Book design anxiety
Who ever knew waiting for your book design could make me this anxious? I mean, I really shouldn’t feel anxious about this — there are too many other things in my life to be...
Category: Books & Projects
Puja Nominated for Best of the Net
This year Durga Puja will begin October 9. Durga Puja is a festival that lasts a week. It is not a huge festival in many places in India, except in West Bengal. In West...
Manuscripts Accepted for Publication
This weekend I received the exciting news that Red Dashboard LLC has selected not one but two manuscripts for publication! The first is Principles of Belonging and the second is Mera Bharat (“My India”). Principles...
Beowulf for teens as well as children
A teenager I know sent me a private email the other day that made me smile. Howdy! I started reading Beowulf in English class but I had trouble understanding what was happening in the...
The perplexing Rejection
After sending out poetry submissions for more than a decade, I recently received perhaps the most appalling one to date, one that made me irate. The rejection notice stated: I really hate saying No...
All we have to do is ask
Why are we as human beings so afraid to ask? Probably one of two reasons. Either we think we know the answer and it’s not the answer we want, or we think the simple...
Close but no cigar
I received an e-mail the other day with mixed emotions. It was a rejection letter from a publishing house. My manuscript was in the “close but not quite there” category; the publisher just did...
The Next Big Thing
Here is an interesting idea. I received this invitation from another poet friend of mine (it’s funny calling her a friend — I have never met her, but we are both from Washington DC,...
Editor Alex Cigale on my Beowulf
“What makes Joshua Gray’s “verse adaptation with young readers in mind” immediate and powerful is its tender tone: it is addressed to his son, in the same understated, hushed voice of expectation as a...
Georgetown University professor on my children’s Beowulf book
Tod Linafelt, Georgetown University says of my Beowulf for kids: Joshua Gray’s rendering of Beowulf for children is ‘grand and gruesome,’ just like the monster Grendel that stalks its lines. Gray captures both the...