Tomorrow, February 10, I’ll be performing here at 6pm $5 gets you in the venue and a glass of wine or beer. Pretty sweet deal.
Saturday, February 11, I am teaching here. Make sure to bring your favorite love poem or lyrics to your favorite love song, something to write with and something to write on.
Here is where you can relive or finally experience the first of many 15 Views of Orlando release parties.
This is me reading “Enrolling In The Human League”, which is in the first issue of the Heavy Feather Review, which if you haven’t bought yet, you should. It’s a damn fine issue.
The turnout for this show was absolutely awe inspiring, to see the venue packed to near fire hazard capacity for a book brings me great joy (I will however refrain from calling out the local poetry ‘community’ for not attending one of the most important nights in Orlando’s overall literary community). A beautiful night for a beautiful book. If you haven’t bought a copy, get one. There will be more release parties. Be on the look out for them.
Because of the current big project, I’m producing more poetry as of late. You can check out a poem of mine over at Ginger Piglet Press over here and also a poem of mine in the all poetry supplement of Stymiehere.
I’ve decided that I need to raise some drinking money for AWP in four weeks and the best way to do that is offer you a hell of a deal.
For $20, you get an autographed copy of Dodging Traffic, The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You is a Robot, and How Esmeralda Estrus Got Her Revenge and an original poem handwritten and signed. For $15, you get Esmeralda, Rapist, a mystery gift and an original poem handwritten and signed. Either way, you can wire the money over to senryujournalist at gmail dot com. All proceeds go to keeping me well stocked in Vitamin Jameson in Chicago.
Ronald Stowers was nice enough to record my poem during the slam I was in this past Tuesday. You can watch “The Genealogy of Irvine Welsh” below.
I’ve been working on my longest project yet and I don’t really have a deadline for it, taking it 500 or so words at a time. The current word count for it is about 15,540. Unlike some of the fiction I’ve written, I’m not mining anything from my life and surrounding it with out there concepts. I’ll be glad when I get the first draft done and start combing through it.
The project I’m currently working on spun out of a flash piece called From Jesus Christ, Boy Detective: Everything Must Be Slashed and WordPlaySound was nice enough to pick up the audio version (while red lightblubspicked up the text version). You can listen to it here and then I recommend listening to the rest of this podcast.
I won’t even talk about the bullshit shut out of Drive. I enjoyed the book tremendously and am actually not mad how the movie revised the story to a degree. The movie is gorgeous and one of the few movies I have bought on the day it comes out on DVD. (There Will Be Blood is the other).
Next week starts a deluge of shows. Here they are, linked for your pleasure.
Heavy Feather Review‘s first issue debuted last Saturday. When I got my contributor’s copy and read the poems in them, I realized that I can’t let superstition deny the want to craft a good love poem for the person I’m with. I won’t expand on this here, because I’m going to also do something special for Heavy Feather Review regarding the matter. This will also give me better insight when I teach my workshop on February 11.
“There’s necrosis in all of us,” writes J. Bradley in OUR HEARTS ARE POWER BALLADS, channeling the morose yet resigned monogamist in all of us. But as the hero of these sleekly compact poem explosions can attest, domesticity’s death dirge might not be incompatible with the seductive guitar riffs of an unburdened spirit: “I will not think of myself / in your arms as an autopsy / waiting to happen.” Can’t argue with that.
(You can watch the chapbook in its entirety here.)
The first huge literary event of 2012 in Orlando is coming on January 31. If you are in town, you should be here, seriously. I’ll be reading my story from the collection, “It’s A Hollywood Summer”.
Holy. hell. We’re only day four in voting and we’ve already got 576 votes for the best of There Will Be Words show on May 8. The poll closes on January 30 and we’ll announce the winners at the 15 Views of Orlando release party at January 31. If you haven’t voted yet, go here and do so already.
The first 1500 words of my novella, We Have Such Lovely Parting Gifts, is now live at HYPERTEXT Magazine. You should go read it here.
I’ve started my post as the Falconer of Fiction over at NAP and it’s been a lot of fun. If you are a short fiction writer, submit something. I’ll read it. It’s a great magazine, and I’m not just saying that because I’m staff, but because it’s too true.
That’s all I’ve got for now. We’ll talk again soon.
My second fiction chapbook, We Will Celebrate Our Failures, is now on presale over at NAP Magazine. You have until Sunday to buy a copy with free shipping for just $4. The best part is that you get this in February, so if you want a twisted Valentine’s Day present for your lady/man friend or you want to say “we’re through” in the most creative way possible, get your copy here. If you want to know what you’re in for, it’s a linked short fiction chapbook about people breaking up other people’s engagements. You can read this story to see what I’m talking about.
15 Views of Orlando from Burrow Press is also now on presale. This is a fiction collection linked to various locales in Orlando and all of the writers in the collection have ties to Orlando as well, including myself, Lindsay Hunter, and others. You should pre-order it here and then come to the release party on January 31 to celebrate its release. All proceeds will go to Page 15, a local children’s literacy nonprofit that provides free tutoring and creative writing programs to Orlando public school students.
I’ve been listening to The Twilight Singers Live in New Yorkalbum almost on repeat. It’s a good live album, then again I’m a big Greg Dulli fan.
I’ll be updating the Shows page soon. I have dates to announce where you can see me rock your face off with words.
My contribution for Burrow Press’s 15 Views of Orlando came out earlier. You can read it here. If you’ve lived in Orlando for a long time, there’s a bonus reference just for you.
Tuesday’s There Will Be Words was amazing with the packed turn out and the readers. This literary happy hour is working out quite nicely. I can’t wait until July’s. I also might try to do an AWP There Will Be Words in Chicago (thanks Cook for the suggestion).
It’s just unfair how talented Ashley Inguanta is sometimes. She did the cover shoot for Esmeralda Estrus and here’s one of the photos, the one I’m leaning on using for the cover.
"My hand wants to take off one of my pumps, puncture his jugular. I would coat candy with his blood so children know the sweet taste of revenge." - Esmeralda Estrus
The idea that Ashley’s skill realized came from a woman I had a unrequited crush on in high school named Monica. She responded to my FB message about doing the cover and after reading Esmeralda, she came up with this idea.
I envision a really stylish pump, crushing candy underneath- with blood or something oozing out underneath. I envision this really as a photograph though, with very saturated colors, close up.
I hope my publisher likes this a lot. Thank you Ashley and Monica for coming up with something so awesome.
Tonight, I am performing in the Emotions Dance Company Presents Excerpts show at the Orlando Fringe Festival on the free outdoor stage at 8pm. You can stick around and check out the second Fringe Poetry Smackdown at 10pm also at the outdoor stage. You can find all the info about the Orlando Fringe Festival here.
Tomorrow night, there’s this
Prepare for the smackdown.
Tickets are still on presale for $7. Get yours here.
Last night, I finished my story for Burrow Press’s 15 Views of Orlando. I’ve never done anything like this before so this should be incredibly fun and exciting. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out. My installment goes up on June 16.
June is turning into one of those months where several different pieces are coming out. I hope y’all don’t get sick of me.
I’m going to start taking myself more out of my comfort zone. Let’s see where this is gonna go.
