Publications Abound!
James B. DeMonte, a good friend of mine, has a story titled "Communion" published here:http://www.blotterrag.com/2009-11.pdfRead it. My favorite thing about this pub--other than his story--is that the cover reminds me of when James and I had a poetry class together. He would write comments on my poems in crayon and illustrate them much like the cover of this. Ahhh. Memories!

Let me exclaim something
Last week I spearheaded a boycott on the semicolon, and I got a good response from people who are prepared for the fight. The public is mobilized. They not only want to abolish the semicolon, but also the exclamation mark. I deliberated whether we should get involved in a two fronted war on unnecessary punctuation, but I'm convinced that the exclamation point is a significant threat to effective communication. A preemptive strike is in order. Perhaps we will need more troops. The exclamation mark didn't show up on typewriters until the 70s, which was also the peak of the hippie culture. This is exactly what we need to enhance the emotion in a sentence: punctuation born from some

Time for a Revolution!
I like to think of my poetry and fiction as accessible. By that I mean the average person could read it?would like to read it?and get something out of it. Entertainment, a message, whatever. I want readers to be able to get that without having to wade through too many elitist references or ridiculous vocabulary you wouldn't know if you hadn't spent that year in grad school reading obscure literature. I like to connect with people who are less concerned with their perceived intelligence and more concerned with the human experience. In that kind of connection, I feel like writing is important. It gives us the ability to connect with people on a level that we couldn?t any other way.

Blog suggestions?
I read a lot of blogs. What blogs do you read regularly? Any good suggestions?

Buger Time!
I walked into a chain retail mart the other day to pick up my $100 prescription, and sitting there on the sale shelf was a toy called "Burger Time." The box of this toy shows a little boy with a fast food apron and one of those hats that's only the brim and leaves the top of your head exposed. The boy is smiling and holding a playdough hamburger (with lettuce, tomato, and special sauce) on a spatula, serving up hours of fun. It's a playdough factory for fast food.In this time of high unemployment and obesity, I'm glad to see that toy makers are doing their part to better American society. "Hey Kids! When you're not eating fast food, play with it!" --Toy Makers