Category: writing

I’m feeling pretty good about where things are with my writing at the moment. I’ve cleared off a lot of the decks of things lingering that needed more immediate attention. This year will be focused on getting a complete draft of the new novel finished (ideally well before year’s end, but we’ll see), workshopping those…

I almost forgot my last year-end post, my traditional year-end round up of rejections (and acceptances). In fiction, my acceptance rate was up to 3% from last year’s 1.4% and tiered rejections were at 24% up from 22%. The accepted stories were both excerpts from the novel I queried, one in Nebo and the other in Exterminating…

I had modest goals for 2024: Get final draft of the novel finished Query query query Get six new stories workshopped and into submissions Maybe start a new novel? Of these, I completed 1, 2 and 4, and partially finished 3: I only got three new stories into submissions, but I did also get two…

I have a trio of new poems in Great Lakes Review.  The first of the three poems, “Pantoum of the divine absence” is derived from another poem (still unpublished at this time) which, having eight lines was a good candidate for being transformed into a pantoum, a form in which the lines of the poem are…

The novel continues with a completed draft of the first chapter (although I do periodically think of things to add in that I left out) and a bit of a start on the second chapter, although weekends with the kids have kept me from the keyboard more than I might otherwise. Querying the old novel…

The latest issue of Meniscus has my poem, “A Song of Bathsheba” in it. 

I’ve got a newly published poem from my Chicago Sonnets sequence in the premiere issue of Bronze Bird Review. While numbered as #43, this is actually the second sonnet I wrote for the sequence, depicting the young women of Lincoln Park as seen through the eyes of age and regret. The issue can be purchased…