This is exactly not what I wanted to hear:

From Gargoyle:

Sorry Drew--

Almost impossible to land anything more than 20pp anywhere right now in these grim times. And we're in the 5-15pp range with most of our stuff lately.

Pax,

Richard

Thanks Gargoyle, for at least breaking up with me quickly. I hate that long drawn out feeling.
The good news: that was a < 24 hr response. I have to say though, if Richard is correct, I'm in a world of hurt. Look only to my currently unpublished list:

• Self [Inflicted] Portrait - 38 pages
• Endings Lead to Beginnings - 37 pages
• 7,500 Miles to the Bottom - 24 pages
• The Poetics of Self - 18 pages
• Contents Within - 17 pages
• Substrate - 17 pages

I guess this really means only one thing, I need to finish Not an Autobiography and start marketing it as a finished collection. If only I weren't so interested in developing long winding sentences each with a series of footnotes....

Upcoming Publication

I just received word that my story, "Alone at the Top," will be the featured story in the March issue of The Wrong Tree Review. Wrong Tree belongs to a couple of friends, and great writers from Spalding. Kilean and Rod kicked off the first two issues; great stuff too.

"Alone at the Top" was one of the two stories I submitted to my first workshop at Spalding. At the time it was so dense that no one really knew what to say about it, but thanks to a lot of help from Sue and Krista, it's finally found a home.

Deconstructing Happily Ever After Now in Print

On Wednesday, I finally received my contributor's copies of Human Voices, an anthology put together by the folks that run the Kentuckiana Metroversity contest. It has all of the winning and runner-up essays, stories, and poems from the 2008 contest. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a website for them, so I'm not sure how/if folks can get copies of it, but I'd be happy to shoot the story to anyone that wants to read it regardless. "Deconstructing Happily Ever After" took 1st place in the Graduate Fiction section.

"Everything Ends" now in print

This week I received my contributor copies of A capella Zoo, Issue 1 where "Everything Ends" was recently published.

It's a very slick production, and looks to be a fantastic journal for us experimental types.

Publishing Update and the other two thirds

Publishing Update:

"Everything Ends" will appear in the inaugural issue of A Capella Zoo. It should be due out around October-ish.

As for the rest of D&D 4th Edition, overall I think things went in a real good direction. The Monster's Manual, especially, was great. They did a lot of things in it that make the life of the DM a lot easier: no more rolling HPs for monsters, no more guestimating monsters to match the level of the party, hell 4th edition even includes lore data. The artwork in there is pretty great too. My only real complaint with the Monster's Manual is more of a semantics thing--I don't care for the Demons and Devils concept; I much rather liked the 2nd ED Tanar'ri and Baatezu...but really that's a nerd-point that matters little in the grand scheme of things.

As for the new Dungeon Master's Guide, I didn't find it to offer much for the old Hat DM like myself. It has a lot on world creating, encounter creating, and even a little on crowd control (as in how to control your players at the gaming table). I think, had I found the book 18 years ago, when I was starting out in D&D, I would have become a good DM a lot faster. It's well put together, but since they dumped a lot of the former DMG stuff into the PHB (magic items and the like), there really isn't as much in the DMG that an experienced gamer needs to have.

So overall, D&D 4th is a clear triumph over the clunky garbage of 3rd and 3.5rd, but I still think WotC is missing the boat on the Role-Playing aspect of D&D. It was there before 3rd edition, and I'm certain that the miniature rules are what's currently destroying the Role-playing nature of the game, but mechanically, it seems like the game will run pretty clean. I just wish they would have included more non-combat related spells/powers/abilities, or Perhaps one thing that should have been in the DMG: a guide on how to create your own powers and the like.

Publishing Update

Good News,

"Ice Dune, 1983-2007" will appear in the Summer 2008 edition of 94 Creations, a literary magazine run by Spalding Alum Adriena Dame.

Contest Update

My Story, "Deconstructing Happily Ever After" was announced the winner of the 2008 Kentuckiana Metroversity Writing Competition for Graduate Fiction. In addition, it will be appearing in Human Voices an anthology of this year's winners.

(Un/Re/I )Do Nominated for a Pushcart

Hi all,

I just received word today that "(Un/Re/I )Do" was nominated for a Pushcart prize. It originally appeared in this past summer's issue of Alligator Juniper.

In other news, I've been working on putting together my thesis for my final semester and I'm finding out that I won't be able to submit the full book as my thesis. The thesis limit is 200 pages, and I'm at well over 250 with 3 unfinished stories still to go in. This is kind of a sad revelation for me, but at the same time, I think it's going to give me a little more leverage room to assemble a smaller selection of already done stuff and then be able to spend more time on new material. I think the subset of Not an Autobiography will be masquerading as Fractured Self.

