My friend Mike Paulus who designed the amazing cover for
THE WONDERFUL STUPID MAN has been hard at work
hand-painting this wallpaper design on a wall in Portland.
Friday, 28 June 2013
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Well, I received a yellow envelope in the mail
the other day. My short story was rejected.
Of course this comes with the trade
but it's very hard to take. When I told
poet Knute Skinner that my Robert Huff
essay had been rejected, he replied:
"I'm sorry your Huff article got a rejection.
A friend of mine, each time he got a
rejection, used to say, 'Fools!'
Best wishes for your next submission."
So on we go, try and try again,
I'm sending them a new story tomorrow.
Friday, 21 June 2013
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Yesterday I mailed off my latest short story to a magazine.
The story came from an urgent dream that woke me up
at 2 AM. We’ll see what happens. The main character
in it is based on two professors who taught at WWU,
Robert Huff (who I have mentioned before and written
a 40 page essay on) and Perry Mills. Perry used to
visit me at the library every week and was always
entertaining. I gave him a copy of my book HOME
RECORDINGS and he wrote this review:
The poem he liked so much is this:
The Witch of East Maple
Unfortunately, she didn’t get very far
on the last sunny day of winter.
Her broom swooped down the incline
from her shuttered house on the hill
and veered into the car wash bay.
Caught in hot water evaporation
only the weight of her stick
made it through to the other end.
The broom hit the pavement
like a dead branch.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
I’m reading THE MAN WHOSE TEETH WERE
ALL EXACTLY ALIKE, one of Philip K. Dick’s
non-science fiction books that he had trouble getting
published during his lifetime. I find these so-called
mainstream books of his very interesting, especially
CONFESSIONS OF A CRAP ARTIST, which
I’ll have to reread next. Accounts of America that
make it seem like some Martian colony…Even
though it’s set in West Marin County, California
(as described by his wife in her book, THE
SEARCH FOR PHILIP K. DICK) it’s not a
far jump to THE CLANS OF THE ALPHANE
MOON or MARTIAN TIMESLIP. Philip’s wife
Anne details his writing of this book, how he
mirrored their life in his fiction. It’s good inspiration.
I’m having similar fun with the novel I’m writing
now, turning autobiography into science fiction.
Thursday, 6 June 2013
I finished reading THE SEARCH FOR PHILIP
K. DICK. It was interesting to see his story from
Anne Dick’s perspective: “Women are usually
small atomic-energy machines for their special
man, who may not even perceive this.”
It reminded me of DOOR WIDE OPEN,
Joyce Johnson’s story of her time with
Jack Kerouac.
Now I’m going back to rereading some P.K. Dick,
starting with WHAT IF OUR WORLD IS THEIR
HEAVEN? an amazing interview book in which
he talks about the novel he was working on just
before he died. The world of light meets the
world of sound.
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
Monday, 3 June 2013
Saturday, 1 June 2013
I took the dog for our morning walk
stopped to look at the purple columbine
and then we saw this rabbit just past
the wild roses. That's as close as I got
before she ran at the rabbit who leaped
freely into those weeds. Unfortunately
our nimble hound slipped on the gravel
and ended up limping home on three legs.
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