Thursday, May 31, 2007

Too Sexy To Be Timely

If you have work under consideration at No Tell Motel -- we're definitely a bit slower than usual with our response. Simply put, the increase of submissions in 2007 was/is overwhelming. We finally widdled it down to around 30 submissions we're seriously considered for 6 - 12 slots. Expect a response within the next two weeks.

Our reading period is closed until September. But don't think we're taking a vacation -- no, no, no working on the fashionably late Bedside Guide. Please don't ask for the publication date. It seems that when we announce one, people expect us to meet it.

Expectations are sooooo 2006 -- Molly and I are waaaaaay beyond that.

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Oh yeah, the Frequency reading. Somebody I invited e-mailed the day before saying he was invited to another reading with totally different readers at the same place/same time -- and it turns out he wasn't totally stoned. The series was accidently double booked -- a complete blessing cause the other readers (recent New School alums: John Findura, Joan Biddle, Peter Bogart Johnson, Richard Hutzler and Mike Reilly) were wonderful and brought a great crowd. NTB's crowd was pretty great too.

I took some pictures, but most didn't turn out very well. Can you pick out the NTB authors? Hint: Who exudes ham crazy?











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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Grubby Hand Update

The Book of Ocean by Maryrose Larkin (i.e. press)

Orgy in the Beef Closet by Michael Koshkin (Transmission Press)

The Small Anything City by Cynthia Arrieu-King (Dream Horse Press)

Rhinoceroses by Michael Quattrone (New School Chapbook Series)

Children Having Trouble With Meat by Christine Hamm (MiPOesias Print Publications)

The Concher (Issue #1)

Rabbit Light Movies (Episode 2 & 3)

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Is it just me -- or is this kind of weird? I know teachers promote certain students all time, nominate their work for awards, recommend their work to editors, publish their work in their own publications -- but I feel like this article takes it a few steps further. It asks teachers to present a "future writing star" -- and encourages readers to vote based on reading a brief sample of their work.

Then again, it's nice they're giving space and attention to newer writers' work.

Perhaps the only way they can get such things on their pages is to package it American Idol style (sans the record/book deal prize -- cheap bastards).

What I'm really wondering is if most people are voting based on the writing sample or the photo?

The thing about being a "star" -- every time you barf leaving a nightclub or pass-out in a public place, they take your picture.

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Monday, May 28, 2007

Frequency

More details about the "big poetry bonanza" accidental shared No Tell Books/New School Alum reading later. Some mistakes are glorious!

Until then . . .







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This Week at No Tell

Kristy Bowen can take to wanting like that this week at No Tell Motel.

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Sunday, May 27, 2007

New Issues & Books

OCHO #9 is now online.
http://www.lulu.com/content/886282

Writers featured: Ron Androla, Nin Andrews, Tom Blessing, Zachary Blessing, Tara Birch, Pris Campbell, Nick Carbo, Grace Cavalieri, Denise Duhamel, Adam Fieled, Campbell McGrath, Anthony Robinson, Leigh Stein and Mike Young

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Night Train 7.1

* * *

The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century

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Friday, May 25, 2007

This Weekend

Heading to NYC today.

Tonight I plan to attend the EARSHOT reading. Readers: PF Potvin, Nathaniel Bellows, Maggie Hill, John Murillo, Julie Polk.

Saturday afternoon I'll read with PF and Shafer at Frequency (The Four-Faced Liar, 165 West 4th Street). 2 p.m.

Come out and hear us!

Shafer Hall is a Village bartender and New York City resident. Recently No Tell Books published his first book, Never Cry Woof. He is a Senior Poetry Editor for Painted Bride Quarterly and the curator of New York's long-running Frequency Reading Series.

Author of The Attention Lesson (No Tell Books 2006), PF Potvin is a writer, musician, and ultramarathon runner who heralds from northern Michigan. He has taught at a variety of colleges and language schools in the U.S. and Chile. He holds a BA in English from St. John's, an MFA from Bennington College and travels whenever possible to support his writing.

