pen ink river

Amazing news—I received word today that Finishing Line Press of Georgetown, Kentucky is interested in publishing my chapbook, The Hours of Us. This is the short (27-30 page) manuscript I have been working to expand into a longer book. New Year's Day, I typed the cover letter as part of my submission to their 2007 New Women's Voices Competition and, lo and behold, while I didn't win that, they want to publish the manuscript anyway. I am waiting for additional contract information but I can't believe I won't say yes. I do have to ask: why is it every time I'm ready to throw in the writing towel something happens to keep me working with words? Is this karma? Serendipity? Simply WTF?

Posted by peninkriver at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Decisions come quickly to me it often seems.

Actually, I've been thinking about this one for a while. Even talked to a friend about the idea of starting a small press to see if she would help with her expert designer skills. And yesterday, I took the first plunge. I bought the domain name, inkriverpress.org, with the idea that, if (more likely, when) my chapbook is rejected from all the various competitions it's currently entered in, we will design and print copies ourselves under the Ink River Press imprint! Surely, it can't be rocket science. These days, everyone and their second cousins, ex-lovers, and extra-terrestrial twins are writers, bloggers, and publishers of some ilk through blogspot, YouTube, MySpace, etc. So why not us? Hell, from our past lives, we know about fonts and colophons and en and em dashes. About PDFs and PhotoShop and Dreamweaver. About html and metatags and search engines. Between the two of us, we have always done gorgeous, class-act work. My web site is a case in point: How many compliments have I received about it?

So, dipping out toes into the inky, flowing river with a web site and a book or two. Maybe a few wacky calendars. This will be fun.

Posted by peninkriver at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some of my "beat-influenced" poems are appearing on Poetry Super Highway where I'm a featured Poet of the Week from November 13 to 19, 2006.

Posted by peninkriver at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I decided to hunker down and send work out this morning. The current issue of Poets and Writers has quite the laundry list of contests—seems the fall is a big time for such literary events. So I've spent the better part of the past four hours sifting through my work and bundling what I hope is good-enough stuff —along with the required reading fees—into manila envelopes, figuring out the postage that will get them where they are going, first class.

As often happens after I have done this, I feel absolutely enervated by the experience. Full of doubt about my seriousness, the quality of my work. Disgusted that the world of contests and competition has to be the way the world of literature and getting published works in this 21st century US. Drained by the thought of all those submissions out there, the piles of paper, the reading eyes of strangers going through them, the first cuts, and then—in who knows what decision-making process—finalist selections to be made. So many voices, so many people writing, increasingly few people reading: I know I have to stop when I start thinking like that.

Posted by peninkriver at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I can't believe I forgot to note on my writing blog that two of my poems will be appearing in Margie: The American Journal of Poetry this fall. "The Weight of Too Much" and "Your Going Away Party at the Hotel Dread" were both semi-finalists for the Marjorie J. Wilson Award for 2006 judged by Molly Peacock. The winner is Jill Drumm for her excellent poem, "Just Like You Had Flown Away" ironically also about a suicide.

Posted by peninkriver at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)