Kate Bush is back!

The first promo photo for the new album Director's Cut!

The Big Poetry Giveaway 2011

Just in time for April's observance of National Poetry Month, I'm taking part in the 2011 Big Poetry Giveaway, which was created by the fab poet, Kelli Russell Agodon. While the rules state you must give away two books of poetry, I'm going a bit hog wild. Here's what I'm giving away to four lucky folks:

Earthquake Came to Harlem by Jackie Sheeler - One of my favorite collections of 2010. Ellen Bass describes the poems in this collection as "vivid and compelling," while Wanda Coleman calls Sheeler an "urban word warrior."

Abyssinia, Jill Rush by David Herrle - A dizzying array of pop culture and literary references that send readers down the rabbit hole in this debut by Herrle (editor of SubtleTea lit mag).

After the Poison by Collin Kelley - This is my chapbook of political poetry from Finishing Line Press. Hurricane Katrina, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Patty Hearst, body politics, homophobia and racism all get deconstructed here.

Java Monkey Speaks Vol. 3  - I had the pleasure of co-editing this volume with Kodac Harrison. It features poems by Natasha Trethewey, Beth Ann Fennelly, Cecilia Woloch, Patricia Smith and Thomas Lux among many others.

All you have to do is leave a comment saying you'd like to be entered in the drawing to win one of the books from now through April 30. The book you win will also be chosen at random, so it will be a surprise when you open your mailbox! I will choose the four winners on May 1 and announce them on Modern Confessional. I'll get a mailing address and you'll receive your book. No fuss, no muss.

To find our more about the competition or if you're a blogger who wants to get involved in the giveaway, visit this link at Kelli's blog.

In Memoriam: Elizabeth Taylor

1932 - 2011

Was very sad to wake up this morning and discover via Twitter (of course) that Elizabeth Taylor had died from heart failure early this morning. She was a brilliant actress (Cat on Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf were my favorites), but also a tireless advocate for those with HIV/AIDS. She will be missed.

Weekend Bits

Was it just me or was the whole "supermoon" thing a dud? Here in Atlanta, the full moon looked about the same size as normal. Bah! Maybe it was supposed to be a distraction now that the US is involved in a third war. They can call it a no-fly zone or a "military action" in Libya, but if it looks like a war and sounds like a war, then it's a war. Gaddafi and his regime should have been ousted long ago, but there's not need to play semantics.

Steven Reigns' fantastic poetry collection, Inheritance, is beeing re-issued by Sibling Rivalry Press and will be available the first week of April. You can pre-order the book at this link and read my review of the collection at this link.

In more poetry news, you can download a free ebook version of Nic Sebastian's new collection of Baobab Girl from Smashwords. Yes, free!

Speaking of ebooks, the Association of American Publishers reported last week that ebook sales from 16 reporting companies jumped 115.8%, to $69.9 million in January. That means more ebooks were sold than both hardback and mass market paperbacks. I know many writers and readers aren't ready to embrace ebooks, but the rest of the world is, especially teen and twentysomethings. I've said it before and I'll say it again – books are becoming the new vinyl records. Read the article in Publishers Weekly.

A quick update on Remain in Light: The novel was 350 pages and now it's 341, and that's only after editing the first 100 pages. Lean and mean is my motto.

Writer-in-Residence for Poets & Writers

I am excited to announce that I will be the inaugural Writer-in-Residence for a new blog at Poets & Writers (www.pw.org). I will be blogging about poetry readings and workshops with my experiences here in Atlanta as the framework. This new blog will focus on cities where P&W is active with its reading and workshop grant programs, which I've written for others and received for my own work. I'll be blogging during April, which just happens to be National Poetry Month, and I hope you will check in each week to see my latest post.

If you haven't checked out the Conquering Venus blog lately, you'll see that it's morphed into The Venus Trilogy blog. With the ebook version of Remain in Light coming for Christmas and print in early 2012, it was time to give the blog a facelift. If you click on the About the Books tab, you can read an updated synopsis of the new novel. Editing/rewriting is progressing well, too!

Kate Bush "Director's Cut" coming in May

Kate Bush will release Director's Cut, a re-imagining of her classic albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes on May 16. To say I'm excited is the understatement of the year. More at KateBush.com and KateBushNews.com.

Friday Bits

Read an eBook Week continues through Saturday and to celebrate Smashwords is offering 25% off the already low price of $4.99 for the eBook version of Conquering Venus. Vanilla Heart Publishing is offering the discount to all its titles, which you can see at this link.

Congratulations to my poetry pal Maudelle Driskell, who has been named executive director of The Frost Place in New Hampshire. And Poetry Atlanta and Atlanta Review founder Dan Veach has won the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize from Evansville Review for "The Sea-Farer" from the Anglo-Saxon. Woot!

It still boggles my mind that authors – especially new ones – think that a press is going to do all the work for them and they just have to show up at readings and collect royalty checks. This attitude is still pervasive in both poetry and fiction.

There's also plenty of hand-wringing over whether or not books are getting into brick and mortar stores. Since many of those are closing and downsizing, this is no longer where a lot of energy needs to be placed. Online book sales and purchases of eBooks continue to skyrocket. Or, you could self-pub to Kindle and become a millionaire like Amanda Hocking. She's sold 455,000 books this year alone and raked in all the profits. How many books have you sold?

I've moved into the rewriting/editing process on Remain in Light before it goes off to my editor. And you can bet-your-by-golly-wow we're going to be pushing the eBook version when it comes out.

"Remain in Light" is finished!

A hot piece of Assaracus

I went to the mailbox last night to find my contributor's copy of Assaracus, the new gay poetry journal from Sibling Rivalry Press edited by Bryan Borland. I have a portfolio of 10 poems (old and new) featured in issue two. It's a gorgeous, perfect bound literary journal and I'm in great company with Philip F. Clark, Michael Klein, Ron Mohring, Evan J. Peterson, Steven Riel, Sam Sax, Robert Siek, Christopher Soden and Wonder Dave. You can pre-order the issue, which will be out in April, at this link. Be sure to pick up issue one, too, which features Shane Allison, Matthew Hittinger, Christopher Hennessy and more.

Another book you'll want to check out is Megan Volpert's forthcoming chapbook, Sonics in Warholia (Slack Buddha Press). There's a pre-order party tonight at Sycamore Place Gallery in Decatur with a fun twist: Megan picked eight fellow poets to write response poems to the ones featured in the chap. Mine is a persona poem in the voice of Harper Lee. If you're looking for something to do this evening, the party starts at 5 p.m. and the gallery is at 120 Sycamore Place.

I'm about three or four pages away from being finished with Remain in Light. Will I finish this weekend?