Reb Livingston is the author of Your Ten Favorite Words (Coconut Books, Fall 2007). She's the editor of No Tell Motel and publisher of No Tell Books.

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Thursday, May 24, 2007

query: a poem that sincerely apologises to a friend for rejection her

Although I don't know the specifics of this situation, let me go out on a limb and suggest a poem apologizing for rejection (whether it be romantic or some other kind) is unlikely to smooth over the situation. Unless you regret your "rejection" and now want to get with this friend. People write and share poems to make other people want to have sex with them. If that's not what you're trying to encourage, don't mess with the powerful, uncontrollable lure that is poetry. You might hurt yourself.

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Misc. Wee Hour Publishing Thoughts

Really shouldn't have napped on that flight back from Chicago. Now my sleep schedule is all screwy.

Nic Sebastian asked if I'd respond to Eric Melbye's (editor of Segue) take on publishing "blog-posted" poems. If you read this blog, you already know my general stance. My specific response to some of Eric's comments appears here.

Here I'll share some of my personal experiences with tradition and cause that's the way it's done, damn it. It consists of Livingston family lore and since my old man is a reader of this blog, I expect an e-mail correcting an inaccuracy or two. Luckily I'm a poet, not a journalist.

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In the old days (second half of the 20th century) the Livingstons, like many Americans, celebrated the Fourth of July with a big family picnic. Hamburgers, hot dogs, a fruit salad presented in fancy cut watermelon rind, a slew of mayonaise-based salads, usual picnic dishes. But we didn't eat one big meal, no we ate TWO big meals -- now before you go on about that being just another example of gluttoness Americans eating hog-wild Disney-style, it wasn't like that. Well, it kind of was, but with good reason, initially. Back then all the men worked shifts in the steel mills, even on a holiday like Independence Day. So to make sure all the men from all the shifts were fed and got a chance to particpate in the festivities, my people prepared two full meals. By the late 70's nobody worked in the mills and by the mid 80's the mills were torn down, but we still ate two meals. Cause it was tradition, habit, it never occurred to anyone to question two big ass meals on Independence Day.

That is until my father, legendary Livingston family picnic trailblazer, took over once it became too much for my grandmother. His first decision: axe the second meal. It's redundant! What? One meal on the Fourth of July, but we always . . .. Second decision: Allow beer and wine. Pop is for kids!

Needless to say, those two changes were a long time coming and greatly improved our holiday. Less work, less bloating, more time for horseshoes and singe-your-eye-out metal sparklers. Win win.

* * *

My grandmother was a very traditional woman, didn't get a color TV until the mid 80's when her thousand year old b&w one broke and you couldn't buy them anymore. Didn't have a coffeemaker until someone bought her one in 1990. Before that she made coffee by, hell, I'm not even sure, I think in a pot on the stove. Basically anything new only found acceptance if there was no other option. Very resistant to change, and understandably so and her right to be. But let me tell you, we didn't wait for her to come around and sanction how we went about our lives -- we all had our color TVs, coffeemakers, push button phones -- and the rest of us women-folk learned how to drive a car, and none followed her style of dress, although two daughters did have remarkably similar hairdos and that kind of freaked me, but I digress . . .

Her ways worked for her, what she grew up with, they made sense in her world -- and while the argument could be made that her life could have been easier or better if she just did _________, it really wasn't anyone's place to tell her.

At the same time, it would not behoove future generations to model their lives after hers -- which is not say there there wasn't much to learn and build on, sure, definitely.

Change is not disrepect. Neither is it ignorance. Every generation, every evolution must address how things were and how they are now and what direction they're moving and what still works and what no longer does. Being a stenographer (something I had to look up in the dictionary when she suggested it) until I found a man who'd agree to marry wasn't a good strategy for my success. Also, my suede coat was definitely not much too fancy, let me assure you it was a very smart investment. It looked fabulous.

