On boots and bars and motorbikes...

A forthcoming Q&A with the Writer's League of Texas and my story "Lubbock 1974," in the October issue of the University of South Carolina's Amarillo Bay, a literary magazine, the second one published from book Long Gone & Lost: True fictions and other lies... Which is now due in 21 days, to finish out my MFA by year's end. And believe me, I'm going to try and get the whole thing published right alongside HAP.HAZ.ARD the poetry collection I've been steady building as wrestle my way through stories.  Plan to get back to the novels I started a year or so back, now. and hopefully, I'll have to fits around my full time job. Thankfully, the electrical classes are behind me because I found out yesterday that one of the big classes I've taught since I started is canceled this semester due to a lack of enrollment. Apparently, student numbers are some of the worst ever at Victoria College this semester. For a dude who gets paid by the number ...

Just got word from an editor at a literary magazine out of South Carolina that they'd like publish another piece I wrote. They'd like to place it in their upcoming October edition. This current offer is with an online magazine called Amarillo Bay , (so named to reflect the hometown locations the magazine's founders, one from the Texas Panhandle and the other from San Francisco, back in 1999). It's published the Department of English at the University of South Carolina, Aiken, S.C., and as best I can tell, it's another one of those exposure-only type publications, no monetary perks involved. I've got the same piece in with a possible four other publishers, some of them actual paying contests and paid submission sites. This is where multiple submissions will give you an ulcer if you start thinking on it too hard. The piece that caught their eye is one of the more experimental pieces I wrote for my book I'm calling "Lubbock 1974," about what sc...

I'm truly astounded by the speed with which this went from written to published. I finished it over the weekend and got word it would be published yesterday. Check out my latest poetic contribution at Cold Summer Showers | typishly

Quite a day on the writing front! Today I got word that a new poem would be publishing soon in Typishly, an online literary publication. I'll add more about this when things are a bit more confirmed and definite. I also saw that a Q&A guest blog I did a few months back for this fellow from Australia I met in a writers groups online ran today. It's admittedly long-winded, but most definitely not anthing I expected. Thanks for the opportunity, Clancy!

Somewhere between teaching summer school college classes, working on book edits, wrapping up my electrical classes and otherwise riding life bareback, trying hard to hang on, I almost forgot about it.  You might recall, perhaps, me mentioning a few weeks back that three publications had chosen to publish things I wrote- -Bluestem (from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill.), with my story "Mr. Man Candy" (which I'll be publishing here soon, in its entirety with audio); the new Havik anthology Rise (from Las Positas College in Livermore, Calif.) ran my poems "Hap. Haz.Ard" and "Hipster Jesus," the latter even claiming a surprise second place win in the school's poetry contest along with a $75 cash prize (but that's another story for another day). And finally, there was Alchemy from Portland (Ore.) Community College, which published two more of my poems, "My Little Girl," shown above, and "Why You (dis)sin?...

I found this proof cover of the 2018 Havik anthology about midday Saturday, May 19, at roughly the same time the faculty and staff were hosting a party for the new book at Las Positas College in California. I rather hoped I would've seen more photos from the event, but from the looks of it they came right down to the wire of getting this thing put together. I've attached another picture at the foot of this post that goes over the general basics of the publication this year. If my imaginings are anywhere close, this must be one hefty volume. A total of 122 contributors from six continents. I'm rather amazed my piddling contributions got anyplace near it. At least that's what I thought, anyhow. In fact, I wrote the whole thing, tongue in cheek, more as a spoof of a poem rather than an actual submission. Of course, I banged this one out on one of those days I got like 14 rejections in one day. I wrote this snarky as hell, and submitted it thinking it could...