My poem “Ties” is slated to appear in the Fall/Winter issue of The Aurorean, due out in just a couple of weeks, but you can pre-order a copy for just $11 at their website right now. The Aurorean is an excellent literary journal out of New England and I’ve had the pleasure of appearing in a few of their other issues, as well as in their Favorites from the First Fifteen Years anthology, which was a finalist in the 2013 Maine Literary Awards. Pick up a copy of the upcoming issue if you have the chance and be sure to look for my poem "Ties." Many thanks to editors Cynthia Brackett-Vincent and Devin McGuire for including my work!
Memories and Mischief from October Country
Like many nostalgics, autumn is by far my favorite time of year. The county fair season of late summer and Labor Day is coming to an end and the afternoon sun’s ferocity burns less and less each day until you hear the skitter of the first dried up brown leaf skipping across the sidewalk and you’re wearing your fall jacket (finally!) and wondering where you can curl up with a mug of hot cider by a window somewhere to take in the kaleidoscope of colors in the treeline horizon. I swear I’ve seen everything from yellow to purple in those trees, and with the anticipatory thrill of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and eventually Christmas whirling around inside, I can’t think of a better time of year than right here and now.
Read moreThe Cards We Keep, Others Now in Everett Library
The gorgeous Everett Mansion of Southern Vermont College (library wing is on the left).
Last month I dropped off four of my books at my alma mater, Southern Vermont College, for inclusion in the Everett Mansion Library. The mansion houses the classrooms, admin offices, theater, and library for the SVC campus, and I'm really excited about having my work placed there. The library is a beautiful corner of the mansion with brightly lit reading rooms, a large fireplace, and now four of my own books, including:
- The Cards We Keep (2013, short fiction)
- Dealing with the Devil in the Middle of the Road (2012, poetry)
- Lantern Lit, Vol. 1 - The Darkest Bomb (2014, poetry)
- Maybe a Bird Will Sing (2009, poetry)
If you happen to be in southern Vermont - Bennington specifically - feel free to drop int! The campus has amazing views of Bennington and the surrounding area. It's worth checking out!
A Few Words on the Recent Rash of Literary Misogyny
The last several weeks have not been pretty, to say the least. It seems every other day a new scandal breaks about some bastard in the creative world who is verbally, emotionally, sexually and/or physically abusing women (some of them very young women, i.e., children)—be it out in the open, behind closed doors, or while hiding behind twitter handles or anonymous screen names. I could list them all here and link them and on and on but my god there are just so many all of the sudden, so I’ll let you Google names like Kirk Nesset, Stephen Tulley Dierks, Ed Champion, and self-described “horrible person” Tao Lin, and any other piece of “alt-lit” trash who is exposed by the time I finish writing this sentence. My two cents are as follows…
Read moreToo Much? I Say Not Enough!
My copy of Too Much: Tales of Excess finally arrived, and it’s gorgeous! This collection of poems, short stories, and confessionals explore the various tales of excess by such writers as Puma Perl, Jeremiah Walton, John Saunders, Meg Tuite, Ryder Collins, Ron Kolm, and a couple dozen others. The collection (published by Unknown Press and edited by Chuck Howe) also includes my own semi-autobiographical short story, “The Rube,” about a drunken misadventure in a third-world nation. You can find copies at Amazon.com.
Read moreTop 10 Favorite Books From My Childhood
A while back a bunch of people started posting lists on Facebook about the top books that stayed with them — everything from children’s classics to modern literary juggernauts. It got me thinking about the books that I loved as a kid, the ones that really meant something to me. So here are the Top 10 books that shaped my childhood and early reading habits, in no particular order. Although there are plenty of others, these are the books I get most nostalgic about when I think of my elementary and middle-school libraries.
Read moreWriting on the Rails: Survival Tips for Traveling Authors
I write on trains. A lot. It's not always pretty (shabby interiors, crying kids, cell-phone talkers) but when you get a quiet car, a seat to yourself, and a gorgeous view, you can have a lot of fun. I discuss my tips for making the most of your railway adventures while still trying to work on that novel of yours over at the Writer's Digest website. Take a look, and good luck writing the next time you hop trains cross-country!
Dear Editor, Dear Writer, Please Stop!
The bad apples are out there in every field and occupation, and the publishing world has plenty of those wormy, half-trodden, utility apples lying about the orchard. The vast majority of editors and writers have amazing, productive, inspiring relationships, or at least working acquaintanceships, or at the VERY least they don’t hate one another, but sometimes those wormy bad apples come calling from both sides of the publishing lines.
I don’t intend for this to be a gripe session, not at all, but I do want to hold up some apples to the light and examine them with the hope that it makes the writing world a happier place to be. And it’s important to remember that these are cautionary tales, not the norm—so with that in mind, here are some things that bad-apple editors and writers should both stop doing immediately to make this publishing life a little easier on the rest of us.
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