them deserted,
they will throng
with the returning hosts
that once filled them
and still love this beautiful land.”
 
We are not alone
save for his people
we are all immigrants here
waiter, teacher,
artist, worker, nurse
we belong
all of us belong
Seattle is a house
we all need to afford
 

Previously published on Claudia Castro Luna's blog and later turned into a video by The Seattle Times. 

Claudia Castro Luna is Poet Laureate for Washington State (2018-2020) She served as Seattle’s first Civic Poet from 2015-2017 and is the author of Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press) and This City (Floating Bridge Press). Claudia is a Hedgebrook and VONA alumna, a Jack Straw fellow (2014), and recipient of grants from King County 4Culture and Seattle Office of Arts and Culture. Born in El Salvador she came to the United States in 1981. She lives in English and Spanish and writes and teaches in Seattle where she gardens and keeps chickens with her husband and their three children.