Upcoming Publication

Hey all,

I just heard that Wordriot.org will be publishing my story "Abject Objectivity Goes for a Walk" in their November 15 issue. Rock and roll!

Now in Print and other Rambling

As time whittles onward towards the inevitable future, a little blurp of excitement arrived via our friendly neighborhood postman today: my four contributor's copies of the latest issue of Alligator Juniper complete with "(Un/Re/I )Do" fastened somewhere between the book's cover. I haven't had a whole lot of time to flip through the book, but it does have some very cool photography in it as well, and I'm sure lots of other stuff. In short, the whole shebang looks very nice.

In other news, the first baby shower is this weekend, and we're doing it co-ed style in the sense that men are coming to an historically female dominated affair. Sue's mindset on it was that she didn't want to leave her dad, my dad and me out of the picture. I'm a little afraid to be entering such a sacred and secretive womanly domain, but I'm sure us guys will trample all over the protocol like a pack of snorting wildebeests, making everything at once awkward and new to the point that the women forget that we've just trampled tradition in favor of food and gifts for all expectant parents.

Happiness + Rejection letter = The New High

So I got a personalized Rejection letter today from Maisonneuve. It's the first non-form letter I've received, so I was pretty excited. It was for the story "Abject Objectivity Goes for a Walk," and of it they said "Everyone here who read this piece appreciated [my] ability to explore such a clever idea so thoroughly, but in the end we decided that the documentation of details becomes too tiring before the end of the story." (Oh Rod, why didn't I send this story to you for feedback back sometime in April? You said the same thing...)

In any event, they invited me to submit to them again, so on the eve of the eve of my best friend's wedding, I'm pretty happy.

Beware the Ramblesnatch

Ahoy! (did you know that Alexander Graham Bell originally wanted us to say that instead of "hello" when answering the telephone?....Now you do).

Yeah, I haven't bloggered in a while, so you might want to take a gander and only read the headings that look interesting, that way you won't have to read too much of the logorrhoea babble snapping from the Ramblesnatch's mouth much in the same way Error gives birth to and eats her children.

Publishing News
Not a whole lot going on right here except for a trickling stream of dismissals...but hey, at least GlimmerTrain and Playboy took the time to send me a letter. I like getting mail, even if it's a "sorry, this isn't what we're looking for" type letter. I did however send five stories seventeen ways on Friday of last week, so my fingers are crossed that something will stick somewhere.

Residency Prep
Can't wait. I like Dave Harrity's countdown in his post. Since today's the first, it's down to 24 days, and once those worksheets come ramblin' in, those days will dissipate like a fart in a windstorm.
Speaking of the residency and all it's glory, I'm going to be driving down this time, and by that I mean to say that my beautiful wife and forever companion and really good friend, Sue (the Queen of all Foxes) will be accompanying me for this residency. We're both very excited, and we're planning on rolling into Dodge a day early so I can show her the sights and sounds of 4th street (or should I say Fourth Street [since none of you ever seem to abbreviate...{long winded southerners}]). So yes, Sue will be coming down for fun entertainment, and now that the sick days of the 1st trimester are over, she'll be up for plenty of eating and merriment in general.

How Goes the Pregnancy?
Glad you asked. Sue's doing wonderfully, and she's been very glowy and happy. We're both glad that the days of all day morning sickness are over, and now I'm spending more effort reminding her to take it easy than anything else. She's been painting a beautiful fairytale forest mural in the baby's room (I'll post pictures after we get all the crap out of the baby's room), and also lots of general cleaning and nesting. We're planning to raise somewhere around $50,000 next weekend when we have our yard sale, so that'll give us some very nice bling for our trip down South.
We still don't know if it's going to be a boy or girl, but we're going to find out on May 9, for sure. I'll be sure to post results and more pictures if we have them. Again, I'm pretty sure we'll be holding a contest for the-most-creative-names-for-our-baby-that-we-won't-use at residency. So have a list ready.

