i can't really sing, so

I slowed down a bit in March. I would need to read 5/month to reach my goal, and I only read 4 in March. I had to read along with my Experiencing Lit class, so I reread a number of short stories and much of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, though only books I read cover to cover count. Rereads do not count, so even if I had read Huck Finn cover to cover, it wouldn't have been added to the goal. Mission:  to read 52 books in 2012 Status : 17/52 Books Read, March:  4 Notes on Books Read: If I Falter at the Gallows by Edward Mullany This book of poetry put out by Publising Genius is amazing and you should buy it right now. Seriously. It's on sale for $10.00. I got it at AWP and had it signed, and I opened it randomly while sitting at the GS table and started reading. Well, I kept reading it. I in fact finished it while I was in Chicago. A number of its pages are dog-eared, and though the poems are powerful on their own, I think that this collection as a whol...

This has become a regular post that I do, wherein I tell you about the exciting things I've received recently in the mail. I've been mailing out my response books to all of the books I got in the mail for my Birthday Club, but before and after the Birthday Club burst, the mail delivered. Here's what came: Bridge Journal #1 Bridge came in the beginning of March, and I've been reading it recently. Though I got a good stack of journals from AWP, I had ordered Bridge Journal pre-AWP, and it arrived while I was gone. Bridge is a journal of collaborations. I've been such a sucker lately for collaborations in all shapes and forms. I've been published alongside Wendy Xu & Nick Sturm, who we are also publishing in GS 3.2, and I love their collaborations. I applied for (though didn't get) the opportunity to work with Flying House, a Chicago-based art/writer collaborative project. I read Morocco by Kendra Grant Malone & Matthew Savoca , a co-written b...

Gigantic Sequins exists because of you: because you buy or subscribe to our journal and because people like you donate to our cause. Please become a Friend of Gigantic Sequins !   If you want to give a different amount than those listed ($25.00, $50.00, $100.00, or $500.00), please send us an email at giganticmagazine [AT] gmail [DOT] com, and we will find a way to accommodate you. All amounts are accepted! PLEASE NOTE that the deadline to give to help fund our 3.2 issue is MAY 15th. $500.00 - Benefactor $100.00 - Patron $50.00 - Donor $25.00 - Friend Gigantic Sequins thanks you in advance for your support. If you choose to donate to help fund issue 3.2, your name will appear in the journal as a Friend of Gigantic Sequins , and you will receive a complimentary copy of the issue that you helped fund. If you wi...

Thanks to all my friends who participated in my birthday club . My birthday was on Monday, and no less than three books arrived in the mail that day. Here is a list of all the books I received, alphabetical by author: Monster Party by Lizzy Acker Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy Ava by Carole Maso Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling & The Culture of Consumption by Laura J. Miller Zirconia by Chelsey Minnis Inferno by Eileen Myles The Myth of the Simple Machines by Laurel Snyder The Book of Things: poems by Ales Stegner God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Please Don't Be Upset & other stories by Brandi Wells selected poems by the author, Yevgeny Yevtushenko I am mailing most of my "response" books out tomorrow, though not all quite yet. Geoff and I are having friends stay with us down the shore in Avalon, NJ for the weekend to celebrate both of our birthdays (his is tomorrow). I bought him a pair of glasses for his. He says he wil...

I drove to Chicago and back for the AWP conference in late February through to earlier this month. Here are some notes on the states that I drove through. Pennsylvania is full of old dilapidated barns. People can actually drive in PA as long as you are not near a major city (Philly/Pittsburgh); if you are near a major city, they don't understand the "keep to the right/pass on the left" thing that makes highway driving amazing. I drove through four mountains, one back to back. I don't think I had ever driven through a mountain before.  On the road again! in PA Ohio has the best rest stops. They are clean and bright and very modern and make you feel welcome. I stayed overnight in Ohio and went through a drive-through for the first time in, like, forever? Since high school maybe? The food was actually good. Then I took a bath. That was nice. Red Roof Inn, mofos! Free wi-fi! Indiana was very windy on the way there, and not as windy on the way back. But it...

I am "ahead" of my goal to read 52 books in a year this year. This might be because I read a number of poetry books in a short period of time during February, but this might come in handy when I try to tackle, oh, some lengthy Dickens or maybe Gravity's Rainbow (finally) this summer. Mission: to read 52 books in 2012 Status : 13/52 Books Read, February: 7 Notes on Books Read: 7) 20 Something Essays by 20 Something Writers edited by J. Kellogg & M. Quint I picked this up because it had essays in it by Kyle Minor  and Kathleen Rooney , but I enjoyed the collection beyond solely enjoying their pieces in it, though I looked forward to them. I even used a few of the essays in a class I taught on Business Literature at the University of Phoenix the week we did non-fiction. Some of my favorites were a piece on finding a drummer in NYC, a piece on getting fired from a teaching job for budgeting reasons, and a piece on social networking. 8) Compendium by Kristi...

I like my birthday. I am one of those people who reminds everyone for the month before and then the week after that I was born on a certain day of the year and they should care. I also like giving things to people. This is slightly antithetical to the popular idea that most people have about birthdays. My favorite birthday ever was one year where a friend had us over in Brooklyn, and a few of us, including me, cooked dinner for everyone else. I felt relaxed and happy, and I was glad that these people were willing to share this day with me. So this year, I decided I wanted to give people I know things for my birthday. Specifically, books. So, I've decided to start THE BIRTHDAY CLUB. I couldn't think of a better name for it, and I like the simplicity of it. The idea is that, I will have a small group of people who are a part of my Birthday Club and then maybe others will like my idea, and they can have their own Birthday Club and really, in the end, it will be one big Bir...