Derek Kannemeyer
Pnews
November 2023 News
1. Derek is one of five poets featured in the October 31 Viewless Wings podcast, hosted by the California poet James Morehead. (Thanks, James!) Derek introduces and recites his poem “Laura in April,” which is about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, on Good Friday, 1865: it was Laura Keene, the star of the show that the Lincolns had come to see, who purportedly cradled him in her arms as he died. Click on the link to hear the whole podcast, or just Derek’s part of it (you can access the readings individually), or to read the text of his poem.
2. Derek has two poems (“An Unbecoming” and “For the Dusts of Us”) in the November 2023 Verse-Virtual, edited by the California poet Jim Lewis. (Thanks, Jim!) “For the Dusts of Us” is the closing poem in Derek’s new collection You Go In By The Gate That Isn’t There (Cyberwit Press, July 2023). Here’s the link:
https://www.verse-virtual.org/2023/November/kannemeyer-derek-2023-november.html
3. Derek will be reading at Iris Art Studio, 501 Whythe Creek Road, Poquoson, on Saturday November 18. The event runs from 1-3. The reading part of it (all Derek) is scheduled to last 30-40 minutes, though, with a break midway. Please be there if you’re free and in the neighborhood!
Thanks to Serena Fusek for the invitation.
October 2023 News
​
1. Derek's second poetry collection, "You Go In By The Gate That Isn't There," is now available. Contact him directly, or you can find it on Amazon. ISBN-13 : 978-8119228614.
2. Derek will be conducting a poetry workshop at the upcoming James River Writers festival in Richmond. Hope to see you there! (Flyer attached.)
​
July 2023 News Update
1. A couple of poems from Derek’s forthcoming poetry collection You Go In By The Gate That Isn’t There appeared in the May issue of Verse-Virtual. Here’s a link. https://www.verse-virtual.org/2023/May/kannemeyer-derek-2023-may.html
2. One of them, “In Praise of Memory,” will be published in the new collection in a very different version. You may see for yourself when it comes out—which should be in the next few weeks! Details to follow at that time.
3. In June 2022, Derek was one of the three names presented to the Governor of Virginia as finalists for the post of Poet Laureate of Virginia. The Governor declined to name any of the three, and in May 2023, after a long hiatus, he finally appointed Margaret O. Daramola. Let’s congratulate her and wish her a productive reign!
4. As a category finalist for the Hoffer Awards, The Memory Addicts was eligible for a review from the US Review. It will be up on the Memory Addicts section of the site, but here’s a link: https://www.theusreview.com/reviews-1/The-Memory-Addicts-by-Derek-Kannemeyer.html.
5. Derek’s next scheduled appearance is at Westminster Canterbury, in Richmond’s Northside area, on July 14. He’ll be talking about the creative life and the creative process, and presenting bits and pieces from the whole range of his work.
March 2023 PNEWS Update
1. Current appearance: Saturday, March 11, at noon, in the Auditorium of the Richmond Main Library. Speakers: Bill Glose and Derek Kannemeyer. Topic: Poets Writing Fiction. There’s a flyer over at the Memory Addicts page; get to it via PAPERBACK WRITER.
2. Goodreads is in its heightened March giveaways season. I’m offering ten free signed copies of The Memory Addicts. My giveaway runs from March 8 to March 22. It’s near the end of day one as I write, and there are over a thousand applicants. I just hope whoever wins a copy reads it. (Oh, and likes it.) If anyone reading this is that hungry for a free copy, give me the spiel!
3. I’ve been working on a manuscript of older poems, mostly from the 1980s. Check out these two lyrical narrative poems published in the February Verse-Virtual. https://www.verse-virtual.org/2023/February/kannemeyer-derek-2023-february.html
4. The Wishing Shelf has provided editorial reviews of The Memory Addicts and of my light verse collection A Betabestiary. I’ll post the former on the Memory Addicts wing of this website (go to PAPERBACK WRITER) and the latter at Press and Praise, under PUBLICATIONS.
5. We’re back up to date at the Puzzle Palace: check out the word square puzzles for January, February, and March at the Playground tab.
6. I have a couple of April appearances scheduled, at the James River Writers Lewis Ginter Retreat, and at the ARGS Poetry Festival. Both are on April 22.
7. I’ve been pleased to get some nice reader reviews up at Amazon and on Goodreads for The Memory Addicts and for A Betabestiary. Please, if you’ve read any of my books and have something good to say, please write me a review!
8. Congrats to my cover artist Beste Miray. The Memory Addicts is an Eric Hoffer Awards Da Vinci Eye finalist.
December 15, 2022
LIGHT has just nominated my poem “Corgis and Bess” for a Pushcart. In October, they submitted it for a Best of the Net. A double hooray and thank you to them.
