Luna Park Review

Issue #2 of Luna Park Review is live and has good things in it. Editor Travis Kurowski says nice things about Hobart #8, and he also types my name in a sentence with other authors from the issue. In the previous Luna Park, there was a good article about Ninth Letter, and an interview with Benjamin Percy, and a neat thing on Fence.

beetle

Tonight I will graduate from George Mason University with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

This beetle on my porch is kind of how I feel, I think?

Sonora Review

I feel very earnest right now. This will be an earnest post. It will be earnest and not sarcastic and basically written in good spirits. Also, I am very tired right now.

Okay, two weeks ago, Astrid Duffy of the Sonora Review contacted me about revising a story I had sent them in March. Since then, we've been working back and forth, trying to get the story as clear as possible, and tonight she sent me the official contract/acceptance email thing. I'll mail that out in the morning.

I am happy with what happened. Astrid took a flawed story that others would have rejected (and did reject), and suggested changes, asked me good questions about the story, questions I hadn't really even thought about, and patiently worked with me through several drafts, etc. It was the kind of close editorial work that really makes this whole publishing thing a little more human, I think.

So the story will be in their next issue out in December. I do not know who else is in the issue. She said they've only accepted two other stories so far.

That is all.

mother's day and birthday

This is a card I am sending to my Mom for Mother's Day. Her birthday is the day after Mother's Day.

The turtle is her favorite animal.

Tennessee Williams

Today I got a letter in the mail from the Sewanee Writers' Conference asking if I'd accept their offer to be a Tennessee Williams Scholar this summer. I felt happy when I read the letter. I felt like I had 'accomplished something.' Christine Schutt is leading a workshop this summer. I would like to be in her workshop, maybe? I applied because of her, because I like her stories. Anyhow, I am not sure now if I will be able to go - my wife and I are planning to move sometime this summer and I'll be looking for a job. So I don't know what will happen.

Also, I have only read one play by Tennessee Williams.

leave me alone

On my run today, I saw a man cross the road in a cross walk and someone in an enormous pickup truck honked at him for trying to cross in the cross walk. I was in a bad mood, so I yelled, "It's a fucking crosswalk!" but the driver did not hear me, because he was in his huge pickup truck, so I felt really dumb for yelling something. Then I finished the run and my heart rate was higher than what I wanted for the run: 168 beats per minute.

Also, Bradley Sands, who runs the journal Bust Down The Door And Eat All The Chickens, of which my sister is a fan, has announced a new e-anthology called Bradley Sands Is A Dick. See his blog for details. It sounds really funny; I don't know Bradley, but I will submit something anyhow at some point.

And then there is this thing I found at New Art: the leave me alone box?

I watched it for a long time and I laughed. 

more soon

Thank you for reading my blog. I still do not know what I will do with it. It seemed like May 7th at 1am was a good time to start a blog.