Three pieces of Insight for the Day

I write in red ink these days, it spreads across the papers I collect. The words passive voice; word choice, spelling error spill out of my hand, but I never forget: a soul lives in every word written. Every word spoken.




Disfunction. Misinterpretations. Repetitions. Wacky equations. Good is always on the horizon.



Sometimes it's easier to neglect making art; to neglect visual and verbal expression; to stare off into space. Because life doesn't always reveal the importance of reflection; of replication/ interpretation. Because who can tell how big an audience, if ever an audience, what for? These words echo the reminder: the reasons to make art are just as significant as making love: for history, for the better of the body, for the better of the earth, to spread energy, the earth is incomplete and boring without it.

Inspiration for a Sunday

(Thanks, Kim Brown, for sharing!)

Small Press Festival in Frostburg, MD

Dear Good People,

This coming Saturday, October 15th, is Frostburg State University's Center for Creative Writing Small Press Festival, and that's exciting to me for the following reasons:

1. Shady Side Review will be serving on the panel: Online Journals: From Paper to Published.
2. Athena Pappas, my dear friend/ poetry co-editor/ poetic partner in crime, and I will be selling chapbooks we published.
3. I will be selling my own chapbook.
4. Frostburg is beautiful in the fall.
5. The line-up is great:

10:30 am - Registration; Meet and Greet the Editors and Publishers; and Light Breakfast

11 am- Book Fair Opens

11:30 am - 12:15 pm
Publishing Basics
YA/ Children's Writing: A Round Table
Reading and Writing Online
Freelance Writing

12:30 pm - 1:15 pm
Sci-Fi and Fantasy Horror: A Round Table
Self Promotion
Writing Spirituality
Blogging, New Media, and Journalism

Break

2:00 pm - 2: 45 pm
DIY and Self Publishing
Poetry: A Round Table
The Novel: A Round Table

3:00 pm - 3:45 pm
Writing Local
Scriptwriting: A Round Table
Online Journals: From Paper to Published
Publishing Basics

4:00 pm- 4:30 pm
Book Fair
Light Refreshments

If you're in the area: BE THERE!

More Info: http://www.frostburg.edu/cwcenter/smallpressfair.htm

Quote of the Day

"

You should just live your life. You should write your name on the Earth in gasoline and just light that shit on fire." - Casey, Party Down

New Publication!

Two of my poems are published in the new issue of Radioactive Moat, and they can be read here.

The poems in this issue are a part of my manuscript, "Let the Balloons Go on the Highway." I am currently seeking a home for the manuscript, and hoping it finds its place in the small press world.

The poems in this issue: "Gemini" and "Machinery at Play" are poems that reflect upon my childhood. The mini-me lives inside each of them. Writing poetry like this makes me feel as if I can re-kindle with the girl I once was-- I'd like to meet that girl. I think we could all benefit from meeting our childhood self, not to give advice or warn against heartache, but simply to give a hug-- to show love to the youth that brought us to where we are.

Shady Side Review Fall 2011 Issue Released!

(Cover Art: Sleeping Giant by: Steven Knezovich)

It's been a year since our last issue, but I like to think this one was worth the wait. Our editors have gone through some wild changes (completing grad school, moving places in Europe, moving across the states, and the like) since the last issue. The journal itself has gone through some wild changes as well: with a new format and focus in style, Shady Side Review has released it's Fall 2011 issue.

We stuck to our Pittsburgh roots and featured cover art by Stephen Knezovich, an artist living in the Steel City. For me, it's a matter of the way Stephen melds definitions and images together that keeps my eyes drawn and my brain going, "Wow." I love the vintage effect in his collages: nostalgic and grainy and dreamy and surreal and all other good things that come out of thrift stores and antique shops. It's a recycled art of sorts, and featured here: http://thenewgravycake.wordpress.com/

Stephen is equally as interesting as his art-work; one of my fellow editors and I had the pleasure of meeting him at AWP in Denver. He's got great things on his mind.

Continuing on the Pittsburgh roots note, we've got a few other Steel City artists in this issue, Robert Isenberg (fiction) and Siobhan Casey (poetry). And hey! We're not bias, it just happened that way, but to be honest, I think the editors all miss the city we met in, at least a little.

The full list of Fall 2011 contributors includes poetry by: Shirley Brewer, Siobhan Casey, Milton P. Erlich, Kurt Z. Geisler, and Ann Neuser Lederer. Fiction by: Joe Baumann and Robert Isenberg. Non-fiction by: Rachel Carbonell, James Claffey, and Lynn Harper. And cover art by: Stephen Knezovich.

The writers in this issue give us: Persephone, romance on highways, parrots reading tarot cards, arguments about words like babushka,naked lovers in the rain, a man with a tin leg, and a way to dismantle routine.

Shady Side Review is moving forward. To go along with our new look, we're working on a new mission, our focus in the work we publish is shifting, and talks of themed issues have come up. The fall is always a good time for transition. We embrace it.

Check us out: http://issuu.com/shadysidereview/docs/ssr2011

Birds, Hunger, Self Promotion

Years ago I kept parakeets. My first was named Uncle Elmo. He was a sky colored bird and had cotton candy blue markings on his beak, which was how I learned he was a male. I loved that bird. He talked, better yet he cussed, he made strange noises, and he really seemed as if he was from outer space. I always felt as if Uncle Elmo was a bigger part of me, something of my spirit. He lived until I was about twelve. My second bird was named Delilah; she was sunshine colored with green specks of grass in her feathers, and she was kind of a bitch. She wouldn't sit on anyone's finger, she bit skin for the salt, and she would only talk at night when there was a cover on her cage, but I loved her because my friend's bought her for me for my nineteenth birthday as a surprise. And it became apparent to me, it was if she was the bad that lived inside of me: the rebellious, and she too was a part of my spirit.

I wrote a poem a few years ago, in which I imagined myself as Anne Sexton. I imagined her hunger and put a parakeet in her mouth. I, myself, may have had some similar fantasy, not because of literal hunger, but because sometimes it feels as if something bigger is missing. I titled the poem, "The Truth the Hungry Know (After Anne Sexton)," as she wrote a poem, "The Truth the Dead Know." My poem was accepted and is now part of Cave Moon Presses' fine publication/ anthology, "Broken Circles." Not only is it exciting to be part of a book, but it's even more exciting to be part of a book that reaches for a greater cause: to fight hunger and poverty.

Buy it here:

https://www.createspace.com/3668679

It's for a wonderful cause! I can't wait to receive my copy!