James Dorr's Blog, page 16

Triana (Who Does Not Avoid Seeing Mice) Sends Her Happiest New Year’s Wishes

(picture posed by stunt double)

For Your Year’s End Reading — A Pre-Pub Copy of “Mouse” for Free?

Set for a January 8 release, AVOID SEEING A MOUSE AND OTHER TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL (cf. December 14, November 26, et al.) has already received one review on Goodreads. This from fellow writer (and artist) Marge Simon, in part:

. . . This collection doesn’t disappoint. I was glad to find several stories from his Tombs collection. One, loosely based on the Pied Piper, another about the time when ghouls almost died off, which left the populus of a certain planet in dire straits. . . . In another tale, meet a girl named Ipanema, a beauty from Tombs, who witnesses the death of all the lower animals. The collection is packed with juicy stories, all highly entertaining. The title story is last, and possibly the most fascinating fun. “Avoid Seeing A Mouse” set in contemporary times, is an adventure that begins in a magnificent exhibit of ancient Egypt. It prompts a young man’s dreams of the goddess Sekhmet. A mouse is spotted early on, but why should he avoid seeing it? You’ll need to read the book to find out what happens next. Trust me, you’ll never find a story like this one anywhere. The collection is highly recommended, it’s a keeper!

Other stories include zombies, ghouls, and, yes, vampires (at least by repute), along with Egyptian and more recent history, myths, space probes and Saturn. . . . And destructive animals. But what’s your opinion? That is, while I understand AVOID SEEING A MOUSE will be available in print only, I’d like to offer prospective readers, in return for considering writing an honest review, a free pre-publication PDF copy now. Call it a post-holiday gift, if you will. In other words, if other things intervene or if after reading it you think it isn’t worth reviewing, that would be okay — there’s no obligation.

The thing is, what I really want to do is get people to read it, then if they like it spread the word to friends. To generate buzz. And if you’re moved to write and post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. as well, that would be super! And of course, if you’d then like a paperback copy to keep — or perhaps even share as gifts yourselves — I understand the Amazon price in January, according to publisher The Alien Buddha Press, will be $12.99.

But for now, for a free PDF copy of AVOID SEEING A MOUSE AND OTHER TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL just send me an email to edgarc@rocketmail.com with “Mouse” in the subject line. 

The Goth Cat Triana Wishes for All a Happy and Blessed Christmas

(She imagines herself the one asleep on the right)

December 3rd Sunday, for Me Two Days Late

But on time, I think, this month for its Facebook announcement: the Bloomington Writers Guild’s “Third Sunday Write” (cf. October 23, et al.). Any lateness on this post, then, entirely my problem — though then, one might note, I had had lots more going.

So that’s how it happens. And as for November, if there were prompts for it, for some reason I was unable to find them. And that’s how it goes too.

But now is now, so: December, 2023

This is what I love about winter

Well, yes, the snow,
the first flakes drifting down,
or with a bit of wind
settling against one’s face —
at worst, its still not rain
though the breeze, if strong,
adds insult to cold;
the sight of the wood, whiteness
now on the ground,
more swirling still, falling
against a gray sky.

The softness of sound, hushed
as echoing death . . .
well, yes, not all romantic.
Thoughts of feet frozen, flu,
shivering on porches
while getting one’s key out.

Of basking on furnace grates . . .
Warming, rememberings
of one’s true love —

Summer. 

Modern Alliterative Poetry Book Finally Published (With Two Poems by Me)

This is from Amazon’s blurb: ­If a literary movement arises but no one notices, is it still a movement? In SPECULATIVE POETRY AND THE MODERN ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL: A CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY, Dennis Wilson Wise argues that the answer is “yes.” Over the last ten decades, poets working in fantasy, science fiction, and horror have collectively brought forth a revival in alliterative poetics akin to what once happened in the mid-fourteenth century. Altogether, this anthology collects for the first time over fifty speculative poets — several of whom are previously unpublished — from across North America and Europe. Alongside such established names as C. S. Lewis, Patrick Rothfuss, Edwin Morgan, Poul Anderson, Jo Walton, P. K. Page, and W. H. Auden, this anthology includes representative texts from cultural movements such as contemporary neo-Paganism and the Society for Creative Anachronism. . . .

