Just by the skin o' my neck am I...

....gonna make all three deadlines in the first part of this month. I made (!) the NALAC Fund for the Arts deadline on Friday, June 10th. I proposed my "bicycle love story", a multimedia spoken word opera. [See brief description of this project below.]

Then, I hustled to submit an app to the Vermont Studio Center, "an international creative community" in the Green Mountains, where I would absolutely LOVE to spend a four-week residency in Autumn '06. Writing, reading, and enjoying the cool clean air of Vermont would be the best way to follow up a hot Texas summer.

And now, I am rushing to finesse an essay, two excerpts from Monsoon in Nepal--my other blog--and three poems, for submission to a forthcoming travel/guide tentatively titled: FROM ASIA WITH LOVE. The book will include writings from folks who've traveled or lived in Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. Cool, I absolutely love writing about my 1999 trip to Nepal. Anyway, the deadline is tonight, midnight, so off I go to finish my submisssions.

And a big by the way: I have been hosting an enormously pleasant and conscious poet from Flagstaff, AZ--Logan Phillips--in the midst of this flurry of writerly activity. So I've been making and taking some quality time to share MY funkytown 817 onda with him, introducing him to folks of like mind and craze. And accompanying him to some local slams, etc. SO---You cannot tell me that I am a lazy Tejana poet. Sweaty, maybe. Exhausted, maybe. Poetically-challenged, maybe. But lazy-------never!

Here's the project I'm hoping to stage next year ('06):
She: Bike/Spoke/Love would be adapted for a multimedia stage performance, including the participation of local artists, musicians, youth poets, low rider bicyclists, and others. I would seek to present excerpts from this project as part of the annual Hispanic Playwright’s Festival (July06)of Fort Worth, as well as Texas Unbound Festival at the annual TEXAS UNBOUND Literary Festival (Aug06) in Dallas (I have performed at both festivals in previous years.) However, the full-length performance would take place in August-September06. I would reach my audience by soliciting the promotional support of the Latin Arts Association, Writer's Garret, Texas Book Festival, WordSpace, and local bicycling networks. I am part of a poetry community which spans the nation and would provide resources. I would work with the Boys and Girls Clubs, as well as youth art groups, to facilitate participation by their constituents.