Amy McDaniel

421 mostly food mostly words

[666icecream]

markcugini reading for the Solar Anus reading series held at amysmcd house 421 Atlanta represent. 

[amysmcd]

#The421 #TheCug #poptartlater

[theothernotebook]

Rachel & Ben

[amysmcd]

I read Scarecrone in the bath and wrote about it. I wrote things like:

I thought something would happen to me if I did because I read reviews that said it is a book of spells, and I am most vulnerable to spells in the bath. I ran the water and realized it was much too hot. For the spell to work, I thought, maybe it would be better to sit naked on the cold toilet seat beside the bath but not get in, and read Scarecrone like that. Or maybe for it to work I should light candles and put them around the bath.

[etr-gu]

Flannery O’Connor – born March 25, 1925 – is the most accomplished graduate of an American MFA program, and like any freshly minted MFA, no sooner did she get her degree than she propounded on the whole business. Her insights – in an essay written for the alumni magazine of the Georgia...

[purplepiglit]

1. What made you start 421 Atlanta?

Last March, I bought a little bungalow in Atlanta with an eye towards making it into a site for readings, possibly micro-residencies, possibly a think-tank for writers, indie press people, writing teachers — a kind of center of literary...

[inkpressproductions]

In dreams I find myself running along a fast pace car to keep up with people who do not have names. I’m running at times smiling, feeling light or barely able to breath through the slog of snow.

A life has taken me here, today in 2014 I finally see a shape of existence that I can trust. This is a...

[amysmcd]

A meditation on love & publishing plus insider photos of the 421 Atlanta recipe coasters that Amanda made.

[ratrapss]

from BEFORE YOU WERE BORN by Daniel Beauregard (421 Atlanta 2014)

[amysmcd]

Pretty pretty poem

[poetsmeetcelebs-blog]

Jen Benka The Tide is High And

She is staring at my face. I don’t blame her. If I were sitting across from someone who had hairy stitches dragging from her nostril down toward her upper lip, I’d look, too.  (Is now a good time to talk? Yeah, sure. The biopsy came back. And? You have skin cancer. Is it serious? It is not metastasizing, just slowly spreading locally. Do I need to have surgery? Yes. But, I’m so busy— can I wait to schedule it? It is a good idea when you are told that there is cancer in your body to have it removed as soon as possible. Wait, cancer, as in cancer? Yes. Am I dying? Not immediately, but eventually, yes. Once it’s removed, can it come back? The likelihood of that happening is strong. And will it spread then? Not necessarily, but from now on you will need to be very careful. Cancer? Yes, cancer.) She is still staring at me. Like she knows me. I don’t want her to know me. I feel like shit and I look even shittier. I just want the nurse to call me. But she doesn’t. Instead the woman across from me in her tiger print stretch pants, baggy sweater, and bad platinum dye job, keeps staring. I want to tell her to leave me alone. I want to accuse her of being here for botox injections. I want to tell her I am here because I had cancer removed, not something cosmetic. I am on the verge of tears. Every time I have to sit in a doctor’s office waiting room, I think of hospitals and hospice and how she’s gone.  The absence. The ache. Now I am the one staring. I can’t stop looking at her. I want her to come comfort me. To wrap her arms around me and pull me close to her. To whisper in my ear that my heart is not glass. I am shattered but whole. She is so kind and compassionate. She is so pretty. I could love her. And the nurse enters the doorway. “Deborah?” The woman across from me stands up. She smiles. I realize who she is. I’m holding on.

[johndermotwoods]

Amy McDaniel: Cigarettes and books for sale!

[amysmcd]

421 does Seattle!

[johndermotwoods]

[amysmcd]

brunch ranch!

[pubgen]

The SCARECRONE Story

Sometimes I like to tell the story of a book and how it came to be. If you were at the release party for Edward Mullany’s first book, If I Falter at the Gallows, you heard selections from the two-year-long email conversation between Edward and me. Last year at the release of Stephanie Barber’s Night Moves, I published a piece about the book at The Nervous Breakdown. With erstwhile Penguin editor Tom Roberge, I wrote about Shane Jones’s Light Boxes at BOMB. 

Here I’d like to tell the story of SCARECRONE by Melissa Broder, which comes out tomorrow. Tomorrow!

I should note at the outset that it’s actually not a very interesting story—which I think is fitting. Not fitting for the book, which is anything BUT boring, but fitting for how books usually get done. While the process is filled with emotion for the writer (of course), it’s also a narrow path and one that most writers, published or not, are familiar with. You write, you submit, you wait, you hear back, you wait, you respond to edits, you weigh in on design concepts, you wait, you post on Facebook, you post on Tumblr.

Having said all that, though, I realize there are some anomalies in the SCARECRONE story.

Read More

[amysmcd]

The story of a beautiful and worthy collaboration the fruits of which you can have your own of in the form of a copy of SCARECRONE.

[amysmcd]

Lunch is all you need. 421 Tacos with guacamole, black beans, parsley because I have no cilantro, feta because I have no queso fresco.

[amysmcd]

Like asking a donut how to live It can only cry and be eaten Don't you see

"Light Control," SCARECRONE, Melissa Broder

$10 @ publishinggenius.com if you are one of 50 lucky people

right now I am one of one who has a copy

normally you are one in a trillion but right now you will want to be one in 50

[dimlylitmealsforone]

Somewhere George Foreman is weeping bitter tears.

[rachael-maddux]

Snow in the South happens in the night every three or so years, maybe once out of every five times it’s called for and rarely ever lives up to the panic its forecast usually inspires. Grocery stores are sacked for milk and bread and eggs as if doing so will appease some vengeful god, and usually...

[amysmcd]

High-alert friend-crush over here.

[amysmcd]

421 Best Animal Facts Book Giveaway!

Reblog this with your best fact about animals and, if it is the very best fact, you will win a free copy of a 421 Atlanta chapbook! Or tweet using #421animal. 

You can read this poem from Selected Adult Lessons. that asks for your best fact about animals. I really want to know them, so you will be doing me a great service. Spread the word!

I love animals so much that

1. I took this photo of a kingfisher in Malaysia:

2. I use my pay to support these white pets:

[guybenjaminbrookshire]

January 25th, 2014, Happy Burns Day. 

'The sweetest hours that e'er I spend/ are spent among the lasses O!”