To the bookfair

I'm in a Bolt bus heading to Washington. The view is snow on ice on snow but in a break from all the storms, bright skies are giving my retinas more sun than I've seen in a month. Sharp shadows and very long smokestack plumes are pointing my way and that small high from sunlight, feels happy, yes.

I just launched a redesign of my website claudiagraphics.com and have a stack of new business cards to hand out to anyone considering my design/writing/drawing services. My last site was looking horribly dated. It was 10 years old, in web years that is like using papyrus to advertise. People would say things like, "nice covers buried in there." Right. Huge thanks to my husband Jim who made epic trek to Brooklyn to pick up the cards from the printer on a day of slush and wind while I worked in an office for a client.

It was a week of little sleep, in my quest to finish an illustrated map for a Mary Gordon novel, being published by Knopf, I had two nights I worked until 5am, the other 3 nights until 2am and had to go into freelance job on Wall St.

Cool. Bus is pulling into a weighing station. Do light thoughts help?
Good news, I've been Invited to read with Jeannie Beaumont at the Perfect Sense reading series in June at the Cornelia St. Cafe. More details to come.

I look forward to helping at the Marsh Hawk Press table, finally meeting some of the authors and publishers of Benu Press and running into thousands of my fellow poets of whom I know quite a few from workshops, readings and the life in and around books.