If I blogged more often, then I wouldn't need to do these long catch up posts...

So long time no update and I’ve been a bad, bad blogger.

But much has been afoot in the sea beneath the blog, the current under the silence. For instance:

• Several chapbooks are nearly ready for submission. One may have enough momentum to become a full-length manuscript, depending on my attention span.
• Two prose poems from one of the aforementioned chapbooks (tentatively titled The Alter Ego Handbook) were published in 2014 at burntdistrict. burntdistrict is a journal of contemporary poetry published by the editors of Spark Wheel Press. This is the 3rd time I’ve had work published by the journal, and Volume 3, Issue 2 is awesome – and I’m not saying that because my two trivial poems are in there. It’s truly a great read.
• Three poems were finalists for 2014 Atlantis Award at the poet’s billow. You can read them here. No money, but it was great to be in the running for the award and to have my writing published on the poet’s billow website. Thanks to all involved with this award.
• My poem Only the Moon Knows You’re Signing the Blues won first place in the 2014 Lebanon Poets’ Society Free Verse Poetry Contest.
• I have many short stories in various states of construction. I’ll be finishing and revising them soon to get them ready for submittal. I have caught the fiction bug again. Who knows, maybe a novel is rattling inside of me?
• I haven’t given up on my poetry manuscript The Blues Almanac. But I’m no longer letting that book not being published (yet) subliminally cause me to be creatively constipated. I’m partway into writing what will be my next poetry book, although the concept hasn’t fully bloomed yet. I’m looking forward to seeing where 2015 takes this potential book and the rest of my writing.

Broken record, but I’m going to be better at blogging and updates in the new year. If anything, it is another extension of my writing…and I definitely need the practice.

Happy New Year!

Forthcoming.

I’ll have a prose poem published in Clare Literary Magazine, a journal published by the students and faculty of Cardinal Stritch University. The poem is called The Inherent Discontent of Objects, and it is part of my completed manusctipt, The Blues Almanac, which still needs a publisher, by the way (hint hint hint). Huge huge thanks to Abby Gambrel & the staff of Clare for thinking my work good enough.

Quick Update.

Can’t knock my hustle.

The Tidal Basin Review will publish my poems The Blues Almanac and Education in an upcoming edition.

My micro-fiction piece Anniversary recently appeared in One Forty Fiction.  Click here to read it, and leave a critique there if you feel compelled to do so.

Finally, the online journal A Handful of Dust will publish my poem Hello, My Name Is sometime in the future.

Things are looking up.



Finalist.

Just found out that my poetry manuscript The Blues Almanac was a finalist in the first-ever Smalls Book Poetry Book Contest.  Although it didn't win and it won't get published (yet), it feels good to know my manuscript was able to hang around until the end of the competition - it is an honor.  Thanks to judge Gerry LaFemina and to senior editor George Guida for the opportunity to compete.

Acceptance.

Quick note:  my poem titled Instructions (for Reading this Poem) will appear in an upcoming edition of The Broken Plate.

The Broken Plate is a literary magazine produced at Ball State University featuring poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. The magazine accepts submissions from writers around the world while continuing to devote pages to the work of Ball State students. The Broken Plate is beginning an exciting new phase in its growth toward a more diverse representation of the creative community. Looking at excerpts from the 2009 plate, I'm excited to see what this issue will look like.

Personally this acceptance makes me really happy, since Instructions (for Reading this Poem) is one of my favorite poems (Wait...is it vain to have favorites of your own work? Oh well...) from my unpublished manuscript The Blues Almanac.

Thanks to the editors for the opportunity to contribute – I’ll have more news as publication nears.