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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
BREAKING NEWS: Yesterday a.m. I ended the first complete draft of THE LAST GODDESS STANDING. (Random House, NY) Before I had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief or plan a quiet celebration or set the alarm clock so as to go out and watch the predicted meteriorite showers here (where if anywhere you'd see a show) a relentless electrical storm began and kept up until past my bed time.
Anyone who knows me will take this as a fortuitous sign from the gods.
And with this entry, I end my contribution to the instant gratification and final word on narcissistic, if not just bad writing known to obsessive compulsive on-liners as blogging.
The Web site: anacatillo.com continues thanks to my lovely web mistress who started it before anyone outside of a few nerds in the word knew of the Internet. Don't expect last minute updates and changes to my workshops and appearances as I do not personally manage the web site and even if I did, obligations have me elsewhere than on-line 24/7.
Please check in with me at anacastilloworkshops@gmail.com if you are interested in applying for a writing workshop. If I don't get back to you instantaneously or sign on to your facebook page or join your cause w/ placard in hand or my very occasional part-time assistant aire hermosa/performance artist/nanny to the stars doesn't get right back to you we ask for your patience. We are trying to survive these trying times like everyone else. Reserve your judgment for more important matters like how the Congress is or isn't making things work. As for your servidora, I return to the life that most writers and poets signed on for centuries ago, a semi-reclusive, selectively social, bookish ad nauseum, highly opinionated and media-wino. :-) Blogosos--look for my books, essays, poems out there. Come to my public appearances to get your books signed--masectomies, forearms, casts, permission slips to stay home from school, etc. THE LAST GODDESS STANDING will be out in a year or so. PLEASE buy it.
posted by Ana on 10/21/2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
While things have appeared to calm down a bit, right now is your perfect chance... When would NOW be the time to once and for all enjoy total abundance and true wealth financial, relationally, mentally, physically and spiritually... You really do have the power within you (regardless of what everyone else does) to create the life you desire and deserve. Many so-called successful people make a tremendous amount of money, but their relationships are on the rocks. That's not real wealth. Likewise, there are others who qualify as a creative genius, and they're physically sick all the time. That's not real wealth! Then there are those who claim to be really "spiritual," and they're always financially broke. That's not wealth either! (IT'S NOT?????? IT SEEMS APPARENT THAT MR. RAY COULD USE SOME OF THIS HUMILITY IN HIS LIFE.) Just like the harmony created by each unique and important instrument in an orchestra causes your emotions to soar (like an eagle rising on an invisible thermal), complete harmony in your life causes your level of happiness, wealth and success to soar. My name is James Arthur Ray, and if you nod your head "yes" to at least some of the following, you've certainly come to the right place... The real key to creating the life of your dreams is achieving true Harmonic Wealth® (remember the emotional impact and magic of the harmony of a choir). That's where you find contentment... peace-of-mind... a deep connection to (and understanding of) the world around you and your place in it. (And here is his great repentence in his BLOG!!!! 'For all those affected'???? Ray, honey, you will be the first and for the rest of your life, whether you want to believe your party of exploiting the spiritually and perhaps mentally weak is over or not.:) I am shocked and saddened by the tragedy that occurred at Spiritual Warrior in Sedona, Arizona, Thursday evening. I wish to express my deepest heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of those who lost their lives as well as offer my prayers for a speedy recovery for those who were taken ill. Because there are so many more questions than answers at this time I believe it inappropriate to comment further until we know more. Out of respect for the deceased and their loved ones and for those who have taken ill and for whose speedy recovery we pray, we will not be replying to individual postings. Instead, we thank you for writing, and we hope you will share in our continued wishes of support, strength and comfort to all those impacted by this tragedy. We also want everyone to know that a friend has been at the hospital monitoring the condition of those still ill. Our love and warm affection is with all who mourn and with all of you in this time of grief, sadness and challenge. With never-ending love and prayers, James Arthur Ray OKAY, here it goes. A CEO suit guy leading a sweat shop (uh, I mean sweat lodge) the size of a CIRCUS