FROM THE ARCHIVES: "Grocery Shopping" @ The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature required me to write a statement as to why I was southern when submitting this one called "Grocery Shopping" way back when. I wish I still had that statement. It was a little snarky, if I remember right. See what you think of the story.

Four Poems @ Dispatches from the Poetry Wars

I have been known to Google myself on occasion. There's good reason for this, though. I'd say about ten percent of the time I discover something of mine that's been published without my knowledge. It's always been something I submitted and didn't hear back on, so it's not like these folks are doing anything wrong, other than simply forgetting to let me know they've selected the piece or pieces to be published. It's all good.

Just this evening I found that a really interesting journal called Dispatches from the Poetry War accepted and published four of my poems back in October. These four poems were ones I'm truly proud of and will appear in the upcoming Lantern Lit Vol. 4. Until then, please have a look at them at DPW. They're called "Message from Crown Land," "The Love Poem," "Mother," and "Coming Clean." I hope you like them and have time to let me know what you thought, either way. Follow the link below and thanks so much.

FOUR POEMS - Dispatches from the Poetry War

Vestal Review Gives Me Some BSF Love

I'm grateful to Mark Budman, editor of the esteemed literary journal Vestal Review, for nominating my short story published there for Best Small Fictions 2018.


The story, "The House in the Northwest Corner," was published online there last year and here's an interesting fact: I just received the print issue in the mailbox this afternoon.

So, news of the nomination and then receipt of the print issue on the same day. It's been a Vestal Review day, and I can think of few other better ones.

Thank you, Mark, and congratulations to the other BSF nominees Michael Chapey, David Galef, Jennifer Wortman, and Tara Isabel Zambrano.

My Current and Ongoing Book-Length Projects

Here are the books I'm working on right now:


Sway: New and Collected Stories - Made up of around 30 new stories not before collected together along with the stories from my first two collections The Same Terrible Storm and Where Alligators Sleep. Should come in at about 200 stories in total.


Evergreen - A long and ongoing book I'm writing about an immortal serial killer and his three immortal siblings. It's strange and may topple at any moment and be gone and never able to actually exist. It has even, at times, been a kind of dumping ground for thoughts and ideas too fully formed to simply note in a journal, etc. There has been one excerpted short story from this book called "Drowning the Witch" that was published last year at Peach Mag. You can read that story here.


What Do You Want For It? (working title) - A book started just this week about a hillbilly guy named Sister Hall who just so happens to be an art genius, as in being able to recognize great art the second he sees it. Taking a guy like that (from Eastern Kentucky) and putting him in the strange sort of non-world of the art world is the whole thing in this for me.


I've yet to find an agent and probably wouldn't do well if I did because I'm generally not cut out for the world of literature and art being a hillbilly, though educated. Still, a hillbilly. Publishing houses and so called reputable journals, etc. mostly don't want books from writers such as myself unless there are guns and drugs and violence in them. I've done that already and so now I'm off to write other things. This is to say I'll be publishing these books myself through my press Shivelight Books. For now that means I can only make them available as Kindle books because I can't figure out formatting to upload for print through Kindle Direct Publishing. If anyone can toss me a couple tips on that, I surely wouldn't mind.

Lantern Lit Vol. 4 @ Goodreads

You can now visit Goodreads and add to your reading list Lantern Lit Vol. 4, the collaborative poetry chapbook from Dog On a Chain Press that includes myself and two others - William Graham and Mat Gould.

New Story @ Unbroken Journal & a New Year's Acceptance from Lost Balloon

It's a good writing start to the new year for me for sure. My story "Aversion" was published this morning in Unbroken Journal and I found out just a couple of hours ago that another of my stories will be published in Lost Balloon in March.

I thank editors R.L. Black and Chelsea Voulgares for giving these stories great homes.