Ornament Stories: Day 3

We never had our Christmas tree up this early. In October, small trees would start to appear at every intersection, bound to the four signal posts. On the day after Thanksgiving, the three local high school bands—Liberty, Freedom, BeCaHi—would alternate years performing at the tree lighting ceremony. Freshman year of high school, part of the Read More …

Ornament Stories: Day 2

A cardinal on a pinecone nest. Another craft. Once a month the women’s craft guild would meet in the social hall at Rosemont, my father’s church for 18 years. The room smelled of hot glue guns, silk flowers and Spanish moss, and when I was done with my homework I would help my mother construct Read More …

Ornament Stories: Day 1

For the month of December, I’ll be posting little stories about the ornaments on my Xmas tree. You can take the boy out of Christmas City, USA… * * * My little sister’s birthday is today, December 1st (Happy Birthday, Jess!). We are four and half years apart, so one’s full birthday is the other’s Read More …

Skin Shift: The Stats

I meant to publish this post sometime after Skin Shift was released back in 2012 and it just never happened, probably because I borrowed info from it for various interviews last year and for the Poets & Writers profile they did on me. But still–since I did one previously for my chapbooks, let me pause Read More …

Casting and Gathering

Back in the summer of 1999 I did a little independent study over in Ireland between my junior and senior year of college called “The Solitary Voice”. It was a class for actors and writers and I was the lone poet. We all had to memorize a text–the actors monologues from plays such as The Read More …

Birthday 35

A birthday post to round-up the latest news and happenings: The big news is that I’ve signed the contract for my second release from Sibling Rivalry Press, The Erotic Postulate. It will be out in September 2014 along with Stephen Mills’ second book, Brent Calderwood’s first book, and Douglas Ray’s anthology of queer Southern writing. Read More …

PoetsArtists Heroes & Villains Collaboration

A new Marilyn poem, “My Cinemascope Life (With Stereophonic Sound)” is in the recent “Heroes & Villains” issue of PoetsArtists magazine. It was a collaboration with painter Francien Krieg, a response to her painting of the elderly woman in the bathtub. Got me thinking: if Marilyn had lived to be 80, what would her thoughts be looking Read More …

Upcoming Readings, a Poem, and a Review

A quick note about some upcoming readings: Monday, April 8th: Indian Springs School, Birmingham, AL, 7pm. I’m part of the Indian Springs Visiting Writers Series which was highlighted recently in The Nation. Looking forward to seeing Douglas Ray and Jessica Smith, and discussing Skin Shift with their students! The public is welcome. Thursday, April 11th: Gay Read More …

The Next Big Thing Interview

I was tagged by my fabulous press-mate Wendy Chin-Tanner to partake in “The Next Big Thing” self-interview series. Wendy’s book Turn is forthcoming from Sibling Rivalry Press in March 2014. I tweaked the questions a bit as they had a prose writer bent to them, and seemed aimed at an unpublished manuscript (and though I Read More …