The Works of Jayne Pupek

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Richmond, VA, United States
Jayne Pupek is the author of the novel "Tomato Girl" (Algonquin Books, 2008) and a book of poems titled "Forms of Intercession" (Mayapple Press, 2008). Her writing has appeared in numerous literary journals. In addition to her own writing, Jayne freelances as a ghostwriter, editor and mentor. A Virginia native, Jayne has spent most of her professional life working in the field of mental health.

Contact Jayne

To contact Jayne, email JaynePupek@aol.com

LibraryThing

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

ECTOPLASMIC NECROPOLIS- poetry chapbook



ECTOPLASMIC NECROPOLIS (poetry chapbook) is now available through Blood Pudding Press

Two of my poems, "20 Reason I'm Not Writing Today" and "The Xerox Girls" appear in this collection. I'm delighted to have my poems included with the work of many other fabulous poets.

Description:

A 30 page poetry chapbook starring the work of the following oozing literati:

Shane Allison--Aimee DeLong--Brooklyn Copeland--Nava Fader--Adam Fieled--Jeff Roberts--Susan Slaviero--murmurists--Ken Pobo--Suzanne Grazyna--Juliet Cook--Rebecca Loudon--Andrew Lundwall--Daniela Olszewska--Candace Turlington--Misti Rainwater-Lites--Rachel Kendall--J.R. Pearson--Sharon Zetter--Brian Foley--Eddie Watkins--Jayne Pupek--Nicole Cartwright Denison--Melissa Severin--Donora Hillard--Sean Kilpatrick--AnnMarie Eldon--John Moore Williams--Rachel Lisi--John Rocco

Cardstock cover in bright green with sparkles OR neon green OR hot pink OR bright yellow.

Off-white innards.

Ribbon-binding in either furry hot pink OR furry chartreuse OR satiny bright orange OR satiny hot pink OR satiny lime green OR satiny plum OR satiny black with spider webs.

Hand-designed--each & every copy is one-of-a-kind and includes a few unique creative flourishes.

Available individually or as part of a Combo Pack.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

This and That...




It's been a busy week or so as I've worked to redesign and update my website. I'm far from tech savvy, so it took some time, but I'm happy with the results. Take a look here.

I also spent some time updating my submission tracker so I can keep up with which poems I've submitted. I use the submission tracker at Duotrope's. What I really need is a secretary! Okay, I know it's a stretch, but let me dream.

My husband ordered the little Obamakinz doll for me, and it arrived this week. It's absolutely adorable.

Caketrain has accepted my poem, “Dreams (from The Blackbird Series)” for publication. I love this journal and am so thrilled to have a poem forthcoming in the next issue.

I'm having severe "poetry withdrawal syndrome" as I work on my third novel. Writing poems never feels like work to me. Novels, on the other hand, definitely feel like work. I'm making good prgress, though, and hope to have the first draft done in the next two months. I'm well stocked on chocolate, Starbuck's coffee, and red wine. I should survive. Maybe.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

TOMATO GIRL

The galley copies of Tomato Girl are here. They arrived at my door yesterday. I'm overjoyed with the way the book looks, and grateful to everyone at Algonquin for their hard work!

The book is now available for preorder at Amazon.com and Powells.com.

Friday, April 11, 2008

The Tax Man Cometh




My youngest son's birthday is today and my parents are visiting tomorrow. That means Sunday is the day to do taxes. If you hear blood-curcling screams and loud bursts of profanity, that would be me. Ignore it.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

COLDFRONT MAGAZINE: Bryan Stokes II Review of Forms of Intercession





TANGIBLE FLESH

On the last page of Forms of Intercession, Jayne Pupek’s first full-length collection, a short author bio notes that she has spent most of her career as a mental health professional. The off-kilter verse on each of the preceding pages, however, intentionally gives the perception that they were written from within the proverbial padded room. In a time when taboos have themselves become verboten, Pupek manages to recapture in poems about sickness, infidelity and death the same uneasy awkwardness once reserved for discussions of politics, religion and money. Poems such as “Lunch Hour” carry a continuous narrative through stark, startling images of the carnivalesque and unexpected: “I watch / a woman wrestle a dog to the ground. / She wants his bone.”

Divided into three sections, Forms of Intercession opens hesitantly. The first section, also titled “Forms of Intercession,” begins with a disjointed poem of the same name, each stanza of which holds a tightly wound microcosm of a narrative, unrelated to any other. It takes several poems with loosely connecting threads before Pupek settles comfortably into multi-poem ruminations on death and mental illness. She warns in “Walking in the City” that “sometimes there is no absolution. / Scrape the onions off the bread and keep going, / You do what comes next, no matter how ordinary.” Yet there is nothing ordinary about the poems which follow.


Read the rest of the review at Coldfront Magazine.

Memory Keeper's Daughter




Premieres Saturday, April 12 at 9 pm et/pt on LIFETIME

The birth of a child should be the happiest moment in a couple's life. But when a doctor's wife has twins, one of whom has Down syndrome, this physician makes the difficult decision to send one of his babies away. An attending nurse discovers his plan and intervenes, putting into motion events that will haunt the doc, his wife and his son for the next 20 years. This all-star movie features Dermot Mulroney ("The Wedding Date"), Gretchen Mol ("3:10 to Yuma") and two-time Oscar nominee Emily Watson ("Angela's Ashes"). Based on The New York Times best-selling novel, Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards.

See clips and read excerpts at Lifetime

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

2008 Pulitzer Prize Winners



Fiction: "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books). Finalists: "Tree of Smoke" by Denis Johnson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and "Shakespeare's Kitchen" by Lore Segal (The New Press).

Drama: "August: Osage County," by Tracy Letts. Finalists: "Yellow Face" by David Henry Hwang; "Dying City" by Christopher Shinn.

History: "What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848," by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press). Finalists: "Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power" by Robert Dallek (HarperCollins); "The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War" by the late David Halberstam (Hyperion).

Biography: "Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father," by John Matteson (W.W. Norton). Finalists: "The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein" by Martin Duberman (Alfred A. Knopf); "The Life of Kingsley Amis" by Zachary Leader (Pantheon).

Poetry: "Time and Materials," by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins) and "Failure," by Philip Schultz (Harcourt). Finalist: "Messenger: New and Selected Poems," 1976-2006" by Ellen Bryant Voigt (W.W. Norton).

General Nonfiction: "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945," by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins). "The Cigarette Century" by Allan Brandt (Basic Books); "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century" by Alex Ross (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).