My Poems in a Collaborative Chapbook Series Called Lantern Lit

I hadn't submitted anything in a fairly long time but some of the pieces I had out have been returned accepted this past week, so that's always a cause for celebration. Remember, celebrate your writing victories, always. If even in a small way. It's hard out here and celebration should happen any chance you get.

I'll have three poems appear in Anti-Heroin Chic in late October. Two of the three poems are footnote poems called "Filicide Muse" and "Nokemon". The third poem is called "Buddha Rat". I'm really grateful to editor James Diaz for once again including my work at AHC. My short story "Behavioral Husbandry" appeared there earlier this year.

Also, Unbroken Journal will publish another piece of mine this coming January. The flash story/prose poem was started and honed in The Flash Factory at Zoetrope not very long ago, so I surely thank everyone there for their kind insights and suggestions. The piece is called "Aversion" and, as with Diaz, I'm seriously thankful to UJ's founder and editor-in-chief R.L. Black for giving a chance to be in a journal I couldn't hold in higher regard.

These single publications are always wonderful, but the news I've saved for last is the news that had me wondering if someone was sort of jerking me around. Or that I was asleep. That kind of Twilight Zone feeling.

Sometime in the spring, I think it was, I spoke online with Beasley Barrenton, the founding editor of Dog On a Chain Press, about ISBN numbers. This is the kind of thing writers and editors, etc. can be found discussing at any given moment. But we connected more solidly through that conversation. We talked some here and there online when we could and then a couple weeks ago Beasley asks if I'd like to submit roughly 20 pages of poetry to him for the fourth installment of his Lantern Lit chapbook series. 

I was stunned. But this didn't stop me from responding immediately and accepting the offer. The series publishes a chapbook of three poets, each offering about that 20-page count of poetry for a full-length chap. I'd only started writing poetry this year and now I had the chance to send some work his way and maybe share in a chapbook with some top notch writers. It really was too good to be true. But I reckon it is true. So I'll be sharing updates on the status of that project as things move along.

Like I said, I have a lot to celebrate this month, so I thought I'd celebrate it here, at my bent little home. Okay, see you later. Drive fast; take chances.