TENT?????????????????????????????????????? FOR FIFTY people at once????????? Anyone that has been in a temezcal or sweat ceremony understands the protocol. I won't say more here to belabor the obvious of why native peoples never made a sweat lodge to fill an entire village. One reason why these poor souls lost their lives and one reason only--the absurdity of the size of this circus tent did not allow them to alert the doorkeeper soon enough and to be able to get out right away. The second reason, also obvious is that people don't respect the purpose and intent of these indigenous ceremonies. You don't go to a sweat to hope led by a CEO to increase your wealth. In my lifetime of being shown the curander@ ways of my family and culture I have chosen not to conduct such ceremonies and never to partake of one unless it all feels right, including my own physical well being. It is a great responsibility to lead people through any kind of rigorous penitente ceremony. It is not a ceremony to magically fill your wallets. A sweat is not for people who are in any way physically ill or frail. (neither is climbing mounts or extraordinary long pilgrimages by foot or on one's knees, etc.) This is my way of thinking. I know some don't agree and good for them if they think that adding further suffering to their suffering is going to earn mercy from the gods. There is an annual trek in my area led by the Tortugas Pueblo in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe/Tonanztin on the 12th. It is the day before my spirituality journey writing workshop. I do not recommend it for anyone who is not physically fit. There are others ways to honor our dioses. I wish the tragedy in New Age Sedona did not happen. But now that it has I hope that Ray serves as an example and warning to all the chiflado scam artists playing Indian Chief to lost souls and to greedy individuals (who think these ceremonies will increase their material wealth) that every pig has its sábado. JAMES ARTHUR RAY: DISGUSTING. If this year hasn't been tragic enough to everyone in the world for various reasons, in this country to 95% of the population economically to begin with then we have disgusting scam artists like this:
I'm talking every area of your life! You've got to learn from this past economic winter, and plant your seeds for the spring in this short window of opportunity!
James Arthur Ray
President/CEO
James Ray InternationalSunday, October 11, 2009
President/CEO
James Ray International, Inc.
posted by Ana on 10/18/2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Internet Networking Fatigue Syndrome--below is my favorite paragraph from the Facebook article I entered in the blog earlier. Having said all this and w/ about 10 pages left before I finish the first complete draft of my new novel (!!! The Last Goddess Standing !!!!) that I am sure everyone who reads my blog is going to order at least 10 copies of the day it comes out, adopt for their college courses in hard cover and buy copies for birthdays and holidays for every Facebook friend they have as soon as it is out please see below: A new workshop location has been added: SANTA FE (and a couple taken away: Phoenix and Houston :-( BECAUSE unless people understand that every minute of the day we are not just becoming poorer we are also becoming illiterate and while I would happily fly for free and give all my skills and time to everyone and every organization that smiles my way or doesn't smile but wants to charge me for their space for the workshop although I am not charging them for my time at their organization that's how it will have to be. So the favorite paragraph to publish again here in case your AADD kicked in earlier or you figured what the hell is Ana Castillo blogging about now that has nothing to do with nothing significant to the community whatever community I think she belongs in although I hear she acts like she's from the Southwest but is really from Chicago like that other one and with her 20th century obsolete move out the way old woman, token Chicana self and because I know who you really are I don't bother to purchase any of your books not even used on Amazon, don't have the time, too busy writing my own books, trying to find a publisher, don't care if I find a publisher I'll publish it myself bla=bla, whine, wine but for some reason publishers still publish you--so that's why I'm reading this blog in secret:
Okay, so I know I’ll get grief from some people for writing this. I know I’m defying the New Social World Order. Or sounding like a curmudgeon. Or old-fashioned. Or asocial. I assure you I am a cheerful, sociable person. In fact, I spend so much time socializing in real life, that I’m too tired to do it on the computer (where I spend most of my time anyhow, trying to write). Is there such a thing as Social Networking Fatigue Syndrome? If you’re an analog writer in a digital culture, with little desire to network online and not enough time to write, do you embrace Facebook anyhow? My sense is that most authors, particularly those with the luxury of having “page curators,” are too busy writing to even care.
