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Writer/Editor

"Marcia Deihl is the editor you want for your manuscript. An excellent writer herself, she is well-read in the arts, literature, music, and the sciences, and thus brings a broad scope of knowledge to her first-rate copy-editing skills. You can’t underestimate depth of experience in today’s climate of trendy twenty-something publishers/editors.";

—DH Wolfe

Author of the travel memoir, "No Excess Baggage"
from Trafford Publishing ™ Ltd. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada


"Marcia Deihl copy-edited several of my recent publications for "Modern Fiction Studies" and "Virginia Woolf Annual." Her work is conscientious, meticulous, and accurate."

—Dr. Jane Lilienfeld 
Curator's Distinguished Professor of English, Lincoln University, Jefferson City, MO 

Author of "Reading Alcoholisms: Theorizing Character and Narrative in Selected Novels of Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf," Macmillan, 1999, winner of a 2000 CHOICE Award.



Marcia is an experienced writer and editor. She is also a music transcriber (from mp3 to sheet music).

Contact her at marciadeihl86@gmail.com.

Explore her blog archive:  
 http://marciamellowd.blogspot.com/ 


Past Experience

She was a book reviewer for "Harvard Review" from 1993-2000, a proofreader for "Anthropological Literature"  (Anthropological Literature, Tozzer Library, Harvard University) from 1999-2012, and Music Editor of "Sojourner: The Women’s Forum" from 1985-1987.

Read sample book reviews below:



http://marciamellowd.blogspot.com/2009/03/book-review-2001-of-nadine-gordimers.html



Writing



"Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith"
Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith [Paperback]

Editor, Debra Kolodny
pub. date April 17, 2000

Contributor of
"Bi God: Rediscovering an Ancient Self," Marcia Deihl

Listen to an interview on "Gendertalk" about book:












  "GETTING BI: VOICES OF BISEXUALS AROUND THE WORLD"
                                           
Robin Ochs, co-edited with Sarah E. Rowley

Publisher: Bisexual Resources Center (May 31, 2005)
This book contains 184 short personal essays written by people in 32 countries, ranging in age from 15 to 79.
Contributor





"ALL OUR LIVES: A WOMEN'S SONGBOOK"
Publisher: Baltimore Diana Press (1976)
Contains lyrics, melody lines, and guitar chords to more than 60 songs.
Editor














Poetry

Domestic Triptych


Morning: Baggy Bra


I wanna wear my baggy bra,

My baggy bra today.

Don’t wanna wear the perky one,

Got nothin’ sharp to say.



I feel just like my baggy bra,

Just for this one day.

You earn your comfort; take a pass.

It’s a baggy kind of day.



Afternoon: The Meeting


Every afternoon

about four o’clock,

birds swoop down to the same two trees

in the playground across the street,

watermelon seeds on

dendrites of thick black ink.

The cat quivers,

green laser eyes fixed on every twitch.

The birds proceed, undaunted,

following Roberts Rules of order.

Ah, but there’s always that

one arrogant sparrow

who keeps on interrupting.


Evening: Love Song to a Cat


Court jester,

harlequin muzzle,

grey and white,

pink of lip and

green of eye,

hopping,

jumping,

bumping me

like some relentless zen master:

“Now’s good!”

“Now’s good!”

“Now’s good!”
Marcia Deihl 3-31-03


Robes


It’s Christmas at the home, and

all the women have brand new robes.

Murmuring and grasping the wooden rails,

they pad down the hallways,

“I have a bath today.”

“Did you get your cookie?”

Husbands gone,

no dishes, no jobs,

like nuns they traverse

the honeycombed halls,

moving headlong, but in slow motion,

toward what my Auntie Medge called

That Last Little Room.

Sometimes, like children,

they lose their way in the mazes

that connect them to lunch,

nurses, hairdressers,

the chapel upstairs.

My mother, dressed as always

in a white cotton blouse and slacks,

calls them “my old ladies.”

She’s ninety-six--

not quite like them--

skipping the blather about the Rapture

and bringing flowers and comics

to the Personal Care floor.

They have earned the right

to wear their robes—

the bright shiny crimsons,

the quilted greens and blues—

circling the piano while Ronie plays

“O Little Town of Bethlehem”

once again, and once again.

They have earned

the right to wear their robes,

at Christmas,

early in the evening,

any time they want.