No doubt my own granddaughter will be a spoiled little tart with dopey pie-in-the-sky ideas. I'll probably suggest something ridiculously quaint, like how she should write a blog and find her community. She'll make fun of my granny-panties and I'll be all I got these at Victoria's Secret! and she'll be all Um, obviously, that's granny skivvy headquarters.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Bill posts some pictures from the Chicago reading.

and Tim Yu posts more here.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Where I'll Be Tonight

7:00 PM - series A
Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Avenue, Chicago, IL
Readers: Reb Livingston and Carly Sachs

Reb Livingston is the author of Your Ten Favorite Words (Coconut Books, Fall 2007), Pterodactyls Soar Again (Whole Coconut Chapbook Series, 2006) and co-author of Wanton Textiles (No Tell Books 2006). She's also the editor of No Tell Motel and publisher of No Tell Books.

Carly Sachs teaches creative writing at George Washington University. Her first collection of poems, the steam sequence won the 2006 Washington Writers' Publishing House Book Prize and was published in August 2006. She is the founder and co-curator of the Burlesque Poetry Hour at Bar Rouge in Washington, D.C.

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Monday, May 21, 2007

Galatea Resurrects #6 (A Poetry Engagement)

56 new reviews!

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This Week at No Tell

Carrie Olivia Adams is in the moment before the sweep of shadow this week at No Tell Motel.

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Sunday, May 20, 2007

Lemon Hound reviews Talk Poetry by Mairéad Byrne. I haven't read it yet, but will recommend based on the hilariously fabulous reading Mairéad gave from it last month at Burlesque.

There's no Burlesque in May -- but will resume in June.

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bed shopping

The pedatrician said once Gideon's nipple is as high at the top bar on the crib he'd be capable of climbing out. Well he's been tall enough for over a year, but never tried. He likes his crib and enjoys playing in it, sometimes for hours. According to other parents I know, that's unusual, but then again Gideon has never been in a rush to meet any milestone -- good or bad. Ask me about potty training! No, don't ask me about potty training. Please.

You know, one time, many years ago, I wrote this long manifesto on potty training and sent it to my friend, the friend who stores every single piece of e-mail he's ever received. He found it a while back and resent it to me and a few of our dearest friends. Oh boy, people who don't have kids should not write manifestos on potty training. It's a karma generating offense.

Anyhow, this past week I thought we better not push our luck with the crib much longer. Yesterday we looked at twin beds. Most of the ones we saw were either giant pieces of furniture too big for his room or too high or too girly or too something, so we looked online. I think we might have found one. Not a moment too soon. Maybe looking at all those beds inspired him, he fell out this morning. Right into his laundry hamper.

Finally my boy is showing a little ambition. Maybe this means he's also ready to stop whizzing all over the bathroom floor.

Friday, May 18, 2007

When Columbus sets his meat hooks on my shores and claims to have “discovered” me, I’ll stick my pointy stiletto deep into arse and carve “Reb wuz here first” on his hairy cheek.

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Just Another Rainy Day

After Gideon's Potty Time DVD jammed and crashed my laptop twice today, we decided to go to YouTube for our pooping instruction. Two of our favorites:



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Move over Marianne, Here Comes the Mary Tyler Moore of Poetry

Shanna Compton shows you how to get on the road to Poet CEO . . . or for the less ambitious -- middle manager Poet in a podcast at the Poetry Foundation.

She reads my very difficult nonsensical poem "Retention" that appeared a while back in Kulture Vulture, talks about flarf and a poem by Katie Degentesh.

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Shafer in NYC This Weekend

FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2007 - 7:30 PM - The Burning Chair, Fall Café, Brooklyn, NY

Readers: Shafer Hall and Zach Barocas

SATURDAY, May 19, 2007 - 6:00 PM - Abbey in Williamsburg (The Abbey's at Driggs Ave. between North 7th and 8th off the Bedford Ave. stop.), NY

Readers: Shafer Hall and Amelia Jackie

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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Nicholas Manning's new video poetics magazine is worth checking out.

THE CONTINENTAL REVIEW

Featuring videos by:

Linh Dinh
Noah Eli Gordon
Eileen Tabios
Tom Beckett
Chris Vitiello
Jonathan Leon
Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Allyssa Wolf

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Oh yeah and the needy Aaron Belz has a new blog.

