Monday, February 28, 2011

Hanky PANKy


Check out the review of PANK's latest issue at The Review Review. My poem, Stampede at the Premium Outlets, is featured as one of the "inviting titles" (and there are many others)in the Table of Contents.

More of my poems in (or is it "at"?) PANK Online.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Scrabble Dick-tionary

Fellatio is in the Scrabble Dictionary, but Cunnilingus is not.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Death of a Corpse

Exquisite Corpse, one of the first journals I ever submitted writing to, is dead. A friend had just given me one of Andrei Codrescu books and I was eager to see more things he was associated with (though I kept messing up his name, and still do). Plus, I had just completed a course on experimental poetry. When I searched for "exquisite corpse," it was the first site to come up. It was hip. Far hipper than me, and I instantly sent them something. I never received a response: I wasn't even put in the "body bag," a section of the journal for pieces that for whatever hazy reason did not make it into the main pages.

In 2008 the submission page was changed and this announcement added:

We will not accept submissions until May 2009. We have not lost our optimism! We just ran out of time! And we are drowning in text! From now on we'll only read checks!


I checked back in periodically, but it never changed. Now the submission page is the same, with the addition of "dead dead dead" scrawled across the whole page in digital blood.

To be fair, EQ died years ago, maybe as soon as they closed submissions in 2009. But I wonder why. Earlier today I was looking at Double Room, the journal of prose poetry and flash fiction. Like Exquisite Corpse I submitted to it a few years ago, and like Exquisite Corpse, this journal has been languishing since 2009.

It seems a real shame to me, especially for an e-journal, for whom the cost of printing and posting isn't an issue, that journals should go gently or totally silently into the digital night. Could Andrei Codrescu or Mark Tursi not have found some young and eager writer/editor to take over editorially responsibilities for their site if they no longer have the time/inclination/money?

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Book Review #10

The Final Solution: A Story of Detection (P.S.)The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is Chabon's first book after Kavalier and Clay (I'm not counting Summerland; I mean The Final Solution was his first book of merit). The Final Solution is a slight volume, but I don't think it's a slight work. In some respects it reads like an erudite young adult book. The language is mostly simple and direct. The conceit of the main character is amusing, and the boy and his parrot are provocative ciphers. The actual mystery isn't quite as interesting as I would have hoped, but the mystery really serves as a foil for the characters and their relationships. Ultimately, this book is plenty worth the 2 hours it will take you to read it.



View all my reviews

Monday, February 7, 2011

Self-Promotion #4 - The Seasons

I have a piece in the latest issue of Zine Scene's The Reprint.
This piece originally appeared in Subtropics and was my first publication in a print journal.

Stay tuned later this week as I unpack my 2011 AWP conference swag bags!

Swag[ger] Store Bag Boy

For many conference attendees, the bookfair is the most important part of each AWP conference. With well over 500 tables and writing organizations at the fair, presenters need to go the distance in order to attract interest, and having a friendly personality and great writing in your journal may not be enough.

In essence, the bookfair is trick-or-treating for writers. I almost wished I'd brought a pillowcase for all the pins, magnets, sample issues, candy, and other bits of swag I collected. This year's trends include the usual bookmarks and pens along with a strange uptick in fortune cookies. Feast your eyes on this photo of consolidated swag:

Later this week I'll fulling unpacking my swag in a followup to my swag posts from the 2009 AWP conference in Chicago.