IT'S GOING TO BE A CRAZY PARTY

I'm a planner - sometimes, I'm a party planner. I enjoy having creative get-togethers and hearing praise for my food and ingenuity. So when it came to planning the launch party for my new book, The Other Side of Crazy (918studio), I knew I could have a lot of fun. Especially because the book itself tends to be dark - I thought it pertinent to lighten the mood a little.

As I usually do when planning a party, I scoured my recipes for ideas fitting my "crazy" theme. I wanted food disguised as other food or things, but more akin to April Fool's Day rather than Halloween. I need the food to taste good and I don't want to gross people out. I decided on Marbled Orange Fudge that I've made before and noticed it looked like Colby-jack cheese cubes, Candy Sushi, and dessert pizzas, one sweet one disguised as pepperoni and a fruit one disguised as veggies and other pizza toppings. For drinks, I'll have Sunday Punch - not all that crazy except the party's on Saturday - and plain water for the non-punch-drinkers.


I also wanted to make the party a little more appealing by giving away door prizes. Most of them, however, are not crazy: ebook stubs for Missing Emily: Croatian Life Letters and copies of poetry chapbooks published by my host, Midwest Writing Center. The grand door prize is a brightly-colored snail-adorned bag with a high heel tape dispenser, to-do list napkins, a hamburger cord wrapper, candy, and colorful notebook, pens, and pencils.

Of course, the party will have the typical reading, book signing, and sale. It should be fun. If you're in the neighborhood (3rd floor, Bucktown Center for the Arts, 225 E. 2nd Street in Downtown Davenport, Iowa) from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, September 14th, be sure to stop by.

Have a crazy day!
-the Wordsy Woman

MY UPCOMING NEW PUBLISHED WORDS

I'm so excited that advanced marketing has started for my upcoming poetry collection, The Other Side of Crazy to be released by 918studio this September.The collection explores the craziness of modern life. Reviews are already coming in:

“The trick in The Other Side of Crazy seems to be that it’s a place we cannot access, or perhaps does not exist. These poems are filled with startling images, both strange and commonplace: blood-soaked quilts, burning watches, calendars, thunderstorms, dead skin, pharmaceutical commercials, a bike ride across the emotional terrain of modern life. These poems are littered with interruptions—both internal & external—that are always biting at the heels at this contemporary normalcy & domesticity, and in the end, rather than being resisted or fretted upon or allowed to hold modern life hostage, they are embraced & incorporated into the living and crazy love these poems so deftly reflect.” ~ Ryan Collins      

“In The Other Side of Crazy, Jodie Toohey explores the frailty of relationships and modern life from her own unique perspective. She guides the reader ‘Through the valley/Of vulnerability/…Of agony over/Straits/Of jackets and jars.’ Her poems beat with palpable emotion, fearless and honest, evoking a rich, multi-layered world.” ~ Nancy Ann Schaefer, InSearch of Lode

"In her book, The Other Side of Crazy, poet Jodie Toohey proves to us that still waters do indeed run deep.  Her poetry collection proffers a brilliant disturbance of the intellectual mind that reassembles as creative genius.The poet conjures everyday moments of insanity in her work that gift us sanity, and that join all of us in a very human, very creative, coven of mad genius. These poems are like rare, black pearls, simple, beautiful, darkly iridescent, and a little sinister.  The Reader wears them in her heart and mind like a badge made of rare jewels that entitles her to a tour through The Other Side of Crazy with poet Toohey as the tour guide." ~ Ellen Tsagaris,Sappho,I should have listened

"Poet, author Jodie Toohey exhibits her diverse and creative poetic voice in The Other Side of Crazy. Her poems elicit  raw emotions and draw the reader to think about life from a different angle, from the other side of the proverbial box." ~ Trisha Georgiou, Quartered Enlightenment 

To read some samples, click here.

To craziness!

-The Wordsy Woman