Ain't nothing going on but the rent

As a writer, I took a vow of poverty years ago. Unless you're tapped by Oprah or write about vampires and wizards, prepare to be doing all sorts of side jobs to make ends meet. By day I'm the editor of a magazine and by night I'm a poet, novelist, freelancer, essayist, social media consultant. Yes, I wear a lot of hats. The rent must be paid.

This week, I'm starting a new side job reviewing audio books. I'm excited about this, because the extra money is going to help pay some bills, I'll have some left over for gadgets (helllloooo iPad!) and it will force me to sit down, chill and take a break from my own writing and listen to someone else's work.

I manage to get all this work done (and still sleep until noon on the weekends) because I believe in time management. I make a list of what has to be done and put in the time. When I come home from work, I relax for an hour or two, watch CNN and then I turn off the TV, put on some music and work on the current project for two hours, take an hour to watch "Glee," "Fringe" or one of my BBC shows, and then it's back to the project. I'm usually in bed by 1 a.m. Those who get up at 4 a.m. to write are outta their damn minds. I'm getting my best sleep at 4 a.m.

My main project right now is finishing Remain in Light. To help light a fire under my ass, the publisher of Vanilla Heart sent over four cover concepts this weekend. Without having read the entire book, she was able to hone in on the mood and mystery of the novel. The concepts were all good, but there was one that was just a knockout. I can't wait for everyone to see it. I actually think it's better than the Conquering Venus cover, which I love.

Tonight is my reading with Karen Head at Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur. You can read more about it by just scrolling down to the previous entry on the blog. And to close out this entry, Gwen Guthrie telling it like it is:

Tuesday Bits

A new vlog, which was recorded last night but failed to load to YouTube because of the site being down for maintenance. Had a fantastic reading with Karen Head yesterday as the first two guests in Southern Crescent Technical College's Visiting Writers Series.

Charles Jensen has a long list of of literary organizations at his Kinemapoetics blog that would be in peril of the right wing Republican whack jobs kill the National Endowment for the Arts. You should also read his letter to the literary community about how public funding is vital to writers.

No, I won't be at AWP 2011 next week in Washington, D.C. Saving my hard-earned dollars for readings in the UK later this year. I've got AWP 2012 penciled on my calendar, though, although I'm pretty meh about the whole thing.

Diane Lockward has compiled another indispensable list of print journals that accept online submissions at her Blogalicious blog.

Two of my favorite poets in conversation: Kelli Russell Agodon interviews Jeannine Hall Gailey.

Call & Response

Poetry Atlanta and Georgia Center for the Book are pleased to present a special evening with award-winning poets Karen Head and Collin Kelley on Monday, January 31, 7:15 p.m. at the Decatur Library Auditorium, 215 Sycamore St. This event is free!

The reading, Call & Response, will feature Head and Kelley reading their poetry round-robin style selecting poems on the fly to find common themes, moods and imagery. It’s a fun, experimental and unexpected evening of poetry because the audience -- and the poets -- aren’t sure what’s coming next.

Karen Head is the author of Sassing (WordTech), My Paris Year and Shadow Boxes (both from All Nations Press). Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies around the world.

Collin Kelley is the author of Better To Travel, After the Poison and Slow To Burn, which is being re-issued by Seven Kitchens Press in July 2011. His debut novel, Conquering Venus, is out now.

For more information, visit www.poetryatlanta.com or  www.georgiacenterforthebook.org

Tweeting "American Idol"

Rather than recapping the 10th season of American Idol,  I'm live tweeting about it on Twitter instead. You can follow my tweets when the show is on or go back and look at the feed at @collinkelley.

Despite Simon Cowell, Kara DioWhateverhernamewas and Ellen departing the show, it still feel likes the same old Idol.  Randy Jackson was useless as ever and Jennifer Lopez was a snooze (and a little fake), but Steven Tyler was hilarious. He's obviously drug-addled and was yowling, saying crazy shit and perving on the 16-year-old girls. If Chris Hansen doesn't snatch up Steven for an episode of To Catch A Predator, the Aerosmith singer could be the best thing to happen to Idol in a decade.

As for the contestants at tonight's New Jersey auditions: the usual amount of the ridiculous and the mediocre. Nothing new there, then.

See y'all on Twitter tomorrow night for the New Orleans auditions.

Vlog3: Confessional poetry, Twitter & more

Amazon bestseller list & more

After five days of icy streets and cabin fever, the week ends on a high note! Conquering Venus made Amazon's bestseller list for gay titles today, peaking at number 14. There's been an uptick in sales (both print and ebook) and word-of-mouth has picked up again, so although the book has been out for over a year, it continues to find readers. Thanks to everyone who has read the novel and has sent their good wishes as I continue to work on the sequel, Remain in Light.

