So it’s something in the air down in Tuscaloosa–the late afternoon light, the humidity just beginning to break, and the throngs of 30,000+ undergrads on campus.

And so we begin another year, with two wonderful book projects awaiting us: Amber Nelson’s Diary of When Being With Friends Feels Like Watching TV and Harold Abramowitz’s A House on a Hill. What will we do with these wonderful books–we’ll pass the manuscripts over to our interns and we’ll have them decide on design, paper, stitch–you name it, they’ll do it.

And, of course, the big poetry hike is coming up…but two extra components we weren’t expecting until they fell in our laps.

1. We’re teaming up with the wonderful Ryan Browne and Carl Peterson who oversee the Pure Products Reading series in Tuscaloosa. They’re being gracious enough to bring some locals in with some out of towners we just love and adore. Details here.
2. Our undergrads are teaming up with some of the hike’s visiting writers and other UG’s from U of GA, U of TN, Kenyon College, and UAB for their first film endeavor. We’ve got Flips in hand…

So, where are we reading? The amazing Cahaba National Wildlife Reserve. Here’s a little taste of location scouting. A little shaky and quick panning, but for the first time ever taking shots, we’re pleased with their efforts.

Getting ready to head back to Tuscaloosa for fall semester next week, I am initiating a list of some of our greatest amenities (to combat my growing dread that our new apartment will still be crawling with cockroaches when we get there). So, in no particular order

-Joe at PestPro Exterminators
-The Alcove
-Egan’s Bar
-The Black Warrior River
-The Arboretum
-Sokol Park
-The Bike Shop
-The U of Alabama Book Arts Program
-Hank Lazer and Creative Campus
-The Moody Art Gallery (Jasper Johns, Sally Mann, Robert Rauschenberg last year!)
-The Kentuck Arts and Crafts Center
-The Kentuck Festival
-OZ Music
-Little Italy Pizza
-Sitar (Great Indian food!)
-Ruan Thai
-Archibald’s BBQ
-Dreamland BBQ
-Maggie’s Diner
-Netflix (I recommend Laurel and Hardy.)
-JD’s
-BBQ nachos from the cart in JD’s parking lot
-Manna Foods
-Slash Pine’s 2010 Writer Hikes (Did someone say Slash Pine?)
-Claudia Keelan will be a visiting writer in residence at U of Alabama this spring!
-The Gorgas Library’s record collection
-Townes Van Zandt’s shout-out to T-town in “Waiting Around to Die”
-America’s Greatest Thrift Store
-Anne’s Tiques
-The Crimson Tide (Roll Tide! “It’s a tradition.”)
-Natty Ice is always on sale everywhere
-Fireworks are legal
-The St Paul United Methodist Church sign–it’s the most prophetic marquee in town (“We are too Blessed to Be Depressed”)
-Sometimes you can get a haircut and auto detailing in the same place
-Mockingbirds
-Magnolia trees
-Old train bridge in Northport
-Mary’s Cakes (Great croissants!)
-Bama Theatre
-Oliver Lock and Dam
-Cicadas
-Mule Day Chicken Fest (in Gordo)
-The Foundry (thrift store in Bessemer)
-Charlemagne Records (in Birmingham)
-The Bottle Tree (in Birmingham)
-Pie Lab (in Greensboro)
-Rural Studios (in and around Greensboro)
-Mustang Oil (in Greensboro)

*Special Note: Whiskey is way cheaper at ABC Beverages.

On my to-do list:
-Civil Rights Museum (in Birmingham)
-Hank Williams Museum (in Montgomery)
-William Faulkner’s house (in Oxford, Mississippi)
-Flannery O’Conner’s peacock farm (in Milledgeville, Georgia)

In the words of Robert Creeley, What do you do,/ what do you say,/ what do you think,/ what do you know.

We need readers for our writer hikes on September 18th @ Sokol Park–54 total (we’re getting there). We don’t care you if you’re a student, a faculty member, or just a plain old citizen from Tuscaloosa. If you’re willing to hang out in Sokol Park bike trail for a little bit, read 3-5 minutes of another person’s work, and then join the hike you’re working on, we absolutely would love to have your assistnace. If interested, please email me at slashpinepress@gmail.com.

As of seven years ago, I was lucky enough if I could keep a checkbook. Bills were numbers which were abstractions which, in turn, would make my wife’s jaw hit the floor at my gross, fiscal incompetence. I was a poet, damn it. Leave the fucking money out of it.

Today, I just finished an email exchange with The University of Alabama’s Office of Sponsored Programs. I was talking about budgets and matches. Earlier today, I talked with my co-founder about future plans and how to pay for things–most importantly, how to sustain ourselves and shoestring together resources.

The upshot: grant writing is time consuming and detail dense and requires portions of my brain I thought were as developed as an infant’s sense of balance. It’s something you have to earn, often at no-pay if you want to build something from the ground-up.

But it has, in a weird way, cultivated something else: it requires me to think of art as an act of inclusivity as opposed to one of pure meritocracy; it makes me responsible to my community at large, just not the comfort of my peers; it forces me to look at writers as workers–because we are, we work, it’s about “the work”–and to do my best to see they get some level of reimbursement when possible since those opportunities are not always readily available and coming to Alabama is not always the foremost of everyone’s desires.

Because of grant writing, I’m forced to listen and value voices I could easily dismiss otherwise.

I’m forced to be out of my own head and into someone else’s.

To be really honest, grant writing has broken my belief that poetry is a bubble no one cares about except poets. People give a shit–not in the way one would always like, but people do care–often, it’s tax dollars supporting it.

If you read this blog, you know I work with undergrads in an internship. One component is grant writing. It’s not so they’re more “marketable” per se, but that they see art as something greater than their own predelections. But wouldn’t it also be nice to see a few of them become future cultivators and homes for the arts, some even within the public sphere?

There will always be, unfortunately, some level misappropriation, red tape, politics, and bureacracy. And I think there always needs to be a place for renegade art, the place where local talent gathers and comes together based on shared belief and/or aesthetic. But for me–for my growth, as writer and reader of poetry–grant writing has forced me to be accountable to something larger than myself. Who knew money could sometimes be a force–dare I say–for good?

I’m thrilled to announce that South Arts  gave us a literature grant for the 2011 Slash Pine Poetry Festival! If you’re not familiar with the organization, you can find out more info her. Essentially, they bring a variety of artistic opportunities to residents within 9 states, and we are so happy to be included among them.

More information on festival as it approaches–sooner than you might think.