Category: writing
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Writerly resolutions: October status
This is a truly lousy month for writing progress. Even though I took a few days to take a mini-writing retreat at a hotel an hour away, I got very little writing done. My sole real accomplishment on the novel was doing some post-workshop revisions on chapter six (and workshopping chapter seven last night). My…
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“Elijah’s Funeral”: The story behind the story
I worked a long time on this story to make sure I got it absolutely right. I think maybe I did. The setting of the story is completely real. The Los Angeles Catholic Worker, Hennessy House and the Hippie Kitchen are all real places/institutions in Skid Row and Boyle Heights and were where I spent…
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Three new poems: Jubilate Mammonæ, Museum of Broken Hearts and Carmen Philomelaicum
I have three poems in the Autumn 2025 issue (Volume 51, Number 2) of California Quarterly: Museum of Broken Hearts Jubilate Mammonæ Carmen Philomelaicum The last is a translation of a Latin poem by Eusebius of Toledo, my first published translation.¹ I had read somewhere once that translating poems was an important part of the…
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New poem: Chicago Sonnet #42
Another poem from my Chicago Sonnets sequence is out in the debut issue of Big Score Lit. Despite being #42, it’s actually the first poem in the sequence and the one that inspired the project. There used to be a newsstand near the Adams station of the “L” in the loop and I was always intrigued…
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Writerly resolutions: September status
It’s been another mediocre month for writing progress. My second full request on We, the Rescued got another form rejection, which tells me that more work on the novel itself is warranted. I’ve gone ahead and printed the current draft so I can re-read and do another editorial round on it to bring it closer…
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A visit with my younger self: 3 February 1989
A substantial gap in my journaling here. I ended up actually going on a date and entering a dating relationship (ultimately doomed) with a classmate named Wilma who will show up later, I dropped out of school at the end of the semester, persuaded my logic professor to give me a sympathy D but I…
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A visit with my younger self: 23 October 1988
Another stunning display of youthful insipidness masquerading as depth this week. When I interpret someone’s actions, I tend to interpret them in the manner most favorable to me. Does this apply to literature? Perhaps a story is here to be found (BusSongs?). I do wonder if there was something in my life that triggered this…
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New poem: Parrotland
My poem Parrotland was just published at Dodging the Rain. Inspired by this Dinosaur Comics, I found myself wondering what America would be like if it were Parrotland and came up with the poem that I wrote.
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A visit with my younger self: 11 October 1988
A brief entry, inspired by a story told in the dorm lounge by a classmate: I think I might like to write a setina about getting high in the desert at night. I still have somewhere the legal pad with the half-finished sestina and all the end-words arranged. I think it could actually be a…