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Last night I mailed two packages -- wow, what a difference with the new postal rates. When it comes time to mail contributor copies to 100+ Bedside Guide poets and all the review copies, it's gonna hurt. Could you spare a sister some stamps?

Monday, May 14, 2007

Speaking of crappy corporate renaming -- here's Chris' patent application for a product that in the end was assigned the moniker "WAN defense mitigation service" by MCI/Verizon weenie higher-ups.

Doesn't make you want to read the patent application, does it?

They should have used one of inventors' suggestions. Way better.

Packet Protector
Packet Scrubber
DOS-B-GONE
MCIsion
Packet Polisher (my fav)
Big Red Button

and lastly . . .

Network Tampon "Halt the Flood" (Chris' favorite, he believes it's quite clever)

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This Week at No Tell

Michael Quattrone hemorrhages cash in iambic gushes this week at No Tell Motel.

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Sunday, May 13, 2007

Last Readings Until the Fall

Next week I'll be giving readings in Chicago and NYC -- then I'm taking a break over the summer and will resume after Your Ten Favorite Words is out from Coconut Books in October (cross fingers) -- events in Boston, Cambridge and Philadelphia already in the works.

Well, it's not really a break, I'm going to be up to my arse in layouts and proofs for the upcoming No Tell Books titles scheduled for October publication as well (cross toes). Oh and the next Bedside Guide -- way behind schedule too. It'll be a working summer, that's for sure.

But hey, if you're anywhere near these readings, I hope you attend -- else you have to wait, until (gasp!) October or November for a chance to hear my yinzer accent bemoaning this cruel cruel world.

MAY 22, 2007 - 7:00 PM - series A - Chicago, IL
Readers: Reb Livingston and Carly Sachs

MAY 26, 2007 - 2:00 PM - Frequency Series - New York, NY
No Tell Books Release Party
Readers: Shafer Hall, PF Potvin and Reb Livingston

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Saturday, May 12, 2007

My cousin Christopher is a famous Pittsburgh filmmaker. Here's his latest movie short. He's Luigi.

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And oh, earlier this week The Concher arrived on my doorstep. A beautiful chocolatey journal with poems by Brent Armendinger, Adam Clay, Phillip Crymble, Darcie Dennigan, Ray Hsu, Tung-Hui Hu, Reb Livingston, Rebecca Loudon, Marc McKee, Kathleen Rooney & Elisa Gabbert, Craig Morgan Teicher, Samuel Wharton and Sarah Wolfson.

I'd encourage you to rush and get your copy and truffles, but I think it's too late.

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Friday, May 11, 2007

last three queries in past ten minutes: puffy taco, hidden rooms growing, big asses

They're trying to tell me something -- but what?

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Thursday, May 10, 2007

Shanna Compton's formerly-titled essay "Hacking the Template: Poets as Open-Source Artists" is up at the Poetry Foundation albeit weirdly and inaccurately re-titled. But still, it's a good essay -- she quotes me!

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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

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query: Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness

Yes, the loneliness, I'm in love with mine -- and that's my deep thought for tonight.

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Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Thank you everyone who chimed in on the what constitutes publishing? discussion.

I think when it comes down to it, if an editor/publication makes demands I consider unreasonable, requirements that unnecessarily limit what I can do with my own work -- especially considering what these editors/publications are offering in return (no $$$, small readership) -- that's an editor/publication my work can do without. I don't care how gorgeous and charming the boy is -- if he's a control freak, tells me what I can and cannot eat, how I should dress, tries to select my friends -- well, I'm going to the prom stag, probably have a better time anyhow -- and he'd probably be happier with a girl who's so gosh darn happy to receive any attention she'd happily trade in her own personality and convictions. She's out there, waiting for him -- they deserve to be together.

I say that as an editor/publisher who isn't interested in reprinting work that's already appeared in other magazines. As someone who gets more than a little bent out of shape when sim. submitters don't bother informing me when work is accepted elsewhere. This isn't a screw your editor/publisher post. No, kiss your editors/publishers. Acknowledge and appreciate those who have supported and promoted your work, likely for no payment or benefit other than the satisfaction of supporting and promoting something one believes is wonderful.

