THE LONG WEEK CLOSES: A long, busy week at the day job closes. I actually knocked off early. Things are starting to look up at the magazines. We have a lot of good content coming in September and we are planning a big revamp for 2005. My ideas are finally being heard and utilized and I'm thrilled about that.

In my other writing life, I was thrilled to come home today and find an acceptance letter for some of my new poetry at The Chiron Review. The journal is going to do a glbt issue in 2005 and they are going to use four of mine. FOUR!!! Hell, most places I'd be happy with one. So big love to TCR! Then Gigi Weinrich, the buyer at Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech, called and told me that Better To Travel sells out every time they get copies in the store and they are placing it on permanent re-order. Wow! I appreciate everyone who has bought a copy and supported me. And if you still haven't purchased a copy, well...get on down to B&N at Tech.

In other literary work, my novel went off to the literary agent this week. I'm waiting to see what changes he might ask for...I'm hoping for none of course, because the book is about as lean and mean as you can get it. Although he did have a very good point about using too many adverbs. Those are, for the most part, history.

Tomorrow, I'm taping a couple of editions of The Business of Words with local poets Jennifer Wheelock and Nathan Deen. The Atlanta Book Festival event on Sept. 11 at the Jimmy Carter Library (we call it the Center Center) is also on the front burner. The poets include Cecilia Woloch, John Stone, Cherryl Floyd-Miller (Blue!), M. Ayodele Heath, Alice Lovelace, Ralph Tejeda Wilson, Tania Rochelle, Marc Fitten and little ole' me. Kodac Harrison is hosting for us. There will be more at the main website in a week or so. And I've also been working on the forthcoming Java Monkey Speaks Anthology. To say I'm busy is the understatement of the year.

I've been trying to watch a little bit of the Olympics each evening. I'm not a sports guy, but the Olympics are always high drama. I'm also trying to keep my blood pressure down over the Iraq thing. If you don't want to call it this generation's Vietnam...that's fine. But I will. Remember when Dubya flew out to that aircraft carrier and the big banner said "Mission Accomplished"? What a fucking liar. I have mixed feelings about Dubya's call to move troops out of Europe. I've always thought we needed to get out of some of those countries. Why do we need troops in Japan, German and Iceland? The Cold War is over. When I first heard this, I thought, "Damn, Dubya is finally doing something smart." Then I heard one of the places he wants to pull out of is Korea. Ummm....Dubya, North Korea, unlike Iraq, actually HAS nuclear weapons. Korea is the LAST place we need to leave! Just when you think the Prez can't be a bigger idiot...

I read Nicholson Baker's brilliant little novella Checkpoint this week and wrote a review that will be in the next edition of SubtleTea.com It's about a guy who wants to kill Dubya and his friend trying to talk him out of it. The book is chilling and funny. It's a good companion piece to Fahrenheit 911, because it so succinctly lists all the horrible shit Bush and his minions have done these last three years. Check this one out.

I'm off for now. I'm going to make dinner, watch a move and do nothing. Absolute, glorious nothing.

Comments

David Herrle said…
Wow! Congrats for CHIRON and the B&N sell-out of BTT!

I'm not typical sports guy, but I dig many Olympic events, especially women's gymnastics. I hoped Carly would win gold and she did! Woo! What a darling.

Amen about the "Mission Accomplished" bull! Consider this: the mission IS accomplished! MORE WAR! Disgusting.

I read the CHECKPOINT review Collin mentioned, and it's good. :)
Anonymous said…
Congrats on everything wonderful, Collin! You (and BTT) deserve it :-)
-T

Popular Posts