Recent and Future Events

Other tarot card readers know that a tarot reader doesn't usually read for him or herself. We all have too much bias about our own lives, too many fears for what could go wrong, and too many wants for how we think it ought to go. And so, as a rule, we don't throw cards down for ourselves. I have had several other reader friends look at my book, and everyone sees it as a success at the end. It is just the painful journey getting there that I can't seem to avoid, no matter how hard I try.

Sigh. Many of you know that the third Amazon-posted release date for Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath has now been missed. I know, I know. I can't believe it either. I can't tell you how excruciating this is. Beyond the embarrassment of the eternal promise that it's coming, it has been expensive for me as I have done so much marketing over these years, and of course with each missed release date I lose preorders who will not take the time and effort to preorder again, and again, and again. I can't blame them. It appears that Amazon has given up on my publisher too, because preordering FSGL is now no longer possible either.

If what I was told is true, my book has been sitting at the printer for over a month. The nature of a university press, of course, is that it is run by a teacher and manned by students. They will not resume classes until January 20th, and so I am not expecting much until probably a couple weeks after then.

I have to just try and press on (I wish I could laugh at that pun). I can say that this experience has dashed my impressions of academia being some kind of cred-feather in one's mortarboard cap.

If you're out there, if you are one of those beautiful people who preordered and keeps telling Amazon, "Yes, I still want it!" please let me know. I want to do something nice for you one day when all this is said and done.

In the meantime, I'm working on volume two, and finishing The Magician's Girl biography and the Early Poems book. I'm also having fun revising my old Night Times memoir, returning it to experimentations in literary form. Thanks to encouragement from my own favorite magician, Zulfikar Ghose, I am returning to what Night Times was, not the first draft of the memoir which was completed in 2005, but the actual magazine. NT was always an irreverent, playful experiment in form and parody. For some reason, I let people tell me what a memoir should look like. I let agents push me to add this, take that out. I got lost inside it all, listening to them. My voice became theirs: flattened and everyday. Now, I am back, and I am really excited about what I see happening.

Also, Class Plans to complement volume one of FSGL will soon be released FOR FREE, for a limited time, and I am rather excited about this because there is information in them that did not make FSGL before it went to print. These will help professors from high school through graduate school levels teach Sylvia Plath with my text. There are lots of discussion questions, in-class exercises, teaching tips, creative writing workshop activities, and more. One does not have to be an instructor to be able to download the plans.

Please note the following calendar events I see in my own crystal ball, if you'd like to be a part of it:

Monday, January 12th-- ALL tarot $ earned this day via phone, email and Skype readings will benefit Tenth Life Cat Rescue. Please make your appointment ASAP--you do not need to be in St. Louis to get a reading. Call me at 314.517.0158 or email tarot@nighttimes.com.

Monday, January 26th--As far as I know, we are still on for the rescheduled November poetry reading at Chance Operations. I haven't done a reading in a year or more, and I am looking forward to it.

Saturday, February 14th--Valentine's Day is also Mardi Gras down in Festus, and beginning at 2 pm I'll be back at Taytro's Bistro for their pull-out-all-the-stops celebration. Last time, there were fire eaters, hula dancers, live bands of all kinds, and probably a hundred other things I didn't notice, because I was busy reading tarot cards to the mobs of people in attendance. Owner and proprietor Luke Taytro is originally from New Orleans, and could not stand the idea of leaving Mardi Gras behind, you see. He promises me that this year will be even bigger. One does not have to be a soothsayer to say there is NO DOUBT.

Saturday, February 21 and Sunday, February 22nd--I'll be presenting two free seminars at the Working Women's Survival Show. Catch me on Saturday at 3:30 - 4:30 pm for "You Are Psychic," and on Sunday at 3 pm for "Tarot Toward Self-Actualization," a repeat of the seminar I did for them in 2013. I will likely have some free tickets to give away beforehand, so write me if you're interested.

Thanks, friends. Watch for more news here, on my Twitter @jgordonbramer or @fixedstarsgov, at www.fixedstarsgovernalife.com, or on my tarot website.