...I have three new poems, "Ways to Remember Birmingham" up at Steel Toe Review and also here under "Words in Print."

...Lately, I've been feeling pretty solid about my writing. I think I'm getting better. It has helped to be reading a lot of great writers like Lindsay Hunter ("Daddy's"--get this, it's good), Meg Pokrass ("Damn Sure Right"--ditto), Alissa Nutting ("Unclean Jobs for Women and GIrls"-the cover alone is enough to keep you up at night) and others. I loved Stuart Dybek's story collection but I just finished his poetry collection and it didn't do anything for me. I guess it's not a given that prose writers can transition to poetry.
I just wish I could do a better job of writing on the novels.

...Tomorrow I fly to Washington D.C. for the writers conference, AWP. I'm excited. I've made a list of writers I want to meet, and it's over 150 so far. I hope this weather works itself out. If I get stuck in an airport, though, I'll have a bag of books. The way I look at it, readers are always advantaged.

...I like these and hope you will, too:

"Exhaust the little moment.
Soon it dies.

And be it gash or gold
it will not come

again in this identical
disuise."

-- Gwendolyn Brooks


"It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking."
"C'mon, let's be honest. We have an embarassment of riches. Life is good."
"Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. We have to teach ourselves to make room for them, to love them, and to live, really live."
"This is not a dress rehearsal. Today is the only gruarantee you get."
"Think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it out to be lived." Anna Quindlen