Music and Books
Since we're in our between-semester-time-off, I've had a chance to 1. spoil myself and buy seven cds and 2. Read some non-required reading. I want to talk about that for a bit:

1. Scarling - "So Long, Scarecrow" - Scarling, a band made up of Jessika (the former singer of Jack off Jill) and some other talented people, has been a favorite of mine for about as long as I've been on Pandora. The entire album has a very consistent wall-of-sound/noise-with incredibly-melodic-vocals feel to it. Lots of distortion and girly-goth angst.
2. theSTART "Initiation" and "Death via Satellite" - theSTART has a very edgy rocky punk sound with a great female vocalist
3. Hungry Lucy - "To Kill a King" - A while back, I fell in love with the song "Alfred" from her CD "Apparitions," but aside from that song, I wasn't keen on the whole album. However, Sue really likes Hungry Lucy, so I went ahead and picked up "To Kill a King," and it's an incredibly consistent downtempo-sort-of-ethereal-goth-darkwave-thing (with the exception to the three or four remix songs [which I could probably do without]). I'm just finishing my first listen through right now, and I'm very happy with this CD.
4. Nine Inch Nails - "Year Zero" - While I might not be an "original" NIN fan (I jumped on the bandwagon with the "Closer" album), I've been enjoying Trent's music for a long time, and aside from two tracks on "With Teeth," I was sort of let down by the last album. "Year Zero" seems to make up for that letdown of the last album. It feels like a sort of going-back-to-the-roots-of-industrial-rock cd with lots of sampling and vamping and heavy fat beats. At times, while rolling in my Honda, I feel a little bit like I'm in a ricer with all the Bass in this album, but it sounds Very much like a NIN album, but it doesn't sound rehashed or boring to me either. I'm very happy. On a side note, listening to it today, I began to wonder if Trent tries to Sing like David Bowie, or if he just sounds like that nowadays...either way, I can hear a little bit of Bowie in his vocals this time.
5. Android Lust - "The Division" - Android Lust is described somewhere as a sort of Female version of NIN. The girl was born in Bangladesh and like NIN, she's the primary musical vision for the group. The music is very synthetic/industrial with samples of moaning and screaming at time. Visceral, angry, female vocalist, awesome.
6. Kelli Ali - "Psychic Cat" - Kelli Ali was the original lead singer for one of my favorite bands, The Sneaker Pimps. She wasn't an original member of the band, and eventually, the band kind of wrote her out of the band. However, fortunately for me, Kelli continued making music. "Psychic Cat" sounds similar to the Sneaker Pimps' debut album "Finding X" and I'm particularly a fan of her song "Speakers."
7. Joey Goebel The Anomalies - Ok. I'm done with music. I want to talk about this book. I'm sure all of you know Joey. If you haven't read any of his books yet. Do it. Stop reading this post. Stop looking at Pr0n on the intarnets. Get out of your house. Buy his books. Make him a famous man. Because he's a fucking genius. I read this book aloud to Sue as a sort of nightly bedtime story thing, and the book was entertaining as hell, yet deep. Real, yet funny. Depressing, true, and solid. When reading it, I couldn't help but project Weseley Willis' speaking mannerisms to Luster Johnson's dialogue, and goddamn if Joey didn't intend it, then well Weseley's ghost must have been flowing through him when he was writing. In some parts, Sue and I laughed until we nearly cried. Indeed it was a Harmony Joybus ride. And immediately after finishing it, I grabbed his 2nd book Torture the Artist and put it over at the bedstand. We started it last night, and it's shaping up to be just as wonderful.
8. McSweeney's Quarterly Review #23 - I'm not finished with it yet, but there's a story in it by Wells Tower. He's phenomenal. If you happen to get a chance, read "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned." It appeared in the Anchor Book of New American Short Stories Edited by Ben Marcus. Wells has a way with really drawing you into the characters and doing things in weird shit situations. Sue actually hated the Wells Tower story in this particular issue of McSweeney's, but It reminded me a lot of my dad's camp and some of the folks that live up there all the time.
9. Steven Millhauser The Knife Thrower and other Stories - John Seay, a former Spalding student, turned Law student friend of mine recommended this to me. The whole thing is a bunch of Magical Realism type bits, and there are a couple of real gems in there. This is the first collection of stories I've read that relies so heavily on Magical Realism, and it kind of rubbed me the wrong way in that I felt overloaded with the "suspend reality for this one, ok?" motif. They were all well crafted, and Millhauser is excellent at using a 1st person plural narrative, but all smashed together, it kinda felt like a little too much too fast.

What I've been writing
Not an Autobiography has been moving along pretty smoothly considering the slowness of semester 2's beginning. I'm up to seven stories, and I have two very strongly identifiable selves, the beginning of a 1st person self, and secret plans of somehow trying to unite Johnny and Clare's paths. The last couple stories I've written focus heavily upon the nature of the Gloaming, aka, the deplorable condition of my locale of employment. I spent most of the last three months actively trying to find another job without much luck. So for the moment, I've given up and turned to spewing my aggression into fiction, and it's helped.

