First Time Out

So at Holly Thompson’s suggestion I’ve been asked to contribute to this blog and I’ve been casting around looking for things to write about which might be of interest to the SWET folks. I mean, I’m a poet. In the US, that announcement will clear most rooms in a real hurry. It is like announcing you have herpes and want to talk about it. Loudly. A few years back I was introduced as a writer to someone at the JALT conference and he asked me what sort of things I wrote. I told him and the expression on his face was really interesting. He looked as if I had just tried to feed him a spoonful of the most disgusting food of his childhood. He then got fist-on-the-hips belligerent and announced he hated Emily Dickinson. Glaring, he waited for my response. Jujitsu. He was completely deflated and defeated when I told him that I didn’t think much of her either.  But even with this common ground, our acquaintanceship was doomed and ended before the minute was up. 

But even coming from the fringes of respectability in the writing world, I may have something to say about issues common to most writers. So over the next few months I think I’ll talk a little about my experiences with submitting, rejection, acceptance, getting published, revision, community, money, serendipity, and anything else which holds at least my interest for a while.

By way of introduction, I’m a Southern Californian and Tokyo resident since 1993. While my primary writing activity is poetry, I do other things, too. For many years I’ve been involved with the Tokyo Writers Group, an ongoing cross-genre workshop which meets one Sunday a month in Takadanobaba. This year I’m one of the organizers of the Third Annual Japan Writers Conference, to be held Oct. 17-18 in Kyoto. I teach all sorts of English at two universities and for a Japanese government agency. In a prior lifetime I made my living in the music world as a teacher, player, peddler, and music therapist.

Posted by John Gribble on 07/10 at 02:49 PM

Comments

  1. I read your post re: intro as writer, etc. mentioning Emily D. Pride and Prejudice I read the requmandatory got my fill of Emily-isms and lived in The Pioneer Valley (Northampton, MA)

    Ohh, there’s your Email… ak

    Posted by Alan Kelly on 10/21 at 10:57 PM
    2. Page 1 of 1 pages

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