Year of the Rabbit, etc.

This is a "year of the rabbit" design I did, inspired by a bunch of year of the rabbit interpretations other designers have been posting at Society6. This is available as art prints, phone skins, laptop skins, and tshirts and hoodies. The tshirt looks like this:


CHECK OUT "YEAR OF THE RABBIT" I had a lot of fun with this one. I'm considering doing a whole series of the Chinese Zodiac. I've already got a rooster one that I'll post in a day or two.

Also,

There's a fantastic interview with xTx HERE

And,

There's a great wrap-up/introspective on the whole gender inequality in publishing thing HERE

Plus,

Got a personal rejection from a pretty big small publisher for the Alaska collection. They'd held on to it for a long time, my hopes were slowly being lifted. They liked it, so that's something I guess. I also put the finishing touches on a new story last night that will likely be added into the collection. The new one is called "The Last Frontier," which, when writing stories about Alaska seems like a title that had to pop up at some point.

More About Alaska

Interest in Alaska is booming. There are a number of reality shows already taking place in Alaska (Alaska State Troopers, Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Flying Wild Alaska, Goldrush: Alaska, Tougher In Alaska, The Toughest Race On Earth: The Iditarod, and Out Of The Wild: The Alaska Experiment). And I heard recently that it's estimated by next year there could be around 20 such shows in production. "Manly Men," the producer of Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch said, "They all want to be Alaskans, they just don't want to get their toes frostbitten." Or hypothermia, I would add, because that's not so much of the fun either.

The senior VP of programming and development at the History channel said of these shows (and History's plans to introduce another show to the fold), "The fact that they're based in Alaska is an enhancement."

And of this trend, a columnist from Variety says, "There is somebody in an office right now pitching somebody a show, somewhere, that has something to do with Alaska."

The most thorough and best article I've read about the phenomenon is HERE.

I've seen this trend picking up steam. The interest in Alaska building. For years. Even before the one who will not be named was thrust unwittingly into the national spotlight. And while none of this was impetus for my writing about my home state, whether the Alaska story collection or the novels I've been slowly working on, I've always thought it might be a situation of me finally being in the right time and place for something. I still hold out hope.

Bookshelves

Moving day! Away from computer for a few days.

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A Lot of Goings On

First and foremost, ADP's new title, You Can Make Him Like You by Ben Tanzer is now available for pre-order and has its own official website. CHECK IT OUT!

Also, I read Normally Special by xTx on my flight back from AWP. It is so damn good. "The Mill Pond" is one of the best stories I've read in the last few years. The book is up there with the best story collections I've read in the last few years. In fact it fits right in with Paula Bomer's Baby & Other Stories, Lindsay Hunter's Daddy's, Bonnie Jo Campbell's American Salvage and Mary Miller's Big World. Easily the top 5 collections I've read in the last three years. So, as much as is going on with the inequality between genders in the world of publication the women have been bringing it. And hard.

Learn more about Normally Special HERE.


As for me, still not much happening publication-wise. But I'll keep my nihilism to myself. Mostly focused on the move right now. It goes down this weekend. And I'm sick, so hoping that sorts itself out right quick. I've applied for about 80 jobs now. The machine chugs on.

I've done some recent design stuff, though. So make sure to check out my Society6 and Flickr pages!

Let's Love

Today is the last day to get your name on the list for the Valentine's Day poem and receive this year's! GO HERE and sign up. Or use this LINK. If you've received the poem in the past you should receive it again this year, though instead of coming from a personal email address it will come from rwbvalentine[at]gmail.com. There are enough people doing it now that I'm going to use an email newsletter format. I finished the poem last night and am really happy with it. Looking forward to pressing send.

In anticipation I was reading more Neruda last night. It's probably dangerous for me to read Neruda so much, but I can't get enough. I really love the last stanza of "Ode to the Book (I)"

I have learned about life
from life,
love I learned from a single kiss,
and I couldn't teach anyone anything
except what I have lived,
whatever I had in common with other men,
whatever I struggled for with them:
whatever I expressed of them all in my song.

Makes me remember how far I have to go.

Gargoyle Magazine is awesome. Not just because they published a piece of mine a while back. But also because they have been around rocking the lit scene for longer than most presses and journals can even dream of. Richard Peabody, the genius behind Gargoyle is featured in a great article by the Washington Post today. READ IT.

Also, let me remind you to take part in my annual Valentine's Day Poem Project. GO HERE FOR MORE INFO.