I’ve updated—and upgraded—my “charmingly homemade” 2018 collection An Alphabestiary. This was my alphabet book of animal trivia and animal quatrains—light verse, but with short lyrical poetry mixed in. The new version is now available on Amazon (see PUBLICATIONS for the ISBN and AISN). It’s better written, better designed, better illustrated, and much expanded—more of the browsing book/semi-reference book I envisioned it as. An Alphabestiary was in four sections, and featured 110 alphabeasts, both true beasts and maybe-creatures; A Betabestiary has six sections and 150 betabeasts. Much of the returning material has been reworked also.
Even more excitingly, Kirkus has named Unsay Their Names as one of their top hundred indie books of 2022. Here’s a link to their December issue: see page 49 for the review. https://d1fd687oe6a92y.cloudfront.net/files/Kirkus_Reviews_121522_Online_Edition.pdf
And here’s a copy of the ad on page 36:
October 1, 2022
​
Saturday, October 1, all day: Derek reads, presents, and leads a writing session at the Appomattox Regional Governors School Writers’ Fest 2022. Go to ARGSWRITERSFEST.COM.
Saturday, October 8, all day: Derek will be attending the James River Writers Festival, where he will be moderating two panel discussions. Go to https://jamesriverwriters.org/
Friday, October 21, 6-8 p.m. at Blue Bee Cider: Derek will be at the River City Poets Halloween event, reading from The Memory Addicts and performing “Johnnie & Suzie’s Halloween.”
September 2, 2022
​
I’ve neglected this site recently. As I have much else. In July, my laptop crashed; so, almost immediately, did the replacement. Both required a wipe and rewire—no biggie for the new one, but a disaster in respect of its predecessor, which I hadn’t backed up for three years. The repair shop has been trying for eight weeks now to retrieve my data, but they don’t think they can. After treading water all summer, I guess I need to steel myself to move on.
I won’t lose everything from those three years: I’ve made books, some public, some just for me; I’ve posted files to this website; I can rescue writing submissions from my email folder, and photographs from my FB page and some thumb drives. But I’ve lost way too much work in progress and work newly completed. Gone also are my folders-in-waiting for petalridge. So I will be slower to add material than I had hoped.
Meanwhile, the new Artemis launches today; it looks glorious. Thanks to Jeri Rogers for including my poem “For the Fools of April.” https://artemisjournal.org/store/ On August 27, Dear Booze posted another of my pieces, “In Which I Jump Off The Right Train,” on their website: https://dearbooze.com/cocktales. And (with thanks to Jim Lewis), Verse-Virtual has come out with its September 2022 issue, featuring a poem I wrote in my late twenties: https://www.verse-virtual.org/2022/September/kannemeyer-derek-2022-september.html .
Even more excitingly, the trade paperback of my novel The Memory Addicts, now available for pre-order, will ship on September 13. The Kindle version will be released on that same date.
Less than 10% of the books reviewed by Kirkus get their review featured in the monthly magazine. "Unsay Their Names" did, and now "The Memory Addicts" has. This review is harder to find—you'll need to scroll through to page 205—but I'm so tickled that they liked the novel enough to include the review in the magazine.
For more about this novel, please go here: https://www.petalridge.com/the-memory-addicts
JULY 2022 PNEWS
My July publications include two poems in Verse-Virtual and an oddball piece (poem? you can be the judge) that appeared online in Dear Booze.
https://www.verse-virtual.org/2022/July/kannemeyer-derek-2022-july.html
​
I will also have a poem featured in the September 2022 edition of Artemis, which is available now for pre-sale at the journal store.
And my novel, The Memory Addicts, will also be released in September. Interested in advance copies? Please ping me!"
​
June 2022
No new journal publications so far this month. Except that I have been working on a new photography/non-fiction book, about China in 1992. Once I get the "just for me" version back from the printer, I'm hoping to cut it down to a publicly available 100 page tradebook. Watch this space! We're posting some of the images at the PHOTOGRAPHY tab as a mini-collection.
Two new readings, though! Catch me on the Verse-Virtual June podcast, where I get a 15 minute slot. Live on Facebook at 2 pm. on Saturday, June 17; podcast available on youtube shortly afterward. We'll post the link when it's up. And thus one is on June 29: "announcing the second virtual reading in the Connecting Our Community Series, sponsored by PSV's Northern Region. Email Cathy Hailey (haileycp@gmail.com) to sign up for the open mic focused on poetry that connects with the arts and to get the Zoom link." I'll be reading a couple of pieces where I combine photography and writing.