And thus the Ramblesnatch eats itself, ending the post.

Good News on Short Notice

So today at work (my 8th day in a row of a 10 day stretch), I saw an email congratulating me on taking 2nd place in Fiction for the Kentuckiana Metroversity Writing Contest for my story "Runaway." And it was kind of one of those slo-mo moments because, well, my computer was really slow at the moment and the Gmail notification bit creeped on screen with the power of a sloth on Luudes, but anyway, it was some very good news considering that every day I spend at work is nothing but another pile of bad news. And if you can't tell that I'm rather sleep deprived, well I must be hiding it well, but in any case, I shook my fists mightily in the air and gave a single hoot and hollar in celebration before going back to the grindstone of getting ground down by THE MAN.

The only bad thing is the folks at the contest want me to come down and do a reading on April 15...kinda short notice, and there's probably a good chance I won't even have the day off, so I'm guessing that there's no way for any intervention there, but none the less, maybe "Runaway" will get her five minutes of fame during a reading at residency....

I miss all y'all Spalding folks, and can't wait to commiserate in a month and a half.

And if you're interested, here's a brief bit about "Runaway:" The story is told as a triptych and follows the life of Clare (another self, somewhere). Clare lives a life of self inflicted isolation, and when her past comes up to bite her in the ass (her father, that she hasn't spoken to in 12 years up and dies), she falls apart and goes into downward spiral of misery and regret. The whole thing is paced by Foreground/Background scenes that more or less reveal Clare's life and (somewhat poor) decisions.

*Edit: Here's what the Judge had to say about the story: "'Runaway' succeeds by blending its fractured narrative with fractured formal structures. While the visual imagery flashes all over the periphery and the reader's eyes must at times dance across the page, the narrative is strengthened rather than obscured by these well-considered features of the story's construction."

Escape [temporary] from WageSlavery

Yesterday I took a vacation day originally to go to my High School to read some Chaucer, but it got cancelled last minute due to some assembly or what not. And Chaucer reading was rescheduled for this coming Wednesday.

So instead of not taking a vacation day and slugging forth eight miserable hours in the temple of the gloaming, I stayed home anyway. This worked out superbly for me, as I received my 2nd packet comments yesterday and had all day to work, absorb, think, and send out a whole bunch of stuff for potential publication.

If I listened to Rap music ever, I might have said that Ice Cube's "Today is a Good Day" applied for yesterday. In reality, I may have mumbled, "Heute ist ein gutes Tag." or "Kyo wa ii desu yo." But really, no, I didn't do that, I did a lot of printing and E-submitting and coverletter writing, and a little bit of revising.

I sent out the following stories:
"Substrate" -- A story about M.D. Stein, a lonely man in a lonely and rotting apartment that receives [and obsesses over] a strange postcard proclaiming proudly in Sharpie: "HELLO FROM TULSA!"

"Alone at the Top" -- A story about twins, and death of the [other] self--it doesn't really work out how they planned it.

"Downtime" -- A story about Edgar and his mindtrip through all the [im]possibilities of his life that spreads out like the flat Nebraskan tundra before him.

Oh and also, for other folks interested in submitting things these days, Playboy has a very Rock n' Roll cash prize contest going on right now: http://www.playboy.com/magazine/fiction.html
I figured it'd be worth a shot.

So now for me, It's the waiting until I start hearing back from those stories, and the other ones that I'm currently working on are ship-shaped up enough to be heave-hoed out to the smarmiest buyer.

That's the news as I see it. Until next time...

Hoo Aah -- Or the Puffing of the Chest and Expanding of the Head

A day before my birthday, (that being 12/11), upon returning home from dinner (of the birthday peculiarity), a message was found on our house's answering machine. The message, much garbled by my own and my wife's rampant screaming, hooting, hollering, and other akin carryingson informed that I had not only been published, but actually won the Alligator Juniper National Writing Contest with my story "(Un/Re/I )Do." This was then followed by much excitement immediately backed up by eight days of eager anticipation turning to morbid paranoia as I repeatedly tried to contact them to find out "What the hell are going on?" Eventually, the paperwork came through and Uncle Sam got his bit, and soonishly, I'll be receiving some nicely nicelys as well as a summer publication date.

And thus my head did swell even more so than it already had swollen, for only a month earlier, I was notified that "Contents Within" will be nominated for the AWP Intro Award.

Some very good news indeed.