It’s been a while since I’ve been here–nearly two months. A lot has happened since I last posted.  I hope that as my health returns, I will be able to blog more consistently. I would like to post weekly, but we will have to wait and see what happens.

Let’s start with the good news. My poem “Brother and Sister” came out on June 26 at Gingerbread House Literary Magazine. I’m pleased this piece found a home as I’ve always found the fairy tale compelling. Terri Windling once wrote a “Brother and Sister Duet” on the same fairy tale, which was published at the Journal of Mythic Arts. It was one of those poems I was drawn to read over and over again. So imagine my glee, when Terri shared my version with her Facebook followers. It was quite the thrill!

I am currently getting geared up for my first residency at Stonecoast. I will be in Maine from July 8-18 and will be working with David Anthony Durham as well as Theodora Goss and Elizabeth Hand during workshops and I have a whole line-up of seminars and graduate presentations I plan on attending. it should be an incredible experience and I can’t wait to be there. In addition to having been one of five candidates chosen to enter the Popular Fiction track this semester, I have also been awarded a graduate scholarship from The University of Maine for this semester’s 6 credits. It was a wonderful surprise and I feel blessed to have been chosen for this honor. It’s not something I take lightly. The last bit of news on my MFA program is that I was also chosen to be one of ten students awarded the opportunity to attend Stonecoast in Ireland for my January residency. It’s all very exciting.

Now a bit about the bad:

On June 11, I had a terrible bicycle accident. I was going downhill on a road, looked over my left shoulder to ask my companion which way to turn. I have only been riding for a little over a year, so I still have a tendency to turn my handlebars in the direction I am looking. I don’t remember anything after looking over my shoulder, but apparently I had a run in with a big patch of gravel in the street. It stopped my bike abruptly and I was thrown face down into the street and all of the loose gravel that had collected at the bottom of the hill tore me to pieces.

Luckily, my sister Nikki Couch was in her truck following us and was able to stabilize me until the ambulance arrived. I was unconscious for most of this time, although I do remember being loaded into the ambulance and seeing her arms gloved in blood. The next 12 hours were a blur. I was in and out of consciousness. I remember my sister’s voice, my boyfriend holding my hand, the techs cutting off the shredded remains of my clothes, the anesthesia. In the end, I was in surgery for four hours.

There was extensive road rash on the tops of my hands and feet and knees. My left knee was cut to bone and required 12 staples. My chest was abraded to the point where there was no skin left, which required it being treated as a severe burn case, as they have been trying to regrow skin from the bottom up. The worst damage was my face. My helmet saved my life and my glasses saved my eyes, but there was extensive damage to my mouth and right cheek. I had stitches inside my lower lip and from my upper lip to my nose. I also had stitches on a long cut across the cheekbone near my lower eyelid. Unfortunately the stitches under my eye did not hold as the skin died and I will be having reconstructive surgery on July 19, the day after I return from my residency.

I have been posting photos of my recovery on Facebook, but I’ve been asked to put them altogether in a sort of album. So here they are, so far. I’m not done healing yet. I have work to do!

 

Although I could have had my surgery done on July 12, I refused the chance to miss my first residency, so I delayed the surgery until July 19. It has been an emotional time, but now I need to write. I need deadlines. I need reinforcement. And I need support.

I have a Patreon account that is set up for people who want to support my work. You can help with as little as $1 a month. There are levels with goodies such as poems and stories and other fun rewards. My gig with Bootprints went belly-up, so I am back where I started. Any little bit will help.

Carina