My novel The Memory Addicts now has a release date: September 13. I'll order advance copies at the end of July, and I'm really looking for advance readers who will blog about it, review it on Amazon, help spread the word. Let me know if you think you might fit the bill.
And I made it to the six name shortlist to be the next Poet Laureate of Virginia. This gets cut down by popular vote to three names, and then the Governor and his team have the final say. But being in the top six is a real honor!
May 2022
1. Unsay Their Names has won a silver medal in the 2022 IPPY Awards, in the category Best Non-Fiction Book, Mid-Atlantic Region. Conducted annually, the Independent Publisher Book Awards honor the year's best independently published titles from around the world. https://www.ippyawards.com/
2. For National Poetry Month 2022, Mike Maggio once again hosted a "30 poems by 30 poets" feature on his website: http://mikemaggio.net/. The challenge this year is to write an eleven line poem, each line being of exactly eleven syllables, on the topic "Love on an Imaginary Boulevard." My poem "Two Sleepwalkers"* was chosen as the best of the month, and will be published by the Potomac Review. The winners and runners-up were interviewed by Dennis Price for his hour-long show on Radio Fairfax.
3. The new LIGHT Poetry Magazine is out. It features my tribute to Queen Elizabeth and her corgis*. With thanks to the editor Melissa Balmain and acknowledgments to Alexander Pope.
4. I have two poems in the May Verse-Virtual*, and will be a featured reader for their June podcast. Thanks to Joanne Durham, one of my co-presenters, for nominating me to read with her, and to Robbi Nester for hosting this Zoom event. Sign up to attend on Facebook!
*Links to these poems are given under POTPOURRI, at the PERIODICALS subtab.
April 2022
To read my interview in the April issue of KIRKUS REVIEWS, please check out "Praise and Press" at the PUBLICATIONS tab.
For National Poetry Month, 2022, I wrote daily poems (or rather, very unrealized drafts) and participated in the usual array of online projects. I'd like to thank the other members of the Poetry Society of Virginia Facebook challenge poem page, and my co-members of the April group founded by the late Shann Palmer, and now hosted by Tom Prunier Sanchez.
Read my contribution to Luisa Igloria's wonderful postcard poetry project at her blog: http://www.luisaigloria.com/blog. The sampled works are wonderfully varied and inventive. Mine is the April 9th piece.
My contribution to Mike Maggio's annual challenge is up at http://mikemaggio.net/
March 23, 2022
MUTT SPIRITUALS, my first full-length poetry collection, is now available directly from the publisher! Here's a link to the website: https://www.sanfranciscobaypress.com// It's also available on Amazon, in the US and in the UK. If you use Amazon, could you leave a review?
UNSAY THEIR NAMES is also available from Amazon, except on weekends and on holidays.
Or ping me on this site, or email me at derekkannemeyer@gmail.com!
KIRKUS INDIE gave "Unsay" a starred review, and the Vice President of Kirkus Indie put a spotlight on it in her "Perspectives" column for their February newsletter. You can read both at the PUBLICATIONS tab, under PRAISE & PRESS. (April update: as well as a full interview!)
My Black History Museum exhibition closed in December 2021. The museum kept some of the fifty blow-up display boards, and may display some photographs again at a future time. Show catalogues are sold out, but the museum may still have a full book or two in their bookshop.
AND IN OTHER PNEWS
Visit the PERIODICALS file under the POTPOURRI tab to get links to my journal publications since October 2021. They include poems in Anmly, Light, Lucky Jefferson, Rat's Ass Review, Rigorous, The Pine Cone Review, Unzipped, and four issues of Verse-Virtual, plus photography in Riddled with Arrows.
My NOVEL The Memory Addicts will soon be available from Atmosphere Press. The final "not for sale" proof copy is already in my hands! But I've asked AP to hold off on the final printing for a few months while I sort out my approach on the publicity side.
* * * * * * *
UNSAY THEIR NAMES (2021)
Unsay Their Names is a record, in photographs accompanied by commentary, of the 2020-21 statue removals in Richmond, VA, and of a city's transformation in the context of the BLM protests. It is also an exploration, in commentary accompanied by photographs, of what brought us, locally and historically, to this summer of reckoning. And it becomes a voyage of personal discovery, as I compare the impact of Confederate and Lost Cause history on race relations in Virginia with my own struggles (as a mixed race immigrant) for racial peace and justice.
· ISBN-10 : 1006490183
· ISBN-13 : 978-1006490187
For sample photographs, visit the PHOTOGRAPHY pages.
Available now on Amazon. For more, see the DISTRIBUTION folder below.
.jpg)
%20copy-Edit-2-2.jpg)