Marcia Deihl 2007


Time Release Jesus


I fled the church at eight—

in my mind, at least.

My father preached

while I drew

dancing harem girls

and nestled

in my Nana’s lap.

In my fifties,

the old hymns pulled me back,

beckoning with seductive grace

(if we can say that about religion).

They drew me in

and plopped me into a musty wooden pew,

just a short hop

from one Protestant

brand to another

(and I did like the “protest” part).

The hymns were the same

but this was a “welcoming” church

and it welcomed even me,

with my unpredictable pronouns.

I did not join, however.

I was there for a secret reason:

I could only cry

when I sang those old hymns,

while my father lay dying

too slowly

in another state,

of mind, and of place.

But the seeds had been planted for

Time Release Jesus,

and I seem to have had

nothing to do with it.

Marcia Deihl 2007


Six Ways to Look at a Drag Queen

(after Wallace Stevens)

"We are born into this world naked. All the rest is drag.”   –RuPaul

1

A small town drag queen awakens

a little after noon,

shocked at the feel of the night’s stubble

on her lipstick-streaked chin.

2

Your mother is sitting at her vanity

(so aptly named),

putting on creams and lotions,

black lashes,

pink shadings,

transforming from Mom into Sweetheart.

You lose her as she turns into this

cool drag queen.

3

I was a teenage

baby boomer

drag king.

Weren’t you?

Didn’t you wear your father’s white shirt

as you painted the old kitchen porch?

4

I’m thinking about

Barbara Bush

and her L. L. Beans

butch khaki pants.

She was no Nancy Reagan.

But who of the two

was more of a drag queen?

5

The night of my senior prom,

I put on fishnet stockings

and my father’s

blue wool Navy jacket.

I felt covered, safe,

like in my band uniform.

When I drove to the gym

and peeked in at the popular kids,

dancing among the paper carnations,

I hated them

and longed for their lives.

You met me later at the seedy small town bar

in your black flowered paisley shirt

and red leather pants.

Nobody noticed a fat girl like me,

but you, my pretty raven-haired boy,

you got all the dirty looks.

Later

you bounded

like a flying squirrel

from the high school roof,

landing with a thump on the top of my car

as the fire you set started to burn.

6

One Mothers’ Day

my mother and I

watched her favorite Sunday morning show.

Famous authors—-all women—-

cooed about their Mommy’s rooms

where they’d tried on

her silks and heels,

twirling in three-way-mirrors.

I never was a girly girl

with a secret dress-up life,

but my old boyfriend was.

And in a pinch,

when I haven’t done the laundry,

I slip on a pair

of the purple satin panties

he left behind.
Marcia Deihl June 2007


White Tie Occasion, 1988


Like the boy in the fabled Dutch town,

My new husband stuck his finger in the dyke (me)

To stop the flood.

But the tears still came,

A Niagra roar of sobbing

Into my pillow every day after work

While he sat across the hall,

Listening to the demons of his clients.

They got better; I didn’t.

And unlike that little Dutch boy,

He could not hold back my sea of years,

Tsunamis of rage piled wave on wave.

When the water burst, it flushed his flailing self

On top of the wave and out the door,

While I, the sea itself, was the wave

That dipped down under the deep,

Down, down, to that cold and lightless place

Even before the womb (which at least was warm)

Down to that NO-land of no time, no memory, no energy,

No feeling,

No voice inside, giving orders, picking out earrings,

Telling me what colors I liked the best.

My smile took a terrible Mona Lisa curve

That echoed the smiley face on my green foam hospital slippers.

What were they thinking,

Giving us those fucking things????

For forty days and forty nights

seconds crawled like hours.

When I wanted out, I put on eye liner

And they said, predictably,

“Look, she’s taking pride in her appearance.”

And I walked out with my overnight bag,

My diary, and my meds.

But when I got out, this false body stayed on,

A cardboard cutout for old friends to greet:

“Hi, how are you? What’s new?’

They hadn’t heard my husk of skin

Now played host to a changeling parasite.I replay that scene in my mind,

Knowing I will never repeat it:

Calmly, I knot the white leather

tea dance tie,

wrap it around my high ceiling pipe

--I’ve done my research; no half measures for me--

And the truth arrives like spring:

A blank nothing is better than a bad something.


Marcia Deihl 1-12-06