June

And another three months have passed by ... but this time I have a pretty good excuse.  I welcomed my little boy into the world during a St. Patrick's Day blizzard here in Maryland (not a particularly common occurrence.)  Despite the leonine weather conditions at his debut, he is a little lamb, the sweetest-tempered baby I've ever seen -- although, in stature, he may be leaning somewhat toward the leonine side.  His height and weight measurements were off the charts at his one-month checkup, but after his second-month, he's back to being just a bit tall, which is good enough, I think.  His sister is petite, and if he is aiming to be a giant, it wouldn't be long before people were confused as to which is the older.  At least my brother and I were grown before people started making that mistake.

In poetry news, I just found out the other day that I made the short list for Kore Press's First Book Award.  Since I had already seen the winner and two other finalists announced earlier and thought that was the last I'd heard of it, I was actually rather psyched to see my name on the short list.  Winning is nice, but "almost" is still encouraging.  There isn't always a lot of feedback in the writing world, so this sort of thing is what makes it easier to persevere.  There's another contest deadline coming up, and I'm kind of excited now to polish the thing off, add a few new poems, maybe subtract one or two more, and send it out again.

I also just saw the cover for the issue of the Free State Review where my poem will be appearing this summer ... excited about that, too!

I had been feeling a little discouraged lately about the writing endeavor ... there is never enough time to do as much of it as I'd like now.  I did manage to write a new poem recently, though, and am fairly pleased with it.  I've actually written three since March, which isn't bad, actually.  Not really bad at all.

What I've Been Doing Lately

1. Taking care of the baby.
2. Taking care of the baby and going a little stir-crazy, although still crazy about the baby... It will get easier in the spring, or so I'm telling myself.
3. Had a poem accepted for the next issue of Ghost Ocean Magazine, which was awesome news.
4. Wrote two poems today, which, believe me, is not normal for the past six months.  But I've written five poems since the baby was born, which is more than I expected to write.
5. Considering submitting to a chapbook contest -- kind of last-minute, as I wasn't sure I had enough poems for a second chapbook and was just going to focus on the full-length manuscript, but I think I actually might, so why not?
6. Working on the Spring, formerly Winter, formerly Fall/Winter issue of Melusine, which is now slated for [redacted rather than revised due to a bad track record in predicting launch dates ;]  But the issue is coming along, little by little...

Honorable Mention in Prick of the Spindle contest

I'm excited to see my poem, "Things to Do on a Summer Evening," in the list of honorable mentions for Prick of the Spindle's first Poetry Open Competition.