I Won Milestone: 2012

I won Milestone: 2012, a literary journal/anthology from East Los Angeles College and I'm so glad I did because
it was fantastic. "Home" by Dario Serrano reads like a rap, and has some absolutely brilliant phrases. The beginning of "Chagrin" by Ariana Renteria is great as is the ending of "Blue Beta Fish" by Aaron C. Higareda. "The French Press" by Michael Alexander Becerra was probably my favorite. It's about a man with a horribly offensive, bigoted coffeemaker that is wrecking his social life but that he can't give up because of its wonderful coffee. This is likely a metaphor, but is a deeply funny and engrossing read without going any deeper. I highly recommend this book.

I saw a post in a forum discussion on Figment that said they'd be giving away a free copy to one of the people that posted a review of one of their stories or poems on the site. So, I spent two minutes, read a poem, and posted a review. I wasn't surprised when I won, because I was one of the only ones who posted. This was a promotional idea that didn't pan out very well for them. As an author (Goblin Fruit) I've had several of those myself. I would never have paid for this book and that is SO sad, because I loved it, but it's a literary anthology from a college I have no connection with, and this is the crux of the issue. More people are writing than ever and more books are being published than ever, but people are reading less, and fewer still are paying for what they read. Some of what's being written is fantastic (like this), some is horrible, and most is in between, but still worthwhile. I just don't know how we as authors get our work read by the people who would love to read it. It seems to be a very slow, expensive process that gets in the way of what we actually want to do, which is write. I have no solution to offer at the moment, but I'm glad I read this and hope you'll read it too.