POST BOOK: VINCE GOTERA

 The Halo-Halo Review is pleased to interview authors in the aftermath of their books’ releases. This issue’s featured authors include Vince Gotera:

(Photo by Sean O'Neal)

What is your most recent book? 

 Dragons & Rayguns.

Who published the book and when was it released? 

 

Final Thursday Press, August 2024. 

The book is also on Amazon but people who want their book signed should use this link:

 https://finalthursdaypress.blogspot.com/p/dragons-rayguns-by-vince-gotera.html 

 

What has been the response? What has surprised you most about the response? 

 

Response has been very positive. And this is connected to what has surprised me most: how many people love dragons and how much!

 

 

Tell me something not obvious or known about the book. 

 

To begin with, the book is made up of speculative poems — science fiction, fantasy, and horror. What is maybe not expected by the majority of readers is that I’ve included Philippine mythical creatures: the aswang (esp. the manananggal), the tikbalang, and the bakunawa sea dragon. 

 

Also, my son Marty Gotera, who’s a graphic artist, designed and created the cover. I asked him to include a dragon and a raygun on cover and make it look like a comic book. I think he did an amazing job!

 

 

What are you working on right now? 

 

I’m participating in the Stafford Challenge . . . writing a poem a day for a year starting on William Stafford’s birthday, 17 January. I’m keeping up and sometimes writing more than one poem. Today is Day 290. By the time this interview comes out, we’ll be into the 300s.

I’m also writing a long poem for the University of Northern Iowa’s sesquicenntenial celebration (150 years in 2026). This poem is a sonnet corona in the voices of various people connected to UNI since (actually, before) it was founded in 1876.

 

*****

Vince Gotera has been Poet Laureate of Iowa since 2024. He is a retired Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where he taught for almost 30 years. He served as Editor of the North American Review (2000-2016) and Star*Line, the print journal of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (2017-2020). He was previously an English professor at Humboldt State University and has also taught at Grinnell College, Wartburg College, and Indiana University, where he earned his PhD in English and MFA in Poetry Writing.

 

Gotera’s poetry collections include Dragonfly, Ghost Wars, Fighting Kite, The Coolest Month, and Dragons & Rayguns. He also published a book-length literary critical study, Radical Visions: Poetry by Vietnam Veterans. Recent poems have appeared in Dreams & Nightmares, The Ekphrastic Review, failed haiku, The MacGuffin, New Verse Review, Philippines Graphic (Philippines), Rattle, Rosebud, Silver Birch Press, The Wild Word (Germany), Yellow Medicine Review, and the anthologies Multiverse (UK), Dear America, and Hay(na)ku 15. Gotera’s poetry awards include a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry, The Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in Poetry, and an Academy of American Poets Prize, among others. 

Gotera was born and raised in San Francisco and also spent some childhood years in the Philippines. He blogs at The Man with the Blue Guitar (http://vincegotera.blogspot.com). His favorite color is blue, in all its dynamic shades and flavors: cobalt, electric, royal, robin's-egg, navy, cerulean, teal, indigo, sky.