Winner Winner

I did the drawing for Aquarium. All "official" like.

First I put the names in a little basket:


Then I shook it up:


Then I drew a name:


The name was:


Janey Smith is a winner. (Pretty sure you've got my email. Hit me up with that address!)



Many thanks to all the participants. I wasn't sure anybody would comment, the fact that you did was awesome. I'll probably do another giveaway at some point so stay tuned. In the meantime, don't forget Aquarium can be downloaded for free or purchased for a small sum. THERE ARE LINKS ON THE AQUARIUM PAGE!

For further Aquarium-ness I took this picture recently:

Action

I interviewed Lindsay Hunter at Big Other. Her book, Daddy's is the business. You should buy it and read it over and over. READ INTERVIEW. BUY BOOK.

The ever-awesome BL Pawelek interviewed me for his series, Ten Everywhere at Flatmancrooked. READ IT! In honor of this continued promotion of my chapbook, Aquarium, I am going to give a copy away to a commenter on this post. So comment away. I'll pick a winner at random on Friday.

In conclusion: Comment. Maybe you'll get a free copy of a chapbook. I'll even write a note to you inside if you'd like. You can specify that in your comment in case you're the chosen one. You can even tell me what to write about if you're the bossy type.

A Moment

Tonight I took my 12 year old son to a book signing for one of his favorite writers, Rick Riordan (of Percy Jackson infamy). I'd never been to a traditional in-store book signing before. I've been lucky to be in situations at MFA residencies and smaller readings and writing conferences where I got to meet writers, actually talk to them, and have them sign a book during the midst of that. This was quite the different beast. A veritable assembly line. We were given a post-it with my son's name which was put on the title page of the book. When we were next in line, another person took the book, who then gave it to a woman at Riordan's side. Then the book was quickly passed to Riordan who read the name, and smiling, signed the book and happily made quick conversation with my son.

I don't particularly have anything against this model, I appreciate the reason for its existence. It was just a different experience for me. I was happy that Riordan was friendly and seemed very genuine. And I was really stoked that my son was still filled with excitement and wonder about meeting a writer whose work he loves.

But the greater part of the event was the drive to the bookstore, when my son started telling me about an assignment at school where they will be writing spooky stories. This led to him saying that he has a hard time starting stories, that the beginnings always feel awkward for him. What followed was a ten minute discussion about good ways to start stories. About action and dialogue. Right in my wheelhouse. If there's one thing I do well it's probably dialogue. And if there's one thing I've learned, that I got drilled into me during my MFA, it was how to stop bogging myself down in background or biographical information and get to scene work. How to incorporate my dialogue writing with my need for action.

Needless to say the greatest writerly moment I've had in a long time was this ten minute stretch, and my son saying, after me giving him advice on opening stories right in a scene or with dialogue, "Oh, that's cool. I'd never thought about doing that."

Good

More greatness happening around Paula Bomer's Baby & Other Stories. This time in the shape of an interview with Publisher's Weekly! Read it HERE! There's a lot of good in there, though my favorite quote is: "If you're not being brave as a writer, it's hard to care."

There's also a fantastic interview with John Dermot Woods at Word Riot. Read it HERE. John is an awesome writer and artist, and this interview is great.

Deconstruction

My Big Other compatriot, Michael Leong has a new chapbook out called Midnight's Marsupium. It's a great collection that mixes poetry and art. There were some defective copies, which Michael encouraged some people to destroy and recreate into new works. The first set of these results are now up on Big Other, including my little contributions. CHECK OUT THE POST!

Here are some alternate pictures of my deconstruction:








You can purchase Midnight's Marsupium HERE.

Power of Influence

It's amazing how some things can influence or inspire me to what seems to be no end. The recent poetry surge is definitely a good example. The poetry I've been reading lately has fueled that surge even more. My writerly friends are constant inspirations. One such case is Shya Scanlon, whose work I've made videos for, done a cover cover of his forthcoming novel, and am currently working on yet another video/short film directly linked to his work. While working on said video I was playing with an image I'm using of his profile in silhouette and ended up creating another cover cover. This time for his awesome poetry collection In This Alone Impulse, which all the video action has been for.



(you can check out the other Cover Covers at my Flickr!)

Getting To It

I've been meaning to post links to two things for a long time now.

First is the UNDERSTANDING CAMPAIGN. These guys are awesome. The project is awesome. If you can support the project financially, do it. But if nothing else I hope you support the spirit of what they are doing. It's stuff like this that will make the world a better place not just for us, but for our kids and future generations.

Second is VOUCHED BOOKS, the brainchild of Christopher Newgent. Vouched exposes people to great indie literature. That alone is worth supporting. But there's a lot more to it, great book reviews, highlighting great writing around the web, supporting small presses with a book table at events and now a reading series. Boom.

The poetry surge is slowing down a bit. In a six day period I did end up with 26 poems, though. Including a 20 poem series, which I've put into a chapbook manuscript titled Aviary. I'm also now putting together a full length collection of romantic/saucy poetry, which will be titled furr after the poem of the same name that ran over at PANK a while back. It's been hard enough to place my regular full length collection, how I'll ever find a home for this one is beyond me.

Columbus Day?

"Teachers of students in the United States wrote this date on blackboards again and again and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy: 1492.

They told the children this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them."

--Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

It's Just a Phase

Something's going on with my writing lately. Well, my poetry to be precise.

It started slowly, a couple months ago I wrote some racy poems. Then I wrote some more. And then, within the last week it started increasing. To the point where in the last 3 days I've written about 15 poems. All at least somewhat racy. Some much racier than others. You know the way painters have periods during their careers? Picasso's "blue" period and whatnot? I'm not sure what this phase would be called. I'm not alarmed by writing racy stuff, I've always done that. But rarely with such frequency, and rarely so much of it at once. In fact, I've only been through a few periods with this sort of output at all, and it's been a long time since the last.

At least ten of the recent poems fit into a theme, too. Including one that sort of takes from a Robert Frost poem, for which the poor guy will likely be spinning in his grave. It's got me thinking "theme collection," but that's thinking way too far ahead. Ten poems hardly makes a collection. Yet.

As a writer you never know how long this sort of period of inspiration and productivity will last, so I'm trying to ride the wave as hard as I can.

***

On a somewhat unrelated note, if you haven't read "Like Swimming" at Atticus Books Online, READ IT NOW! (Gotta pimp the Alaska stories, ya know).

Balloons, Lights, Thunder

I got to see the Flaming Lips last week. It was the second time I've seen them. They were amazing. Of course. Here's what a Flaming Lips show looks like from my cell phone:







Also, I designed the cover for Thunderclap! #3, the Femme Fatale special issue. READ MORE HERE.

Long Blue

My story, "Like Swimming" from the ever-elusive Alaska collection I'm always talking about, is up at Atticus Books Online! READ IT!

This was the first story I wrote that took place in Alaska, and ended up being the entire impetus for the collection, so needless to say, I have a soft spot in my heart for the little bugger, which was originally titled "The Long Blue."