Well today was actually a glorious day, a day of much caring because I am about 10 pages short of the first complete draft and in my case as my editors all know it means the book is pretty close to done. Done. Done? But who will buy it? Who will read it? If no one is buying books anymore???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Ok. You are. Thanks for hanging in there. :-)
posted by Ana on 10/16/2009
Santa%20Fe.doc
posted by Ana on 10/16/2009
Hi, Ellis— Let me introduce myself. My name is Gineen Klein, and I’ve been brought on as an intern to replace the promotion department here at Propensity Books. First, let me say that I absolutely love “Clancy the Doofus Beagle: A Love Story” and have some excellent ideas for promotion. To start: Do you blog? If not, get in touch with Kris and Christopher from our online department, although at this point I think only Christopher is left. I’ll be out of the office from tomorrow until Monday, but when I get back I’ll ask him if he spoke to you. We use CopyBuoy via Hoster Broaster, because it streams really easily into a Plaxo/LinkedIn yak-fest meld. When you register, click “Endless,” and under “Contacts” just list everyone you’ve ever met. It would be great if you could post at least six hundred words every day until further notice. If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they’re better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold. Then just Digg your uploads in a viral spiral to your social networks via an FB/MS interlink torrent. You may have gotten the blast e-mail from Jason Zepp, your acquiring editor, saying that people who do this sort of thing will go to Hell, but just ignore it. The vi-spi is cross-platform, but don’t worry if you think you’re not on Facebook, because you actually are. Jason enrolled you when you signed the contract last year, or at least he was supposed to, and he told Sarah Williams he did before he had to retire and Sarah left for nursing school. You currently have 421 Friends, 17 Pending Requests, 8 Pokes, 5 Winks, and 3 Proposals of “Marriage.” I’ve attached a list of celebrities we think would be great to blurb your book, so find out their numbers and call them up. Be sure to do all this by Monday, because Sales Conference starts Tuesday. We come back Friday and then immediately on Saturday (!) all of editorial (Janet, plus probably Michelle, her assistant) and I go to the Frankfurt Book Fair for a week. During that time the office will be closed, although to help cover the costs of the Germany trip it will actually be sublet to the John Lindsay Elementary School P.T.A. as a rehearsal space for this year’s fund-raiser production of “The Music Man.” I’m told that this was one of the things that Jason didn’t understand and which contributed to his “condition.” Once we get back from Frankfurt, we’d like to see you on morning talk shows like the “Today” show and “The View,” so please get yourself booked on them and keep us “in the loop.” If I’m not here—which I won’t be, since after the book fair I go on vacation for two weeks—just tell Jenni, my assistant, when she gets back from jury duty. Remember in your blog to tabskim your readers’ comments. You can use Twitter, Chitt-chaTT, or Nit-Pickr. When you reply to comments, try to post at least one photo per hour of you doing everyday tasks around the house, such as answering comments and posting photos. Please make sure they’re pre-scorched. Let me know, when I get back from Retreat a week after my vacation, if self-surging is a problem. As re: personal appearances, to cut down on travel expenses we’re trying something new this season called RAP, or Readings by Author by Proxy. We’re asking authors in certain key areas of the country to stay “close to home” and give readings at local bookstores of both their own books and a few of our other new releases. We can send you a list of bookstores in your area once you fill out the My Local Bookstores list on your Author’s Questionnaire. You’ll be reading not only from your book but from “Code Blue Stat,” a new medical thriller we’re really excited about, and “Fifty Great Pan Sauces,” a cool new cookbook. Their authors, Dr. Steven Rosenthal and Gail Freenye, will stay in Chicago and Boston, respectively, and read from each other’s book and yours. This idea, apparently, is what made Jason take his clothes off and lock himself in a supply closet. F.Y.I., we’ve migrated all the photos out of your book and onto the Web page. It makes the hard-copy version cheaper to produce (fewer pages; no photos) and the e-text more “Kindle-friendly.” Sometime next week, call Christopher over an ISDN line and say your name, as distinctly as possible, at least two hundred times, so we can dub it as an AudioAutograph onto the podcast edition. (You may already have done this for a previous book, but somehow Jason managed to delete all the audio files before Security escorted him from the building.) Don’t hesitate to try to contact me if you have any questions. I sort of have my hands full, promoting twenty-three new releases this fall, but I’m really excited about working on your book, and I look forward to collaborating with you to make “A History of Moorish Architecture, 1200-1492” the biggest success it can be. Best regards, Gineen Klein ♦ (from the New Yorker. Just keeping it real, amig@s)Subject: Our Marketing Plan
by Ellis Weiner October 19, 2009
posted by Ana on 10/16/2009
Editorial by Debra Ollivier I’ve been vacillating back and forth about Facebook for months. I have a long list of invites, some from people I adore, but somehow I can’t get myself to type “confirm.” The only “friends” I have are my thirteen year-old son (who was my motivation for getting on Facebook in the first place, after a mother told me he was using “inappropriate language” on the Net) and a friend, who explained Facebook to me in the hopes that I’d jump on the bandwagon. I didn’t. I kept on vacillating. Even so, with just two “friends,” my “wall” was already cluttered with hundreds of posts from my friends’ friends, and friends of their friends, and friends of those friends. What to focus on? I was reminded of those banners that run along the bottom of your TV screen while you’re watching CNN (”300 dead in car bomb in Tehran” and “Wildfires blaze across the Southland”) that compete for your attention, while Anderson Cooper talks about health care reform and your kid is behind you, dripping ice cream on the sofa while asking about pimple cream. The utility of Facebook for professional groups, and for people with friends and family in far-flung corners of the planet, is evident. Still, for me it remains an existential problem. Never mind that Facebook sometimes seems like a giant popularity contest (”I have 679 friends,” a colleague told me, before admitting she only really knew around 50 of them); something about the stunning array of humanity and the sheer jumble of peoples’ posting unsettles me — postings that (some sane, some insane) will live insidiously and eternally online. And then there’s the loss of a certain anonymity that I feel is essential to a writer’s sensibility — or at least my sensibility. So it is with a certain distress that I consider whether to have a fan page for my books. Of course, without hundreds of accumulated Facebook friends, why bother? My real friends know me and my books. My readers, hopefully, will find their way to my website (the very term sounds antiquated). I’d have to build my friend base, and dig into their friend base for “second level” friends, and direct everyone to my book’s fan page to get any leverage. If there’s leverage to be had. Is there? Do fan pages and social networking really sell more books? Or increase your “platform” in meaningful ways? It is vital, or is it not? I decide to take a random, non-scientific stroll through the fan pages of various authors. There’s David Sedaris, with 61,165 fans. Ironically, the first post I see on his fan page is from someone who writes: “I’ll bet you an important figure David Sedaris doesn’t even know about this page.” Perhaps not. But that doesn’t stop his 61,165 fans from posting to each other — and to David, wherever he is. Because despite all the posting to David, I don’t see any responses from The Man. Ditto on Sarah Vowell’s fan page. Vowell has 7,000 fans, but in that sea of posts Vowell’s voice is nowhere to be heard. What’s the deal? In fact, Ms. Vowell has what’s called a “page curator” for her fan page, and if you read the fine print under her photo and you’ll learn that, “Ms. Vowell is not involved in its production or content.” What to do if you’re desperately seeking Sarah? “If you’d like to contact Sarah,” we’re instructed (presumably by her page curator), ” you can send a letter to the publisher.” What? A letter? On paper? I keep clicking from one fan page to another, but there’s no rhyme or reason. Pulitzer prize winner Jonathan Franzen? 311 members. Elizabeth Gilbert, whose “Eat, Pray, Love” has been ensconced on the bestseller list since the Pleistocene era? Only 1,439 members. Malcolm Gladwell? 