Two-fer

Today Artistically Declined Press revealed the cover and a short preview for Ken Sparling's Hush Up And Listen Stinky Poo Face. I'm really proud of the cover I designed. Check it out HERE.

I forgot that yesterday The Northville Review's Poetry for Poetry Haters mini-issue went live. It includes my poem, "The Family Dog," which was written as a writing exercise with a friend during my last MFA residency back in June. We picked five words starting in succession alphabetically, e.g. ABCDE then picking one word that starts with each letter. I think I picked the batch of words for this poem. I don't think my friend liked them. I often wonder with these types of poems if people can tell what the words were. Read the poem HERE.

Bad Blogger

I'm a bad blogger. In fact I've become a bad blog reader, too. I feel bad when I start neglecting all the blogs I love to read. I'm sure it's not noticed when I don't read them or leave smart ass comments, but I still feel guilty.

Life is busy. And when you're not having rejection letters show up on a regular basis it's hard to find something to come blog about. Even more so when you're contributing thoughts to another site.

Ahem. BIG OTHER. Ahem.

Seriously though.

I'm thinking of you. Each and everyone of you.

State of the Manuscript Address

When I was navigating my way here I typed in blooger.com instead of blogger...

Sometimes I get in these moods where I just start obsessing over all the writing I have sitting around. Thus, I present the annotated versions:

Code for Failure: a gas station novel, based largely on my time pumping gas and changing oil during the eight months between being kicked out of college and being readmitted. Very Bukowski/Kerouac-ish in its feel. This one's still in the "hands" of about 18 presses.

Who Killed Owen Wilson?: a strange, sometimes surreal, experimental novella thing about a guy who has lost his parents and is having weird dreams where they're not dead and calling him by the wrong name. I have no clue where to send this one.

In the Hands of All These Threads, the Promise of Sirens: another experimental piece. I don't know if it's a novella, or what. A fantastic editor who publishes great books said it felt to him more like prose poems set around a theme. A different version of part of this will appear in Tulip. If Publishing Genius reopens to print books, I'm totally sending this to them. I love their books. Which they've sold a MILLION of!

The Webcam Starlet: this is a chapbook manuscript of 16 (maybe 17?) persona poems. I had a lot of fun writing these. It started when Molly Gaudry posted a photo prompt. It was a runner-up in a chapbook contest, then I sent it somewhere else and have never heard back... A lot of places seem to not to take unsolicited chapbook subs, so this one's still sittin' on the shelf.

There are also four other chapbook manuscripts that I haven't sat down and finished putting together. And on top of that I'm slowly putting together my darling, my baby, my story collection, Glaciers, which so far consists of the five stories from my MFA thesis, as well as the story that's up at Word Riot right now. When it's finished it will be chock full of stories about blue collar lives in Alaska.


In very unrelated, but awesome news, Artistically Declined Press got some lovin' from HTMLGIANT, today!

Ramble Ramble

Not much going on here. Waiting to hear back on plenty of submissions. Reading submissions for Sententia. Keeping busy. I may have issues with my job at times, but it gives me time to do all the other things I try to do. If I had a traditional job I'd be trying to get all the extra stuff done after my wife went to bed and then I'd never get any sleep.

I'm rambling.

Check out my latest post at Big Other

and

In honor of having blood drawn this morning listen to "Give Blood" by Rain Machine aka Kyp Malone from TV On The Radio: Premiere: Rain Machine (TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone): "Give Blood"

Taking This Act On The Road

John Madera, of Chapbook Review fame, has started a new site, Big Other. The site will discuss literature, art, music, film, etc. It's got a great list of contributors, and then there's me. Yeah, I'll be acting like myself over there, so if nothing else it'll be entertaining... if you like my brand of blathering. The other, more deserving contributors are: Leni Zumas, John Dermot Woods, Sean Lovelace, Michael Leong, Jac Jemc, Christopher Higgs, Greg Gerke, Molly Gaudry, Luca Dipierro, and Kim Chinquee.

It's gonna be fun. CHECK IT OUT (then bookmark it, 'cause your gonna want to read it on a regular basis)

I've already posted two "articles" over there. THIS ONE. AND THIS ONE.

Everybody Else Is Telling... Guess I Should, Too

The list of contributor's for Robert Swartwood's Hint Fiction Anthology due in the fall of next year has been announced and includes yours truly. Here is the list, in which my name feels embarrassed to be mentioned in the company of the others:

Jenn Alandy, Nick Arvin, Samuel Baldwin, Max Barry, Kirsten Beachy, L.R. Bonehill, Ryan W. Bradley, Gary A. Braunbeck, William Brazill, Yvonne Brockwell, Jeremy D. Brooks, Randall Brown, Ken Bruen, Stace Budzko, James Burt, Frank Byrns, Jonathan Carroll, John Cashman, Adam-Troy Castro, Douglas Clegg, Danielle Combs, Chris Compson, John Connors, Hannah Craig, Brian Crawford, Blake Crouch, Kirk Curnutt, Tara Deal, Gay Degani, Stephen Dunn, Nicole Duson, Stuart Dybek, David Erlewine, Camille Esses, Merrilee Faber, Nada Faris, Jamie Felton, James Frey, Janet E. Gardner, Roxane Gay, Shanna Germain, Tess Gerritsen, Bill Graffius, Charles Gramlich,Val Gryphin, Jane Hammons, Ann Harleman, Bruce Harris, Donora Hillard, Rachel Lopez Hohenshell, Robin Hollis, Kevin Hosey, Eric Hsu, Gregg Hurwitz, Ben Jahn, Ha Jin, Jason Jordan, David Joseph, Michael Kelly, Jack Ketchum, Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath, Christina Kopp, Minter Krotzer, Joe Lansdale, Don Lee, Min Jin Lee, Sarah Lyons, K. J. Maas, Nick Mamatas, Lewis Manalo, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Michael Martone, Natalie McNabb, David Miller, Sarah P. Miller, Ty Miller, John Minichillo, Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz, Christoffer Molnar, Madeline Mora-Summonte, Rose Rappoport Moss, Barry Napier, Joyce Carol Oates, Brendan O’Brien, Daniel A. Olivas, Will Panzo, Edith Pearlman, Benjamin Percy, Sophie Playle, Jason Rice, Katrina Robinson, Jess Row, Robin Rozanski, Kathleen A. Ryan, Marcus Sakey, Joe Schreiber, Jessa Slade, Noel Sloboda, Andrea Slye, Jenn Sober, Kelly Spitzer, Agnieszka Stachura, J. J. Steinfeld, Peter Straub, Jake Thomas, Bob Thurber, Jade Walker, Ben White, Amber Whitley, Sue Williams, F. Paul Wilson, Robley Wilson, Mercedes M. Yardley, Mabel Yu, J. Matthew Zoss

I'm very excited to be a small part of this! Ha Jin is one of my favorite writers ever, holy shit!

Hey, How You Doing? Good To See You.

The new issue of Word Riot is up, and includes my story "The Long Grass" (as well as a plethora of other fantastic material such as the likes of a story from the always amazing Sean Lovelace). You can even listen to me reading it (for those of you who want to have the image of me in your head shattered by hearing my voice)

This is an important story to me. I first wrote it as an undergrad for my Advance Fiction class. I was really drunk and realized I had a story due the next day and I had nothing started. I cranked the sucker out, drawing on some stuff from my last visitation with my dad when I was 15. (Don't worry, nothing that happens in the story happened in real life...) Something was different when I finished even that first draft. Something in my writing had changed. I don't credit this to being drunk, because I'm a lousy writer when I'm drunk. When I started my MFA one of my favorite writers, Jack Driscoll, talked about how every writer writes a story now and then that changes them, defines them, betters them. As soon as he talked about this I knew that "The Long Grass" was the first of those moments for me. It was the first time that I knew (not just arrogantly as was often the case with my undergrad self) that I had written something good.

But this story went through a long journey. To this point it's probably seen over 50 revisions. Even last night as I recorded my reading of it I found things I wanted to revise. It's the story that got me into my MFA program (though I've heard there was some contention about it), it was called juvenile by one of the writers I worked with during my MFA, and in comparison to the stories that ended up in my thesis it is, but beautifully so, in my humble opinion. It's the first story of mine that my now wife ever read, and if you know me, you've probably heard me say I'm fortunate enough to be married to someone who loved my writing before she loved me.

This story was rejected by a lot of places. A lot. But I had a love for this story and I couldn't not send it out. I am thrilled to have it appear in Word Riot as they consistently publish some of the best work out there.

With all that said, thanks for reading my rambling about a story.

READ IT
LISTEN TO IT

Yup

It's been a craptacular day at work, but I feel like I should post something. Today is the release day for the new Flaming Lips album, which hopefully is waiting for me in the mailbox when I get home. In celebration watch this:




The Flaming Lips "I Can Be A Frog"

The Flaming Lips | MySpace Music Videos

A Smattering

I think it's funny when you submit to a journal, and the next day get their newsletter in your inbox. Sometimes it shows an astounding level of efficiency that is not shared with their actual submission process. Sometimes, too, it's unnerving especially if you see the journal's name before the subject line, 'cause in your head you're thinking "oh my gawd, I just sent that to them last night before I went to bed, it's only been 12 hours."

or something.


I have 36 outstanding fiction submissions. Probably more in poetry, I haven't had the heart to count those. Of the fiction submissions, 11 have been out longer than 260 days, in turn 8 of those have been out longer than 325, and 3 of those have been out over 400. I kind of think of those submissions as boats that were lost at sea. I don't pay much mind to them, but every once in a while their memory stirs up in my head.


I read two fantastic books this week, the most recent being Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs, which is a must read, especially for fathers, it was comforting to me as a newish dad.


I feel like a zombie today. A really sleepy zombie.

Things

I'm so distracted with the book I'm reading I've forgotten about other things... like this blog... so here's some things I've like lately:

ONE

TWO

THREE

and...

Catching Up (Big News!!!)

I got sick this week, and while I'm on the upswing now, it was gnarly. I still feel like I'm trying to catch up with everything around me. That said, I had to come post about this.

I've been working on a big project for a little while now and it's been killing me to not talk about it. Now I finally can. That project is Artistically Declined Press, a new small press venture from me and my good friend Paula Bomer. Our full length book will be released in early 2010. AND IT's BY KEN SPARLING!! We are also doing free short .pdf ebooks and the first is available now. And to top it all off, we will be announcing our lit journal soon.

I could gush about this all day. Instead of doing that, why don't I just link to the website already? ARTISTICALLY DECLINED PRESS!