Warning: This post may be insufficient for some readers.
I’ve been back from Rwanda for a week now and “real life” is starting to feel normal again. However, I’m still, tragically, at a loss for words when it comes to letting my friends and readers know “how it went.” I guess we who go on service trips to places so astronomically different from our home countries expect that either A) people won’t care about or understand the things we cared about or found important, or B) they’ll reject our experiences outright and claim they didn’t happen or that they signified something other — and less — than what they did in our lives.
Clear as mud?
Admittedly, expectation B is probably fairly irrational and maybe a little bit unfair to our friends and family. As a writer though, I wonder if it’s even more difficult to embark and return from such a journey — some people might assume (and I’m fairly certain they do) that 10 days in a tiny African country must yield great creative work, or at least the inspiration for one that you will undoubtedly produce after a few days of “sittin’ time.”
But maybe I put too much pressure on myself.
In any case, life goes on, in many ways for the better. Red Sweater Press is finally getting off the ground, thanks to my angel investor (hi Dad), and soon you will be able to purchase copies of all my books under the imprint. ALSO (*drum roll* please), I will be releasing my latest book of poetry, “Stakes,” this coming week!
Most of these poems were written, once again, during Camp NaNoWriMo (April this time), and however quick a turnaround you may perceive this to be, I have to say — I’m pretty frickin’ proud of these poems.
And, as a matter of fact, there is at least one poem about Rwanda in this collection, which I wrote while reading this book. (If you don’t know about the Rwanda genocide that happened 25 years ago, go educate yo’self.)
Once all the books have been published or re-published and ordered, I will be scheduling signings and readings around town for late July/early August, so stay tuned for that.
Finally, I will also be working on edits for The Blame Game, which I would LOVE to publish next year, but we’ll see. It should be doable given the “extra” time I expect to have this fall (though when is “extra time” even a thing?)…
More on that later.
Ciao!
Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum 