Members' Anthology
The 2014 members' anthology, Take-Out Window, is ready, and multiple boxes of copies have been delivered to our hard-working editor, Gary R. Hotham, who will see that every member of the Haiku Society of America receives his or her free book in the mail ("free" because a few years back, we decided to transition to an online version of Ripples, our newsletter, and to devote the money saved to producing the members' anthology without charging extra for it).
As I announced in a previous bulletin and in the last Ripples, this year's anthology, for the first time, is a print-on-demand title--and just in time for Christmas (hint, hint)! So, in case you'd like to have extra copies to give to friends and family, you can order them now on Amazon.com. We set the retail price at $6.00, but I see that Amazon is selling it at a slight discount, $5.70. For every copy sold, $1.00 is deposited directly into the HSA bank account as a royalty.
Here's the link for purchasing extra copies:
I'd like to thank Gary, once again, for a great job of editing. And, again, I want to thank HSA 1st VP Mike Montreuil for organizing the production, Lidia Rozmus for the cover design and illustrations, and Lynda Wegner for the layout.
Membership Renewal Reminder
In my November message, I asked for an "avalanche" of membership renewals, and our HSA Secretary, Mollie Danforth, reports that many of you responded and, indeed, an avalanche occurred. I even followed my own advice and renewed as well. Mollie would like to thank all of us who renewed for 2015, and she hopes that those of you who still haven't done so will get this done before the end of the year. Whether you're renewing by check or online with PayPal, I hope that you'll sign up for another year. And if you are experiencing financial difficulties, please keep in mind that we have a scholarship fund that we can use to pay for memberships for members going through hard times; just let me or any of the officers on the Executive Committee (EC) know.
Here's the link for joining HSA, with instructions on how to renew:
October 1st Cut-off Date for Renewals
This item will be of interest to the procrastinators among us. The EC has decided that October 1st will be the cut-off date for 2015 member renewals. Any renewals received after that date will go toward 2016 membership. After lengthy discussion, we concluded that there needs to be a cut-off date for any year's membership, and we feel that October 1st is a logical choice, since the mailing list for the members' anthology is usually compiled around that time.
To have your haiku included in the 2015 anthology, of course, you'll need to renew your membership by the customary May 31st deadline for submissions.
Hard Copies of
Ripples and Ballots
I mentioned above that our move to an online format for Ripples saved HSA enough money so that we can offer the members' anthology free to all members. Of our approximately 850 members, around 80 have requested to have hard copies of
Ripples mailed to them. The Executive Committee has discussed this, and we've come to the conclusion that we can no longer provide the newsletter in hard copy to all members who request this. This is expensive, time-consuming, and in an age of easy Internet access in homes and libraries, an outmoded, paper-and-tree wasting extravagance. Therefore, we decided that, starting with the March issue of Ripples, we are going to shift to a 100% online format--with only a few exceptions (read on).
In January, I'll send a letter to members who've been receiving paper copies of Ripples, explaining the new policy and the reasoning behind it, and offering tips on how they might obtain e-mail accounts (for example, at their local libraries) in time to view the March issue. For those who have trouble reading material on screen, I'll explain how to access Adobe Reader, so that the PDF file can be printed for their reading pleasure. I'll also invite anyone who has a disability or a life condition that makes Internet access absolutely impossible to let me know about it, so that we can make sure they continue to receive copies. I have a feeling that this will be a very rare exception, and I'm sure that all HSA members will agree that such members deserve to continue to receive hard copies of the newsletter. However, to those members who have e-mail addresses and simply prefer to have a hard copy of Ripples in their hands, I can only say: Please print your own copy when the March issue arrives . . . in your inbox!
Meet HSA Member X
I hope everyone has had a chance to visit the HSA website to see the new "Meet HSA Member" feature. The first installment is a profile of HSA member Lenard D. Moore, written by L. Teresa Church, and posted prominently and attractively on the main page by our Electronic Media Officer, Randy Brooks. Randy says that he thinks once a month would be a good pace for adding new profiles--while, of course, archiving all previous ones. The EC discussed this, and we decided that a fair and geographically equitable process for choosing profiles would be to ask the Regional Coordinators to nominate members from their regions and to ask for fellow members to do the write-ups. I'll be contacting RCs from all the regions, assigning months and inviting them to find members to profile---not only "star" poets like Lenard but also, we hope, some beginning haiku poets as well, because everyone has a story to tell. The RCs can pick members whose "how they met haiku" stories are particularly interesting, or they might choose to flip coins and choose their profiles randomly. The important thing is to show the world the various faces of English language haiku, and to tell their stories. The EC also decided that it would be a good thing if each writer of these profiles would share them with the person being profiled, to ensure accuracy before going live.
Mentors
I thank all of you experienced poets who have responded to my appeals for haiku mentors. Now, I have a short waiting list of less experienced poets who'd love to learn from you through e-mail exchanges. I'm hoping that the holiday spirit of giving will inspire the master poets among us to offer their services as mentors. It's a valuable two-way experience.
For example, one student recently wrote to me:
"You paired me with the kindest, clearest, most generous poet I have ever known. She has helped me so much. She is a born teacher. I'm writing haiku today because of her. I had no idea how bad my haiku were, how wordy my haibun. Though I have a long way to go, I am on the path solely due to [name withheld]. She has inspired me to fall in love with haiku."
The mentor of this student, when I asked her for permission to print the above testimonial, wrote:
"She is such a good person, always managing to find sunshine and beauty, even behind the darkest of clouds. I'm pretty sure she had a beautiful haiku spirit when she was born. :-) And she's brilliant. [Name withheld] has already had a number of her haiku accepted by three journals. But the main thing is, she loves reading and writing it. Rah!"
If you're an experienced poet interested in mentoring, send me a note. I'd like to match the students on my short list with mentors before inviting more potential students to apply. However, I'm hoping that I'll receive enough volunteers so that in the January bulletin I'll be asking once again for students.
ISBN Corrections
This is an item that may be of particular interest to past editors of HSA members' anthologies. Recently, we discovered that some of the ISBN numbers assigned to anthologies were incorrect. Mike Montreuil worked on the problem, and has now re-submitted to Bowker (the ISBN people) all of the incorrectly numbered issues with new, correct numbers. Randy Brooks has conveniently posted a complete list of the volumes along with their ISBNs on our website:
Fourth Quarterly Meeting
in Washington DC
This e-mail blast is scheduled to go out on December 5th, which means you still have time to hop on a plane or jump on a train or into a car to attend the HSA meeting scheduled for this weekend in DC. Full details can be found on our website:
I plan to attend--and hope to see you there. I'd like to thank Bob Ertman, our RC for the Mid-Atlantic states, for preparing what should prove to be an enlightening program.
AND Finally...
I'd like to wish each one of our members a happy, safe, tasty, loving, happy holiday season filled with haiku!