And of lesser-known poets, one of whom is . . . moi (cf. October 12; June 24 2022; April 29 2021, et al.)! This was how I put it that April 29, two years before: Remember “The Worm in the Wood” and “The Westfarer” (cf. March 28 and February 5)? These were the poems initially published about a quarter of a century back, but with much earlier stylistic roots, to be published anew in a scholarly book. And so the writing life continues, this received today from author/compiler Dennis Wise: Here’s the text of your poems as currently laid out for the anthology, including headnote and footnotes. The only thing I need is your year of birth (for the headnote). . . . The text of the poems themselves should be fine, since I took them directly from the .rtf file you so helpfully sent me earlier.

The book itself is SPECULATIVE POETRY AND THE MODERN ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL, to come out from Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Rowman & Littlefield Publishers around mid-2022 [sic], with the two poems themselves originally published in STAR*LINE, May/June 2001, and DARK DESTINY: PROPRIETORS OF FATE (White Wolf, 1995), respectively.

And now it’s here! Around late 2023 (contrast the slowness of the academic publishing world, with my AVOID SEEING A MOUSE book just below). But another difference too — warning to readers! — as a scholarly tome in a hardback edition it’s rather pricey. Or $45 just for the Kindle! Or, see for yourself by clicking here. ­

(But editor/compiler Wise does add that a paperback option should be coming out, in about eighteen months!)

Pre-Publication Hard Copies of Mouse Received

Alien Buddha Press is now accepting submissions across all genres, for poetry chapbooks, novellas, short story collections, nonfiction books, and more. That had been the call, with a note that shorter works — those that, after formatting, might be published in 150 pages or fewer — were preferred. So in mid November I responded and. . . .

Came the reply, from Alien Buddha’s Red Focks, I am enjoying your collection, and would be happy to work with you. . . . Attached is our standard publishing contract. The book: AVOID SEEING A MOUSE, AND OTHER TALES OF THE REAL AND SURREAL (see November 26, 10). And things have been moving rapidly since with, as of now, AVOID SEEING A MOUSE scheduled to be officially published on January 8 2024 with, as I understand, a hard copy price of $12.99.

So this week I’ve received pre-publication copies of the paperback edition — just in time for Christmas gifts should they so be desired! And the book looks quite nice. In general, it is a short collection at just south of 40,000 words (cf. first paragraph above, the note in the call for shorter manuscripts, the reason I’d sent it there in the first place) — i.e., if it were an equivalent single narrative, just on the side of a long novella as opposed to a short novel — though with the actual book as a whole still coming in at about 200 pages. That is, Alien Buddha sometimes prints text with relatively wide vertical spacing, which makes it easy to read, but if more condensed it would probably have come in at comfortably under 150 pages.

Which means, to my credit (ahem!), that Publisher/Editor Focks apparently liked what he saw enough not to mind the “extra length.”

Ryder Electronic Copy, Casket Suite Published

Let us revisit exactly one week ago, December 5: No, it’s not the right picture — the one for the cover of the December THE RYDER is not out yet, at least electronically. At least as of this writing, nor is the electronic edition of the magazine, actually dated for December/January. But it is here in print as of this Tuesday, December 5, at least on the rack in the Monroe County Library.

A better illo, then, here in a few days?

And this can be noted. This is the Bloomington FICTION edition, subtitled “Short Stories from Bloomington Writers.” Inside there are five stories in all, including the last from Richard H. Durisen, titled “Remembering,” who we’ve met before in October 30, 2022’s Bloomington Writers Guild Last Sunday Poetry post, where he and I had shared pre-Halloween featured reader duties.

Now this can be noted: As of at least late yesterday afternoon, the electronic version of the current THE RYDER, including my story, “Casket Suite,” in the number four spot just before Richard Durisen’s science fiction tale is now live! This is the one, in five parts, that Bloomington Writers Guild First Wednesday Spoken Word aficionados may recall from earlier this year, about those perky New Orleanian ladies of the vampiric persuasion, the “Casket Girls.” It starts on page 50.