And if you don't agree with a magazine's policies -- don't waste your or their time. If some boy offers to take me on an all expense paid trip but beforehand requires I wear a Princess Leia bikini and a hot pink Hitler mustache or hell, merely requires I attend a one hour timeshare pitch -- I don't care how badly I'm jonesing for a weekend in Vegas. I'm not going to say: "Let me think about it." I'm not going with him. Period. I'll find my own transporation.

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Monday, May 07, 2007

This Week at No Tell

Nate Pritts walks the lonely nighttime street by his lonely lonesome self & feeling very contrite the whole time this week at No Tell Motel.

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Sunday, May 06, 2007

Survey Says . . . I'm Totally Wrong!

Yesterday's conference was interesting.

Apparently I was the only person in the room (world?) who doesn't consider posting a poem on a blog or personal website to be the equivalent of publishing in a magazine (either online or print).

If I printed 500 copies of a poem on a sheet of paper and handed them out to people on the street, is that poem published too?

No, of course not. That's not publishing, that's sharing.

Oh wait, are we talking paper or cardstock? Maybe that could be considered a broadside.

If I recorded a poem and posted the audio on my blog, I'm told that isn't considered publishing.

Just as if I read a poem at a reading in front of 100 people, that poem isn't considered published either.

Of course those above ways of sharing a poem may very well reach a much larger audience that publication in a number of magazines.

I understand things get blurry -- but this is poetry. Nobody, aside from the estates of a handful of long dead poets is making any money. Would the sharing of my own poem on my very own blog beforehand cost a future publisher of that same poem sales, circulation or traffic?

If you liked poems I've posted here in the past, would that make you more or less likely to check out my work in other venues? More or less likely to buy my book? If you happen to come across a poem in a magazine or a book that you read before in some form on my blog, do you throw the book down in disgust? Puke on your keyboard?

You know, I have a book coming out this fall. Like 80% of those poems have been previously published -- and around 70-80% of those are online. If you spent the time, you could read over half the poems in that upcoming book for FREE.

Or you could ask your library to order the book and read the entire thing for FREE. Or ask a bookstore to order it, never pick it up and wait for it to be shelved and then stand in the store and read it for FREE. Or tell your friend to buy it and borrow his copy. Or you could write me and say you're going to review it -- I'm such a sucker, I'd very likely send you a copy for FREE. Probably accompanied with some kiss ass note about how I hope you like it.

Or you could write me your hard luck story, about how you lost it all playing nickel slots and I'd send the PDF -- for FREE.

Cause in the end, I really just want you to read the poems. As much as I'm going to encourage you to BUY the book, to support the press publishing it, to support me -- if you're such a psychotic that you're willing to go to all lengths to acquire the opportunity to read those poems on your own terms -- YOU'RE GOING TO WIN!

Almost three years ago I wrote a poem called "That's Not Butter" and posted it to this blog. A few months later it was accepted for publication in MiPOesias and a few months after that it appeared in their Gabe Gudding issue. When it appeared in MiPO, I took the poem off my blog and replaced it with a link to the magazine -- cause it looked so much cooler there. A year after that it appeared in BAP. MiPO (rightfully) received the first publication credit in the anthology, not Cackling Jackal and not "first appeared in an e-mail to Shafer Hall" (the first place it truly saw print) or any other place the poem had been shared beforehand. Cause MiPO was the first outside (non-me) supporter/promoter of that poem.

Now when I'm publishing other poets' work in No Tell Motel, I don't want those poems to be already published in another magazine -- either online or print. I don't want to have the same work as another magazine. I guess that means in some way, I view other magazines as a competition of some sort. Well, not exactly competition, but I want No Tell to be different, unique that all other magazines. To this date I'm aware of two poems that No Tell unknowingly republished -- and I'm not happy about that -- especially one situation when I confronted the author and he outright lied and said he had no idea the first magazine printed his work (I would have been a lot more sympathetic to "I forgot" or "I screwed up"). The sneaky lying is what burns me most.

