Hello sweeties. Hope you don't have the winter blues and that you are getting enough vitamin D. On January 16 there was a story on NPR by Jason Comely about embracing rejection ("By Making a Game out of Rejection, A Man Conquers Fear"). For a while there I was going to write a post about it, how writers have to embrace rejection. I was trying to think of it in terms of the Pareto principle, the mathematical principle known as the 80-20 rule, but I couldn’t get it … [Read more...]
Contributor updates, singing the blues, and a call for submissions
November’s chill is upon us in Chicago. How about you? Does if feel like winter? Congratulations to Patty Somlo! She will have a new book of stories out in the coming year. Hairway to Heaven will be published by Cherry Castle Publishing in 2015. Michael Constantine McConnell’s poem “A Faun’s Lament” appears in a new anthology, The Best of Electric Velocipede. Donna Hilbert’s poem “The Sun Straight Up" was posted November 10 on the Cadence Collective site. I … [Read more...]
News of Solace writers & friends: Powers, Somlo, McConnell
Arthur Powers has a new book, The Book of Jotham, out on Kindle. The Book of Jotham won the 2012 Tuscany Prize for Catholic Fiction for the Novella and is published by Tuscany Press, which is "seeking and making known stories with human frailties, beauty, grace, love, redemption, hope, courage and the presence of God." The 61-page book is about Jotham who is a mentally challenged man-child and apostle of Jesus Christ. Arthur also has a book of short stories due out from a … [Read more...]
Updates: Kirk, Mahan, Kerlikowske, McConnell and more
I can't always keep up with Kathleen Kirk's publications because there seem to be so many (YAY!). Here are her latest placements. She has two poems, "Blackberry Moon" and "Cusp," in Eclectica. Lines from "Cusp" that made me think: "just as the word 'cusp' / refers to either point on the crescent moon, / neither of which is really there, both created by / the shadow of the earth, the reflection of the sun." Kathleen's poem "The Towns" appears in the museum of americana. … [Read more...]
Somehow it’s September. What’s new with Solace contributors?
I gotta lotta reasons for not writing the blog recently. Summer is ending. A household project is starting. The conventions are on. But you know the real reason is that sometimes I am just lazy. But contributors to Solace in So Many Words haven't been lazy. T. C. Boyle has a story "Birnam Wood" in The New Yorker (September 2, 2012 issue). Joe Meno is interviewed in TriQuarterly (June 17, 2012). Philip Levine has a poem "How to Get There" in February issue of Poetry, and … [Read more...]