And it can be read by pressing here.

First Wed. Spoken Word Honors Jenny Kander

December’s Bloomington Writers Guild’s First Wednesday Spoken Word (cf. October 4, September 6, et al.) took a slightly different tack this evening. Jenny Kander (a.k.a. the “poetry lady”) has been a fixture of the Bloomington poetry scene since practically her first arrival in 1992, creating and hostessing poetry reading programs on two local radio stations, writing and publishing poetry herself — including two chapbooks of her own work in 2004 and 2010 as well as compiling and editing several full-length collections — and generally encouraging local poets, a number of these also Writers Guild members.

With Jenny retired now and in process of moving to a new apartment, Writers Guild stalwart Joan Hawkins has also been leading an independent fund raiser on her behalf, and so, this Wednesday, the two came together in separate rooms of Bloomington’s Backstreet Gallery, with a silent auction and grab-bag book sale in one, and the Writers Guild session, with her as its opening featured reader, in its normal, adjacent meeting space.

She was followed by two “lightning round” groupings of four, and then five local poets as a combined “second feature”– a number of these “graduates” of Jenny’s encouragement, as they shared with us as well — with all interspersed with music provided by guitarist and songwriter Jason Fickel. And following that, First Wednesday ended with its normal “open mic” time with me next to last with two poems that appeared (as had several, as well, of the lightning round offerings) in Kander’s two-decade-ago compilation, A LINEN WEAVE OF BLOOMINGTON POETS (Wind, 2002).

The Ryder Out (Mostly) With Aimée, les Filles

No, it’s not the right picture — the one for the cover of the December THE RYDER is not out yet, at least electronically. At least as of this writing, nor is the electronic edition of the magazine, actually dated for December/January. But it is here in print as of this Tuesday, December 5, at least on the rack in the Monroe County Library.

A better illo, then, here in a few days?

And this can be noted. This is the Bloomington FICTION edition, subtitled “Short Stories from Bloomington Writers.” Inside there are five stories in all, including the last from Richard H. Durisen, titled “Remembering,” who we’ve met before in October 30, 2022’s Bloomington Writers Guild Last Sunday Poetry post, where he and I had shared pre-Halloween featured reader duties.

So my part here, too, the number four story just before Richard’s, a five-part “Casket Suite” which may be familiar to patrons of the First Wednesday Spoken Word series for much of the earlier part of this year (cf. October 30; also September 6, July 5, et al.). Starting on page 50, and following a provocatively named “Day of the Dead” by Paula W. Sunderman — possibly we could be on to something here? — “Casket Suite” details the doings of a group of vampiresses in New Orleans, les filles à les caissettes, in a series of snapshot-like vignettes, each a miniature stand-alone tale in itself, from their coming in 1728 to the more or less present.

And as for the illustration above, the Casket Girls did come originally from France.

Story/Essay Combos Lead at December First Sunday Prose

A mostly gloomy, going-on-chilly afternoon greeted December ‘s “Bloomington Writers Guild First Sunday Prose and Open Mic” patrons at Morgenstern Books (see November 5, October 1, et al.), perhaps adding to a healthy, edging on overflow crowd. Hopefully this will be a good omen in that the first reader, multi-published Pushcart Prize nominee Molly Gleeson, currently working on a new novel, will also be taking over the reins of the First Sunday sessions from long-time moderator Joan Hawkins beginning in March, and who offered for now a selection from a near-future dystopic story along with a more upbeat essay, “A Walk in the Park,” on the making and keeping of new friends.

She was followed by writer and activist Claire Arbogast with selections from her non-fiction LEAVE THE DOGS AT HOME: A MEMOIR (Indiana University Press, 2015) on loss, and re-building a better life, followed by a scene from her novel IF NOT THE WHOLE TRUTH, currently in press, on a young woman’s experiences as a part of the late 1960’s counterculture, some of these not at all pleasant! Then after a short break, and with about half the audience still present, we had six walk-on readers of which I was fourth, with a quick reprise of a horror poem I’d read at this year’s Halloween-themed “Last Sunday Poetry” (cf. October 29) to introduce a new story, with it as inspiration, both titled “Night Child.”