more progress on the book

Two writers have agreed to do blurbs, so far—one a very supportive essayist whose class I've visited (virtually) and who teaches my work, the other the craziest of my long shots (who agreed because I'd published an appreciative essay about her work a long time ago). Both want hard copies, which I'll send tomorrow. Very exciting!

Sarah Fawn Montgomery's AWP proposal is in. I think it's a great proposal. We'll see if AWP thinks so too. Will the book be available for sale then? Official pub date is a week later.

Steve and I went to an inspiring theatrical performance by the People's Circus. Theater (acrobatics, music, words) at ODT in the Mission about the sculptor Camille Claudell. Extremely successful,  albeit controversial, she's best known now as Rodin's mistress. Her artistic career was halted in her late forties when her family had her incarcerated in a lunatic asylum. She spent thirty years there (despite the asylum's requests to her family to release her) and was still institutionalized when she died at the age of 78. Hence the title of the piece: "The Unfinished Work of Camille Claudel." Such a tragedy. Such a waste of artistic passion and talent. So like some of my "lunatics" in THE LUNATICS' BALL. (Lucia Joyce comes to mind, but Camille Claudel's talent had matured for many more years before it was cut short.)