I have a ton of partially finished stories sitting around my hard drive. I finished one recently, and finished a draft of another. There have been poems here and there lately, too. I've applied for 50+ jobs at this point. And the move is creeping up rather quickly. Adventures everywhere.

Here's a new design, based on the design I did for Aquarium:


As always, check out my Society6 Page!

And More...

Finally posted a small AWP wrap-up on the ADP site. CHECK IT.

Mary Miller was interviewed at Rumpus. Mary is a hell of a writer, and after getting to meet her at AWP I feel I can say she's also a hell of a reader/person/awesome force of nature. Seriously. READ IT.

I've also been working on some Lincoln-themed designs. The first is up at Society6:


The tshirt version looks like this:


There's also this little guy, who has nothing to do with Lincoln at all:


CHECK 'EM ALL OUT

A Few More DC Tidbits

A couple things I found perplexing while in DC:

-Either Counting Crows are still big in DC or they are just big at the hotel where I stayed. I heard no fewer than ten Counting Crows songs while in my hotel, and I wasn't there very often.

-Wearing sunglasses indoors seems to be big in DC as well.


Also, while I was gone I had a new story up at Housefire, the new project from Metazen and Riley Michael Parker. The story was part of their first prompt project, the prompt being "The First Time." READ IT!

Riley has been making up great bios for everyone. Here's the one he gave me:

"RYAN W. BRADLEY is a haunted house. In October it always happens, every year, that teenagers dare each other to spend a night inside him, and though many attempt the feat, no one is brave enough to stay through until dawn. The horror begins at midnight. First there is the moaning, and then the rattling of chains, and then the shadows of missing children, and finally a wave of blood that starts at the top of the stairs and ends up in the basement. And that’s all by 2am. Stay out of Ryan W. Bradley. Stay the fuck out."

Things I Learned In DC

AWP has come and gone once again. What a whirlwind. There was very little sleep. Very little eating. There was a plethora of good people, so much so that you can never hang out with everybody you want to, which I guess is why this is an annual thing.

DC is daunting. But, I had a great time, even carved out a bit of time to go see the Lincoln Memorial, Saturday morning. That was awesome. I geeked out majorly. Had goosebumps and everything. Let me be clear, I've had a weird obsessive connection to Abe Lincoln since I was a little kid. Like 5 or 6. When I was fifteen I had an eerie premonition that I would have a son named Lincoln. When my wife told me she was pregnant I knew. I said "We're going to have a boy and his name is going to be Lincoln." So, yeah, add on the minor in American History and it was a very nerdy morning for me.

There's no way for me to reflect linearly about the experience. My brain is mush full of little snippets that come and go and make me think "that was awesome I need to write about that" and then ten seconds later its replaced by another.

ADP put on a reading Thursday night with Dogzplot, JMWW, and Wigleaf. That went really well, though it was full of chaos. Since Dogzplot couldn't make it and had organized much of the event I ended up trying to take the reigns as much as possible, then we got there and our MC didn't show. Which meant I introduced everyone off of a little printout of bios. I sounded like an idiot, but people seemed okay with that, which is good. The reading was packed and the readers were great. So stoked to be a part of it.

The reading I was to take part in was also fantastic, though because of a mix-up with the venue ended up getting cut short. So, I didn't get to end up reading, but it was still a fun evening and a great chance to meet some people I'd been wanting to meet. Afterward I took part in a roundtable discussion for a podcast. I felt out of place, but the others picked up the slack nicely. I'll post a link when that goes up.

I had some chaos Sunday morning. My alarm didn't go off and I woke up to the shuttle driver calling me asking if I was on my way down to the hotel lobby. I wasn't. He gave me five minutes and I somehow managed to make it. What a way to start the trip home. Plus, AWP ended with me receiving a couple rejections. One for one of the Alaska stories, and another for the Alaska collection. That means the Alaska collection is down to three presses. All of whom were at the top of my list from the beginning. One of whom I've had contact with and am keeping my fingers crossed. We'll see.

So. AWP. DC. I met a billion people and all of them awesome. I got to have dinners and drinks with writers who blow my mind. I missed out on others, but that's why we do these things annually, I guess. I got to feel utterly inadequate as a writer, which I believe is healthy. I got to take a few pictures, so enjoy:

Ben mugging for the camera while signing books.

Scott Garson, of Wigleaf taking a break on the floor to text.

A good time all around. Too short and blurry. Can we AWP for a living? I'm going to write another roundup for the ADP site, and will link when I do. Maybe my brain will clear up a bit, too, and provide some better stories.