Book Release Party & Recent Article
For those of you in the Wilmington, NC area, I am pleased to announce that the official book release party and book signing for “We Call This Thing Between Us Love” has been scheduled. Please feel free to come out and join me!
Date: Saturday, December 19
Time: 8:00 p.m
Location: Parallelogram (523 S. 3rd Street; Wilmington, NC)
Also, here is an article recently posted in the newspaper “Lumina News” regarding myself and the book:
A promised tomorrow for UNCW poet
by Jenny Yarborough
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Love, Jason Mott—University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) Creative Writing grad of both undergraduate (2006) and graduate (2008) programs—said, is one of the most overwritten subjects in the world, second only to death. Still, this is the subject he chose to write about in a collection of poetry that was later selected as a finalist in the 2009 Main Street Rag Poetry Contest.
“I would actually say that I didn’t choose the project, but it chose me,” the young poet said. And though Mott admits the topic could be cliché, he explained that doesn’t mean it can’t still be fresh and unique. It just takes more work to make it happen.
His collection is about the facets of love rather than the Hallmarked walking-on-the- beach-holding-hands kind of love.
“…It’s more about all the myriad of ways we can love…Yes, it’s a book about love, but I hope that love will never be cliché.”
Mott began his university career in 2004, after a few years at Cape Fear Community College (CFCC) as a non-traditional student, but said he decided he wanted to major in creative writing in 2001—he was 22—when his mother died suddenly due to illness.
“I had been writing off and on before then, but never thought I could really do anything with it; even though I desperately wanted to. When my mother died so suddenly it made me realize the old saying ‘Tomorrow isn’t promised.’”
Rather than let her death be a solely painful happening in his life Mott used it as a source of inspiration. This is when he began to chase his dream of being a writer rather than just being someone who writes—and most likely the point where the young artist draws his raw and depictive images in the written word.
It wasn’t until published poet Lavonne Adams, UNCW professor of poetry and Master of Fine Arts coordinator of creative writing made a visit to CFCC that Mott directed his path toward UNCW.
“It wasn’t the beach that brought me to UNCW, but Lavonne Adams,” he said.
Adams said, “Jason was quiet as a student, yet when he voiced an opinion, everyone listened. He has a sophisticated eye and the ability to gauge where a piece works, where it falters…”
His 90-page collection has now gone from document to fully bound and is scheduled for release on Dec. 13. The book, is rightly titled, “We Call This Thing Between Us Love.”
Of the collection, Adams blurbed Mott’s work is “…a savvy examination of the multitude of ways we try to resolve loneliness. His collection provides us with one man’s internalization of longing–rich with guises of what is taken away and what is ultimately given. As a result, we are left like Narcissus, gazing into our own eyes.”
And though no one will ever truly gain the certainty of tomorrow, Mott can be assured his will be of aspiring success.
Mott’s book may be purchased in Pomegranate Books and soon at Two Sister’s Bookery and Barnes and Noble. Books may also be ordered online at the publisher’s Web site, www.mainstreetrag.com. To view samples of his work or other projects he is working on visit his own Web site at www.penandcape.com.
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