I bet you have no idea what two poems I'm speaking of. The poems are still up -- you could spend hours, days, weeks, Google researching -- you'd definitely discover at least one of the poems, maybe both. Are you going to bother to do that? Somehow I really doubt it. Somehow I doubt anyone other than me, the other editors involved, the poets and the three people I regularly bitch to have any idea what poems I'm talking about.

Poets' personal blogs and websites are not No Tell's competition. In fact, they're No Tell's biggest traffic referrers. Blogs and personal websites are the constant sources of new readers for the magazine. If a handful of No Tell readers are familiar with a certain poem via the author beforehand, why would that bother me? Shouldn't I be happy that particular poet is developing an audience? An audience that would be likely to transfer to my magazine (and other poets No Tell publishes).

Think of me like a girlfriend. I don't so much care what you do by yourself, it's when the other girls get in the mix that I start to get snippy and territorial. You say the others don't matter, it's me you really love -- but it's too late, I'm hurt and scrawling your e-mail on the stalls of rest stops.

I'm in the minority on this issue, I realize that. And when sending out my work, if it once appeared on my blog or someone's wedding program, I make a point in telling the editor beforehand. In the end, it's their magazine and they make the rules for their own roost and I always honor that. Clearly I'm not a purist either, I draw the line work that's appeared in other magazines, already selected by other editors. The way I see it is that as an editor I'm one extension that a poet can use to distribute her work. I have no interest in limiting that poet's ability to do so. We're talking poetry, remember, teeny tiny audience, nobody receiving any financial profit, viritually zero fame, prestige, "cultural capital", whatever.

Just be respectful of the work I do as an editor, let me be your "first" magazine publisher -- give me that one bragging right (cause that's the only payment I get doing this) -- and if that poem does succeed to "bigger and better" things, grant me that acknowledgment, always remember the little people (editors/publishers).

"After watching from the sidelines while two of his novels were brought out by Macmillan's Picador imprint, Eaves found the idea of seeing the project through himself from beginning to end proved irresistible.

"It's partly a matter of wanting to take control," he admits, "of being in charge of the whole process. A big publisher wants your input, but not too much of it. I wanted to find out how difficult it is to publish a book yourself."

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Friday, May 04, 2007

query: reb lobster albany new york

People have a lot of trouble typing the word red. I get at least one query a week for reb bumps on penis, but reb lobster is a first. I really like the sound of that. Reb Lobster for everybody!

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Thursday, May 03, 2007

Saturday Conference Update

See, this is pretty much how I get all my invites. An organizer realizes he's inexplicably failed to include a poet, woman or egregious ass on a panel and wa-lah, I'm asked to participate.*

So, in addition to the 1:45 panel "Making Connections: Networking and the Business of Writing" I will also be participating in the 4:15 panel, "Writers and the Web: Markets, Tools, and Connections" at the Conversations and Connections conference.

Now twice the reason to attend.

*In this case, they needed a poet.

query: micro bikinis pregnant

Chris once said that the most disturbing sentence in the English language is: "Hey, remember your mom's macrame bikini?"

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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

This Saturday

I'll be participating in the panel: “Making Connections: Networking and the Business of Writing” with Susan Muaddi Darraj, Wendi Kaufman, Carla Spataro and Ron Hogan at 1:45 p.m.

CONVERSATIONS & CONNECTIONS: PRACTICAL ADVICE ON GETTING PUBLISHED

Sponsored by The Baltimore Review, Barrelhouse, and The Potomac Review

www.WritersConnectConference.com


Join us on May 5, 2007 at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland for a different kind of writer's conference. Conversations and Connections will help you get the connections and information you need to take your writing -- and publishing -- to the next level.

Our panelists are experts in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, writing for children, making connections, using the web, marketing, and everything in between. Over 30 literary magazines will be represented.

Your $35 registration fee includes the full day conference, plus face-to-face "speed dating" with literary magazine editors, and a subscription to the lit mag of your choice.

