Prose, Poems, “Casket Girl” Rerun In 2020’s First First Wednesday Spoken Word Series; Burning Love Set for Feb. 14 Release

New Year’s Day was on a Wednesday last month which meant taking a bye, but this evening’s First Wednesday Spoken Word Series at local tavern Bears Place (cf. December 4 last year, et al.) came on strong to start a new decade.  The featured readers were Antonia Matthew, who we’ve met a number of times before, with a prose retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamlin from the point of view of a boy left behind; and Bonnie Maurer, author of RECONFIGURED and THE RECONFIGURED GODDESS:  POEMS OF A BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR as well as a 2020 Indiana Poet Laureate finalist, with a gathering of poems on various topics; with musical interludes on sitar and guitar by SITAR OUTREACH MINISTRY.  Illness prevented a third scheduled reader from attending, but there were a total of eleven open-mike walk ons to take up the slack, of which I came seventh with “A Saint Valentine’s Day Tale” (presented about a year ago too but this year to [image error]celebrate finally being sold), of the New Orleanian vampiress Claudette and what she once did to an unruly husband.

Then in a somewhat related item, news came today that BURNING LOVE AND BLEEDING HEARTS (cf. January 29), including “A Saint Valentine’s Day Tale,” is officially scheduled for a February 14th release — at least on Kindle.  This is the anthology earmarked for relief for victims of the recent Australian bush fires, details on which, including a partial list of authors, can be found by pressing here.