Organizing your writing life

THE LAST OF BURN: MetroMania Press received an order for 20 more copies of Slow To Burn last week as the MFA students at San Jose State University prepare to read and study the chapbook for the spring curriculum. That means there are only about 75 copies left from the initial print run of 300. To have a sell out in nearly nine months is very exciting. There probably won't be a reprint, but some of the poems will appear in Wake and there might even be a new CD on the horizon this year.

Speaking of CDs, I plan to relaunch HalfLife Crisis next month through CD Baby and iTunes. CD Baby will be handling distribution and you will be able to download individual tracks or the entire CD from iTunes, Rhapsody and other mp3 sites. How cool is that? I've sold about 150 copies of the CD since it came out in 2004, but I think the work still has legs. Some of my "crowd pleasers" are on the CD, including Sex In My Parents' House and Why I Want To Be Pam Grier. There are also early versions of two poems, The Clarity of Loss and What Remains, that appear in Slow To Burn. I have to admit I sorta dropped the ball on the promotion of this CD. I'm sure I could have sold many more copies had I been as savvy about CD marketing as I am about books. Hopefully, this move will correct that...and hopefully some of you will purchase a copy or download it from iTunes. I'll have links up soon.

The National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Georgia Council for the Arts is kicking off the Poetry Out Loud project again, and I'll be a "master poet" at two schools here in Atlanta: MLK High and Westlake High. I had fun working with the students last year and I'm looking forward to doing it again. This program is happening in all 50 states and students selected at the state level will go to Washington DC in April to compete in the national recitation. I encourage all poets to contact their local arts agency and get involved.