Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Published September 5th, 2011 | 
Actually, Alice never lived here . . .
Nonetheless, for the past couple days I been receiving emails from some guy spamming me with messages intended for the Alice Blue Review. How these messages are finding their way to my inbox I have no idea (anymore than I can fathom why messages that are intended for me occasionally don’t arrive at all). What is clear is this guy named Louis Marvin is intent on getting ABR’s poetry editor, Amber Nelson, to visit his website where he has posted some poems.
Forget about the fact that poetry editors almost never accept work posted on a personal website (I say, “almost never” because I have, on a few occasions, published poetry first posted to a personal website. However, those poets were writers I’d previously published whose work I liked) — no, what is truly strange is the email message itself:
if you google: Louis Marvin Poems
writings that are from today to recent pasts come up from poems, editorials and prose stuffs.
another great day in hawaii!
fish and turtles are fed, plants watered, child tutored, and my teeth cleaned at kahala mall! listen to YES sometime and you lose your mean bones!
Right now, I’m wondering if I should forward this message to Amber Nelson.
09/06/2011*Note: “Louis Marvin” contacted me to let me know that his spam mail was an “accident.” He claimed that it was only intended as a private message for a few friends. Not sure I buy that. What kind of mail program is he using that he can accidentally send bulk email like that? And how did I end up on that contact list since I don’t even know the dude?
Posted in Happy Horseshit, Magazines, Shits and Giggles, Wannabes, blogs, ezines, poetry | 
Leave a commentNo Teachee No Writee
Published August 15th, 2011 | There is only one good reason to enroll in a graduate writing program. There are a bunch of bad reasons for enrolling in one. If you want to join the academic writing community and teaching creative writing, that’s a pretty good reason to become a creative writing student. If you want to learn to write, that’s pretty bad reason.
You may think I’m crazy, because the all the enticing literature coming out of Creative writing schools promise that you will be taught certain writerly disciplines that will ultimately make you into a seasoned professional writer.
What actually happens is that you sit around reading the writing of fellow classmates while they read your writing, then you all sit around class critiquing said writing. You will very seldom gain any real insight into your flaws as a writer. In fact, looking to your peers for help is akin to a woman asking on twitter what kind of boyfriend gift to buy. Once you weed out the critics who will never say anything negative about your writing and the ones who never say anything positive, you are left with the guy who’s obsessed with symbolism and the retired school teacher grammar nazi who frets over your spelling or a typo you didn’t catch. Then there is the guy who preferred that you protagonist have a certain color hair or be a smoker or non-smoker or whatever the hell else. The rest of the class will strongly agree or disagree with another student without offering a single independent original thought to back up their reasoning. Ultimately, the prof will play referee and may or may not offer constructive criticism of their own.
What won’t happen is you learning how to write. At best, the professor can only teach you how they write. And your fellow students are just as blind and ignorant as you are. You will exist in that little bubble until you graduate. So unless you are planning to teach or your particularly close to an influential professor who can help you get a literary agent, you will be on your own.
Patience is a Virtue, Impatience is Just Plain Annoying
Published February 2nd, 2010 | There was a time, back when I first started Asterius Press, that I was a stickler for deadlines. I mean, I busted my ass to publish things on time. I’d pull all-nighters — whatever I had to do to accomplish the task at hand. The past few years, however, my health and financial difficulties have thrown a wrench in the works and for my own piece of mind, I’ve pulled back a bit and have been taking things slow. In truth, I’ve become fairly lackadaisical about deadlines. My priorities have simply changed.
Devil Blossoms, the little literary magazine that was once my flagship publication and the thing I was most known for, hasn’t been published since 2007. For the past few years, it’s been on indefinite hiatus. Nonetheless, I had tentatively planned to publish a new issue sometime later in 2010 provided I had enough suitable material and financial resources to make it happen. As such, I started reading submissions for this publication late last August in the hopes of making it happen sooner or later. One story I’d accepted was from this young writer who, although initially seemed cool with the fact that he’d have to wait a spell before seeing his story in print, quickly fired off a query within a few weeks of acceptance demanding to know when the issue would be published. I replied to him expressing even more clearly that the issue would not soon be published because I simply had other priorities and didn’t have enough material to fill an issue anyway — nor did I know for certain what format the new issue would take. In short, there was a lot of details to work through before I could even think about publishing the issue. Although it was clear he was not really happy with the situation, he accepted my answer and didn’t withdraw his story. Flash forward a couple of months and I receive yet another query from this guy asking the same question, “When will DB be published?” Not much has changed since I last communicated with this fellow. I still don’t have quite enough material to fill an entire issue. I still don’t know how or when I’m going to be able to publish it. I have secured the artwork for the cover. The issue is coming together at its own pace and I’m still hoping that when it is ready to be published I will be able to publish it. But I am in no hurry. I simply don’t feel the same urgency that the author of the story feels.
On one hand, I sympathize with the guy because I’ve been there in that place where you’ve had something you’ve written accepted by a literary publication and you don’t know if or when it will be published for real. It can be agony to wait when you are young and just starting out. It can be like bleeding out slowly onto the floor tiles. I get that. On the other hand, being as I was upfront about the situation from the very beginning, I’m annoyed with him. After all, when I initially accepted his piece, I told him that he’d have to wait a long, long time and left it up to him whether he wanted to allow me to hold onto his story or take it elsewhere given the situation. He opted to let me hold onto it. He chose to wait it out. If he queries me a month from now, my reply would be the same, most likely. I can’t give him a firm time table for the issue’s publication and his impatience doesn’t help the situation. As such, I’ve decided to do what I should have done to begin with: release the story back to him. I mean, I really hate to go all William Packard on his ass, but it does seem to be the best solution for both of us. This way, he can maybe find a new home for his story and maybe see it published in the near future if he’s lucky. Or maybe not. But that’s the chance you take when you submit work to a publisher.
