Infinite Difference: it's coming!

We are in the home stretch now for Infinite Difference, the anthology of UK women's Other poetries I've been working on for Shearsman since August 2007. We is basically myself and Tony Frazer, editor and publisher of Shearsman Books, if you didn't know. If I had a pound for every email exchanged between us regarding the anthology, I'd be planning a long trip to India.

At this stage I'm anxiously waiting to hear from our blurbists, hoping they like the work, hoping they find my introduction more or less sound. Actually, I want them to love the book, to love it like I've come to love it, with its splendid range of poetries and intriguing, thoughtful poetic statements. In the meantime, postcards are being printed (hurrah!), I'm proofreading the authors' bios and statements (they've proofread their own poems already), and I'm planning the London launch on the tenth of March.

I'm starting to think I should have the launch videotaped, because it's looking more and more like An Event. Fifteen of twenty-five contributors have confirmed they'll read, another two have said maybe, and another (namely me) will be running the proceedings. Unfortunately it means that introductions will be almost as brief as possible and each reader has only 4-5 minutes, but still! Here's the current list: Sascha Akhtar, Isobel Armstrong, Caroline Bergvall, Andrea Brady, Emily Critchley, Claire Crowther, Catherine Hales (all the way from Berlin), Frances Kruk, Rachel Lehrman, Wendy Mulford, Redell Olson, Frances Presley, Sophie Robinson, Zoë Skoulding and Carol Watts. What a line up! It's as though I decided to produce a reading I'd really enjoy and then.... Wait, that's partly what this anthology is, the best women's non-Mainstream poetries I could find. I can hardly wait to hold the finished book.