3,531. Nicholson Baker? Non-existent. Some writers, less obviously in the media spotlight, seem to have started fan pages, then let them drift to sea like phantom ships without a crew. Still, fans keep posting away about authors — some in ways that might make you wish for the days when we wrote on papyrus. Take Sandra Tsing Loh. I love her biting humor and dry wit in her radio essays for US broadcaster National Public Radio, but she’s nowhere on Facebook either. Instead, there’s a terribly mean-spirited and cantankerous “Please Take Sandra Tsing Loh Off the Air” group. Jeez, with “friends” like that, who needs Facebook? Okay, so I know I’ll get grief from some people for writing this. I know I’m defying the New Social World Order. Or sounding like a curmudgeon. Or old-fashioned. Or asocial. I assure you I am a cheerful, sociable person. In fact, I spend so much time socializing in real life, that I’m too tired to do it on the computer (where I spend most of my time anyhow, trying to write). Is there such a thing as Social Networking Fatigue Syndrome? If you’re an analog writer in a digital culture, with little desire to network online and not enough time to write, do you embrace Facebook anyhow? My sense is that most authors, particularly those with the luxury of having “page curators,” are too busy writing to even care. Meanwhile, despite invites from certain people who’ve brought me very close to jumping into the electronic fray, I still have only two friends on Facebook. One of them came up to me other day. “Mom,” he said. “I have a new girlfriend.” Turns out, my son met this girl on Facebook, but has never seen her in person. “You can’t have a girlfriend you’ve never met,” I tell him. He rolls his eyes in despair. “OMG mom, you are sooo 20th century.”Facing Off with Facebook
If you’re a published author or soon-to-be-published author, chances are you’ll get something like the 63-page document I got from my publisher before my recent book was launched. It’s called “Internet Advice for Authors: Getting Started, Getting Online, and Getting Noticed,” and starts with the almost quaint question: “What is Online Marketing?” Every author is expected to at least wade into the giant electronic pond of posters. But between blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, Youtubing, and maintaining a fan base (oh, and did I forget emailing?), what author has the time — never mind the mental clarity — to write? Being off-line has never been so attractive — even though I am writing this for an online venue. (Modern life is full of ironies and contradictions).
posted by Ana on 10/16/2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Calling Latin @Writers!
Dear Ana,
My friends and I have a small literary journal, The Quercus Review, based
out of Modesto, California. We are looking for submissions for our next
edition,which will focus on Latina/o writing. We welcome all poetry and
fiction. Thanks--Theron
The Quercus Review
Modesto Junior College
435 College Avenue
Modesto, Ca 95350
www.thequercusreview.com
209-575-6149
posted by Ana on 10/12/2009
If it's Chi-Town it must've been a few weeks ago?
(The horseback ride was yesterday.)
I want to thank Judy Rivera at Chicago's city colleges among all those at that school who teach my books and who are dedicated to being positive leaders to the hard working youth that are getting there education there. I am so proud of all of them. We will make change together. As I told the audience that afternoon--I started my college life at a city college...(and baby, look at me now). You never know where reading will lead you. Riding my wild mare in the desert...? Oh yeah, also working on a new novel: The Last Goddess Standing.
I'm not posting much on the blog lately--just now and then, what I believe is important to share this trying and terrible year that has the much of the world in the same hand basket. While I will always be happy to meet and work with so many folks out there who have come to my readings over the decades, taught my books, raised their children on them, and even bravely signed up for recent workshops (the workshops too, have a limited time span, by the way) I must get back to the business at hand: writing.
posted by Ana on 10/12/2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
http://deanswift.wordpress.com/
This morning the world wakes to our the news that our president has been awarded the Nobel. But no doubt it has further fueled the ignorance the racism that has reared its very ugly head since his election in this country--just like the above link that went out yesterday about my reading last night.
By the way, it was extremely well attended.