Speaking of Remain in Light, the Lambda Literary Association mentioned it and the re-issue of Slow To Burn from Seven Kitchens Press this summer in their Book Buzz section. Thanks to Lambda and John Morgan Wilson for the shout out!

Fellow Vanilla Heart Publishing author Janet Lane Walters interviewed me this week for her Eclectic Writer blog and we talked about inspiration, characters and more.  Thanks, JL!

On to poetry: I have two new poems – "Saint Death" and "Victoria Gate" – in the latest issue of online literary magazine Press 1. You can read them at this link.

Last month, the wonderful poet Nic Sebastian asked me to donate a poem for her latest online venture, Voice Alpha. Poets working to improve their reading skills record a donated poem and then receive critiques. I donated "Wonder Woman" and enjoyed hearing all the different interpretations. I also gave my own take on the poem. You can hear all the poems and read the critiques as this link.

I'll be posting a new vlog on Sunday.

Snowpocalypse Atlanta

Okay, so in my vlog I was joking about the weather people calling the storm that arrived Sunday night "Snowpocalypse 2011." Turns out they were sorta right. We had about two or three inches of snow, which wouldn't have been a huge problem, but then we had a day of sleet and freezing rain.

I've been working from home the last two days and when I tried to drive out of my apartment complex this afternoon, I couldn't get out of the parking lot. School, government and businesses have already been suspended tomorrow, too, as the temperature plunges to 18 degrees. The slight melt off that started this afternoon will freeze rock solid overnight.

Of course, I didn't buy enough food and the cupboards are starting to look a little bare. It's not that I don't have food, it's just I don't really want what I have. This evening, one of the restaurants in my building managed to open and I skated over the ice to get a big, juicy burger. Most of the supermarkets are out of essentials and having trouble getting trucks in. There's no warm up expected until the weekend, so it's going to be a slow thaw.

The one bright spot today: Verizon officially announced they will have the iPhone in February. My contract with AT&T is up and I'm ready to switch. Yowsa!

Vlog2: Gabrielle Giffords, gun control, Verizon iPhone

Huck Finn, censorship & revisionist history

The news that Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is being edited to excise the word nigger and injun, a racially insensitive word for Native Americans, is disturbing. Alabama-based publisher NewSouth is re-issuing the book with the blessing of Twain scholar Alan Gribben, an English professor at Auburn University.

Gribben argues that removing the offensive language will make the story more palatable in the 21st century without making the story "colorblind." Gribben also hopes Twain's book will return to classroom reading lists, since many schools have banned it because of the racially charged words.

As a professor, it appears Gribben is missing the "teachable moment" and, as a Twain scholar, ignoring the fact that Twain was an abolitionist and supported emancipation. Huckleberry Finn is an indictment of racial prejudice written at a time shortly after the Civil War when emancipation had caused a rift between black and white that continues today – whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

The publication of this altered version is both revisionist history and censorship. It sets a dangerous precedent for literature. Is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird next? What about the work of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison? If we ban the word nigger from literature, should we ban Kanye, Jay-Z and all the other rappers who use it regularly in their music? Should Patti Smith's classic "Rock N' Roll Nigger" be revised to calm our frayed nerves?

In 100 years time, will the work being written today be censored and "revised" because the words and topics are unpleasant? Will the word faggot be removed from literature? Will Larry Kramer's 1978 novel Faggots be retitled Homosexual or Gay to mollify homophobic guilt? Will books by Armistead Maupin and other GBLT authors be rewritten? How about biographies like The Life and Times of Harvey Milk? When you begin to censor, where does it stop? I think you know the answer.

More than 40 years on from the Civil Rights Movement, America is loathe to talk about race. It makes people uncomfortable, it causes rifts and arguments. Taking a classic piece of literature and removing its historical context is not only ridiculous, but further proof that some Americans would rather sweep the past under the rug without understanding how that past still resonates today.

This also speaks to a larger issue: public domain of literature. If Twain's estate still held copyright control, you can bet they would have never let this travesty occur. Work published in the US before 1923 has fallen into public domain, which means it can be revised, rewritten, re-imagined by anyone without recrimination.

Professor Gribben said he believes that replacing the word nigger with slave will counter censorship of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Censorship to prevent censorship? It's political correctness run amok and a sorry day for literature, race relations and history.

Happy New Year Vlog

Well, here it is...the first vlog. If you're on YouTube, please subscribe, share and comment. Happy New Year!