Keynote Speakers: Fiona McCrae (Editor in Chief, Graywolf Press) and Amy Holman

Register or get more information about speakers and the schedule at www.WritersConnectConference.com

* * *

And later that evening:

Barrelhouse Issue Four Release Party

May 5, 2007 8 – 10 pm
The Big Hunt
1345 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

Contact: Dan Brady, Poetry Editor, Barrelhouse dan@barrelhousemag.com

Join Barrelhouse, a Washington, DC-based literary journal that aims to bridge the gap between pop culture and serious art, as we launch our fourth print issue. For only $5 at the door, you can enjoy a program that includes selections from the issue, readings by Paul Maliszewski and Valzhyna Mort, and a performance by Edie Sedgewick, aka Justin Moyer, formerly of influential bands El Guapo and Supersystem. Issues 4 will be sold at a discount. More information can be found at www.barrelhousemag.com.

Readers and Performers

Paul Maliszewski’s Letters to the President have appeared in Fence, StoryQuarterly, Unsaid, and other magazines. His writing has also been published in Harper’s, The Paris Review, and the Pushcart Prize antholo gies.

Valzhyna Mort was born in 1981 in Minsk. Her new book of poetry Factory of Tears will come out from Copper Canyon Press. In 2005 she received Gaude Polonia scholarship (Warsaw, Poland) and in 2006 - Liter arisches Colloquium Berlin fellowship (Berlin, Germany). She lives in DC.

Edie Sedgwick is the transgendered reincarnation of a vacuous Warhol Superstar who died of a barbiturate overdose in 1971. Edie was reborn at the dawn of the New Millenium to save the world by singing about celebrities. Armed with a video projector and some bullshit IMovies, she travels the nightclubs of this land called America singing songs that honor the likes of Angelina Jolie, Robert Downey, Jr., and, of course, Martin Sheen.

So I'm having one of those contemplative "how I'm letting the world ruin my boy" days. For instance, his expectations are already way too high. As soon as we walk into a restaurant he's scoping out three things he now considers necessary for a successful dining experience: crayons, balloons and after-dinner mints. Virtually every restaurant around here provides all those things -- even the less family-oriented establishments, especially the less family-oriented establishments (they want your kid to keep quiet). As soon as we walk into a restaurant I'm already putting my foot down, no mint until you eat your dinner young man! and of course I have to bite the mint in half else his shirt will be coated with a thick pepperminty drool. Even when we manage to divert his attention from the bundle of balloons, the waitstaff brings one to our table. My living room is a fading balloon hospice, although today I put four suffering fuckers out of their misery -- with a steak knife!

It's almost enough to make me cook more at home. Almost.

I'm a bad mommy blogger. Cha cha cha.

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query: maternity fathers

Whatever.

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query: sexy poets

Yes!

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query: literary magazine journal branding ideas

Don't bother with fresh, new, innovative ideas. That would be weird and different and nobody is comfortable with wierd and different -- especially the people who claim to be all about weird and different.

Don't try too hard, else what people will notice is that you're trying too hard.

Instead take a good idea that already exists, pervert it, really twist it and act like you invented it.

Example: steal your neighbor's cows, dress them in funny clothes and curly wigs, write your name on their underwear and wah-lah, that cattle is yours!

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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Burlesque and Woof!

Burlesque photos from last night are up

As you can see, I was working it for Never Cry Woof -- and if you're in NYC tonight, don't miss Shafer's big release party -- details here.

Carrying around a copy of Never Cry Woof adds a cup size *and* an optical inch -- what are you waiting for?







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May Day

Burlesque pics will be up soon -- apparently Carly and I took 170 picture last night! Wow, it must totally suck to have to read with constant flashing. Ah, well, that's Burlesque for ya.

I have a new idea for a poetry blog project inspired by my aunt's blog. When people find her blog by searching on questions regarding title insurance, she takes the time to answer them. Kind of a public service. Of course I'm all about giving back to the community too, so during the month of May I'll respond in some (poetic?) form to selected search queries that brings folks to Cackling Jackal.

Last night Jordan read a poem/list of the kinds of poems people are looking for (seems it's mostly soccer poems). I'm not going to be writing poems on request. No, this will be my gut response to queries -- I have no idea where this will go.

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