And while I am not a size 42 (and nothing wrong with that) and don't pump out books like the white privileged mystery writer she referred me I personally took no offense.
Anyone who calls Sara Palin 'divine' is in some serious need of soul saving.
It is true that people come to listen to my reading but what this hateful 'student' can't appreciate (but probably would understand if her hero Sara Palin came to Berkeley) is that my long time readers also come to SEE me.
Reading further on this white reactionary blog--she has referred to the first lady as a 'gorilla' and to those who must obviously be objecting to this hateful nonsense as 'anti-white'? Whatever happened to Berkeley?
I'll have to say it recalled the last time I was on this campus--as a Regent's lecturer. As I began my reading at the Latina conference 'somene' set off the fire alarm. the building was evacuated immediately, fire department called, program over--I went off to have Chinese food with friends. I asked Rosa Martinez--the target of the hateful blog entry yesterday to read it beforei introducing me at the program. There are two emotions that motivate the human spirit, I told them afterward. One is love (the reason I have been invited, the students who helped to organized, the professors who teach my books and the community people who came out) and fear--the blog entry.
posted by Ana on 10/09/2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Greetings from Berkeley
There are two 'awareness' causes this month that have my immediate attention which I feel compelled to share with the world. One is breast cancer awareness. I caught a morning show in the hotel this a.m. with a woman doctor answering questions which I found not to be what I have experienced. I don't mean just personally as a woman who has just had her first bout with breast cancer but with people I know. One was that she said women in their 20s don't have to worry because that statistics are so low. I won't go into details but I will say that any woman should be attentive to her health and any signs that don't seem right. The other was that she said that there is no connection between fibrosistic disease and breast cancer. It so happens that while I had no signs at all when breast cancer was discovered as a result of a routine mammo--it was in the very same breast that had been giving me problems since my 20s. I was not surprised therefore that 'eventually' they found cancer. The third thing she said which I completely agreed with is that the medical field doesn't know what causes breast cancer. Here, here, sister. So, please all of you in the world out there don't wait until you feel a lump, have a routine check up, watch your weight, diet, quit smoking, keep red meats and processed foods to a mimimum if not off your diet all together, remember not to sweat the small stuff. Don't bottle in stress. Life is precious and much to short.
Second is this is national BOOK month? So...what are you reading? And if you are a reader why not share? Go through your book shelves give books to friends, donate books to students, kids, etc. If you send me a stamped padded self addressed envelope I'll send you one of my books. The point is let's share the job of the written word.
Through my writing workshops I have been hoping to encourage people who are not accustomed to writing or have never written as well as do who do. But you can't hope to write without reading. By the way--HOUSTON isn't looking good so far and I may have to cancel if I don't hear from you Houstonites pronto. Also, we just added DENVER (November 14) for those of you in Denver who have been emailing and asking. And yes, through popular demand I am getting ready to add to new locations. But for now, I'm waiting to hear from you for the workshops that have been set up. Don't forget L.A. for Que Vivan Los Muertos and Las Cruces for Guadalupe/Tonantzin.
My new novel in progress THE LAST GODDESS STANDING believe it or not is going very well (despite by whirlwind travels and ranchito obligations). Be among my last goddesses standing (and gods y locos y locas who dare defy the end of Western Civilization as we know. Work to save the clean water we have left, air, land, health of our children, compassion and grains. And come work with me at one of my workshops to help shape your story. Let the world know you exist.) Gracias!
posted by Ana on 10/08/2009
Monday, October 05, 2009
¿
Quien dice que todo está perdido? Yo vengo con mi corazón.
This has turned out to be a terrible year. I promise myself every dawn not to dwell on that fact, not to post it on the blog, not to discuss it with my reader-friends that I meet along the road.
But today I will stop to remember someone who lifted my heart throughout the many years I pushed as a poet with a conscience.
She and her formidable voice have left us. But not her spirit. I will continue to write poems with Mercedes Sosa among my heroines.
(At home. 2009)
posted by Ana on 10/05/2009