Marion Agnew

In the Autumn of 2017, I learned that the editors of Compose magazine nominated my essay "Bypass Instructions" for a Pushcart Prize. Such excitement! I really appreciated learning that those editors felt my work stood out in their magazine that year. At some point, I searched online for Pushcart Prizes, looking to see when I might reasonably quit wondering about it. I saw an article by a journal editor that said (a paraphrase), "Being nominated for a Pushcart is nothing to brag about--don't even mention it unless you win one." People in the comments took issue with that approach, and others piled on to support the original poster's online eyeroll. That post confused me--I was partly horrified at my earlier excitement (had I been bragging?) and partly annoyed at this random person I neither know nor cared about raining on my parade. Regardless, I slunk away to delete "Pushcart Nominee" from my online profile. In the autumn of 2018, I saw twe

I've posted previously ( September , October , November ), about books that I associate with specific months. (And about difficulties in old favourites .) Folks have talked lately about "Yule Book Flood," the Icelandic tradition of sharing books and reading on Christmas Eve. What a fabulous custom! Books have always been a part of our family Christmas celebrations. This year, too, at our "Christmas in January" celebration, I got a book as a gift-- Less , by Andrew Sean Greer . It's charming and winsome, and for the first few pages I thought, "Oh this is fun." But it quickly became more than "just" fun, important though fun is, and more than "just" funny, which ditto. I felt the ambition of the story and began seriously pulling for Arthur Less. I really wanted him to be okay--more than okay, even. Arthur became a person to me, someone I enjoyed spending time with. Greer, with a gentle touch and giant doses of humor, made me

I'm revising. As I have mentioned . And partly because it's the new year, and partly just because time is passing, I'm also starting a couple of other creative projects that have been swirling in my head. Thanks to my sister, I have quite the stash of monoprints (specifically, prints from gelli plates, products of Gelli Arts ).  We had a ton of fun this past summer playing.  The experience was full of lessons about play, about fun, about experiments, about YouTube--many facets of creation. And now, in this project, I have another opportunity to revise.  Among others in the hundreds of pieces of paper I have in an accordion folder, I found the two prints above. I quite like them. (It's okay if you don't.) And I remember making them. They were experiments in directing paint on the plate, in braying, and in color combinations, as well as stencils.  At the time, I didn't find them to be particularly "successful," howev

'Tis the season in which my spam folder fills with UNBELIEVABLE OFFERS!!!! and my inbox is receiving a higher-than-average share of rejections. These missives swirl through cyberspace much as the snow, this February, swirls through, uh, "regular" space. Meanwhile, I'm mid-revision--a deep one, the kind in which I do my prescribed daily work and carry that universe with me to a dentist's chair (to have a filling replaced) and to a screen, where I ostensibly focus on our income tax spreadsheets. There's a lot going on. Some of what's happening is just "typical February," and some of it's preparation for Spring. All of it is valuable, if I allow it to be so. Happy February, however you celebrate it.