i can't really sing, so

the WELCOME SUMMER RAFFLE is here! brought to you by Gigantic Sequins! We have TEN prize packages-- that's right, TEN-- that each include between 2-4 prizes. Here's what you can win: SIGNED BOOKS : Tea by D.A. Powell, The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn & Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder, The Pajamist by Matthew Zapruder, Cocktails by D.A. Powell & Lunch by D.A. Powell, Like a Sea by Sam Amadon HARDCOVER BOOKS: Landing Light by Don Paterson, Hart Crane, a life by Clive Fisher, The Bigger World by Nicole Kocot, Destroyer and Preserver by Matthew Rohrer & I <3 Your Fate by Anthony McCann PAPERBACK BOOKS: Glass City by John Grochalski, Revisions Of by Goodloe Byron ART: pins handcrafted by Savannah Schroll Guz & animal sculptures made by Darla Jackson CDs: blanketfort records Sampler 1.1, Bright Day by Emily Rodgers, VDMA by VDMA, Glenrose by Brendan Little VINYL: Emily Easterly/J Seger split 45''...

Gigantic Sequins 2.2 features... ART by Jennifer Maidment, Joshua Gabriel & Josean Rivera POETRY by Adam Atkinson, James Wagner, Leigh Phillips, Helen Vitoria, Joseph Calavenna, Jim Daniels, Matthew Siegel, Rich Ives, Natasha Kessler, James Caroline and Matthew Whitley FICTION & MICRO FICTION by LaTanya McQueen, Len Kutz, Michelle Cheever, Craig Bernier and Yelena Valer'evna Moskovich Order your issue today! $8.50 - GS 2.2 $15.00 - GS 2.2 + GS 2.1 $20.00 - GS 2.2 + all back issues

Cassie M. of the Kickstarter Blog wrote up our Gigantic Sequins fundraiser! This is really exciting to me. She calls us "ambitious and, frankly, adorable." Thanks, Cassie! As of March 21st, our project is 48% funded-- we still need your help to meet our goal of $500.00, though, by March 17th. Please donate today , or if you can't afford it: tell your friends!

The editors of Gigantic Sequins, Sophie Klahr, Zach Yontz and I, have been working hard to put together our first ever Kickstarter fundraiser. It just went live tonight, giving us 29 days and some amount of hours, now, to raise the $500 we hope to raise. This money will help us commit to putting out our 2.2 issue on time. Please, please, please, please, please help us meet our $500 goal! The way Kickstarter works is that you only get your funding if you meet your goal-- We really hope that we can successfully launch our project on time by raising this money! You can donate $5-$500--- every little amount helps! We hope that you find it in you to give whatever you can today! Tell all of your friends! Tell all of your friends' friends! Spread the word so that we can bring you THE BEST poetry, prose and art in our unique journal. We need to raise $500 by 4/17/11. We know that you can help make this happen. Thanks.

Well, I still haven't been able to get together all of the "names" missing from my last post, and I fear it will be too late if I ever get the motivation to do so-- not because I am, generally, a lazy person, but because I have the flu, or something flu-like, that is a persistent drainer of all of my energy and ability to concentrate. This being said, the last day of AWP, Saturday, was a success for me. I finally did an extensive stroll through the bookfair, I bought a book, I promised I would buy other books, I picked up a million flyers, and I both talked to and took photos of some fabulous people. All of my AWP photos can be found on my facebook page in an album called AWP 2011 DC: capitol letters . That's the public link, so you should be able to access it there. After dinner, we went to the Black Squirrel for the Megareading, of which we missed most, but got to hear the lovely Christie Ann Reynolds and the fabulous Matt Hart (who killed it.) We proceeded to Cheif...

Our reading on Wednesday night (Day 1) went better than I thought it could. All of the readers and editors were friendly, everyone read very well, and I enjoyed meeting Darren and getting to see Jeff. Thanks again to Folio and Phoebe and especially to Big Lucks for letting Gigantic Sequins be the "Plus" in the "Local Plus" reading event. Day 2 Having not drank entirely too much on Wednesday night, we made it to the bookfair by about 9:30. I went to my first panel on WAMfest, a words and music festival put together by Farleigh-Dickinsin and spear-headed by one of my former professors from Emerson (who now works at Farleigh-Dickinsin), David Daniel. John Wesley Harding and Josh Ritter discussed how they compartmentalize some of the pluralized visions of art: fiction and music. They discussed why they chose to write, though being musicians, and they both read from their new books. They talked a lot about the ballad, which I had just taught in my Experiencing Literature...

I arrived safely in DC yesterday, and spent the evening with the lovely and wonderful editors of Big Lucks , Mark and Laura. They have been kind and hospitable and a joy as hosts. After a lovely night sleeping on the couch and then waking up to some grisly news from Egypt, I was glad to distract myself from Al Jazeera English and go with them to the hotel where the conference will be held out to register and help them set up their table. The Big Lucks editors are gracefully allowing Gigantic Sequins a spot on their table, so I set up a few of our newest issues, with a small stack of the first two beneath it. I also have our Gigantic Sequins stickers, submission flyers, and flyers advertising the 2.1 issue there. The Big Lucks table, K2, looks fantastic with its big banner, copies of their issues, fabulous (FREE!) buttons and a flyer for the raffle they're holding. After registering and setting up the table, we made our way to the train station to pick up Mike Young . We enjoyed t...