Nostalgic Vampire First Blood from November Poem-A-Day Challenge; Grey Matter Press/Splatterlands Goodreads Giveaway

Twelve days into this November’s Poem-A-Day poem-athon (or whatever one calls it, cf. November 1), I’ve made my first sale of one of the results.  This was the one based on the Day 3 prompt for a “The last time I was here” poem — to imagine one “returning to a spot (physical, emotional, psychological, etc.).”  So I wrote a shadorma and a few days later sent it to STAR*LINE, from whence it returned with a note to the effect that Editor F. J. Bergmann liked the sentiment but not the form, inviting me to rewrite and re-send it.  So I cast it in a more minimalist style, reducing it from six lines to four, and sent it back a few more days later.  And yesterday evening it was accepted, nine days after its initial writing!

So look for “You Never Can Go Back,” about changes for the worse in the new Transylvania for those who remember its good old days, in a future issue of STAR*LINE.  Or the moral:  See?  There’s a point to the month-of-poems madness, that some will be saleable, and even for those that aren’t the practice is worth while.

On a prosier note, Grey Matter Press has announced today that it is giving away ten copies of the print edition of SPLATTERLANDS:  REAWAKENING THE SPLATTERPUNK REVOLUTION (cf. October 22, et al.) on Goodreads between November 13 and December 13 2013.  Needless to say, I have my own offering in this, as the publisher puts it, “collection of extreme horror with a point that is SPLATTERLANDS,” a blue collar noir tale of aesthetics and love called “The Artist.”  For more information or to enter the drawing readers can  press here.