Regular readers of this blog will know I first consider myself to be a poet but I also LOVE non-fiction. I wish I was taking this class that Melanie Faith is teaching online this summer. I have worked with Melanie on my own poetry and non-fiction so this class comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED from me. Starts June 25th and you can still sign up!
Now, moving on to fiction even though I’ve probably been saying too much about PANK magazine lately so I am limiting myself to one link in this post. Enjoy.
I have a few shameless shout outs for myself. First, is a review of Paper House in the online journal Prick of the Spindle. And then Folded Word put up a new interview about my book touring habits. But, finally, I also have a guest blog that I wrote about Poetry and Comics for another online journal Splinter Generation.
In print I finished the chapbook CASA MARINA by Candace Black. This 2009 Winner of the Ropewalk chapbook prize is the perfect example of what a chapbook should be. It is printed on beautiful paper with a simple cover art and design. The poems inside link well together without being heavy handed. One of my favorite poems was “The Jewish Cemetery” where Black writes, “The dead end of our longing / made it all the sweeter, the sad / / knowledge of one commandment / we’d have to honor.”
If you don’t already have enough to read. I read some more good stuff this week through my lovely blog reader which is now down into the 80′s YES! First up is a story over at Girls with Insurance and this next one is a poem in JUKED. I really need to get around to submitting something to Juked.
Outside of reading, I have been watching some TV at night but not my normal TV. No, we are enjoying the switch to Netflix streaming and disks and the move away from having a dish. Still haven’t canceled the dish yet but think we are very close to doing so. I finished the first season of WEEDS which was pretty good and have enjoyed documentaries like “What Would Jesus Buy?” but less enjoyed “Princess” a Danish animated film that is for mature audiences only and was ok but I felt the ending was a bit odd. I also tried to watch “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” because I like Jim from The Office but, like the book of the same title, I was underwhelmed. I finished the book but did not finish the movie.
I was getting fairly caught up on reading and watching things but just received a bunch of items for potential review and all the new stuff in my Netflix queue! I might soon need a vacation from anything involving words 
Weeds? I have not watched it since the second season- I get weird’ed out when I think about her getting busted, silly me…getting stressed over a show
Have you heard of Blue Room Publication? http://www.blueroompublishing.com/home
Was told about it by a new member of my open mic- Craig Sernotti, he has a book full of interesting work on there, Forked Tongue- has opened my eyes to some interesting thoughts!
Read your poem last night @ Grovers Mill Coffee House, NJ, Mixed Drinks- posting it later, and will be doing more readings of your works…
Have a great day my fellow thespians…
I just finished the first season but it does have that tension of wanting to know if she will get caught!
I’ll check out the small press. I am not family with them
Thank you so much for reading one of my poems! I love reading poems by other poets at readings. I am hoping to go to an open mike on Friday. Skipped a few this month but feel like I need the fix!
Sorry it took me so long to comment today! There was so much to check out and read. Thank you for doing that for us!
Love your shameless shout outs . . .of course. 
And the story in PANK. ! Jessie, I worked in a fast food place and we had a guy come in all the time nicknamed R. C. Bob. No one wanted to wait on him. He ordered the same thing every time, but could never pay for it before he went to the bathroom and washed his hands. Then he drank an 8 pack of RC Cola bottles which he carried in with him, while he ate. He didn’t try to scare anyone though . . .just might have accidentally. ha! Now I wonder what happened to him! Our manager was real nice to him when us girls might tend to disappear mysteriously. He would try to always take his order because he new what he was going to want and need to do. Oops . . .this got too long. Sorry! Again! ha! Take care and thanks again for our reading material and links! deb
definitely not too long of a comment or in the time it took to post! There always seems to be at least one person who is so predictable when you work in food service. My first full time job at 19 was in a mall fast food place. I really liked the people I worked with and it was a decent job. It was fascinating to see some of the same people. I felt bad for the one guy who ordered the same thing everyday but we had to slightly raise the prices and suddenly his bill was $6.66! He was a bit freaked out and switched to ordering a large drink instead of a medium
such an interesting combination of links. thanks for pointing to “Mr. Chicken”. it made me think of the restaurant story that won the story south award 2008, “ALex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicke” by Matt Bell (http://www.storyglossia.com/23/mb_alex.html)
and thanks for taking me back to Juked. i just got a bit nostalgic and looked for my texts there, and found they hava a nice, automatic archive page: http://www.juked.com/archive/index.asp?nm=Dorothee+Lang&sb=au — if you want to follow the restaurant theme, check out the “Harlequin” story – it includes a restaurant moment. actually, “Harlequin” is the real life name of the restaurant in the story.
now i am hungry
Dorothee – funny you mention Matt Bell cause I also enjoyed a story of his about wolves in Metazen recently http://www.metazen.ca/?p=3865#
I’ll have to dig into those Juked archives. I can’t believe I didn’t have them on my list given how long they have been around. Hard to keep up with all the journals I want to read!
I’m glad you liked Weeds. Most of the time it has some of the sharpest comedy writing on TV, even though it can be a little over the top sometimes. I just love Mary-Louise Parker, who was so great as Amy Gardner on “The West Wing”, but I watch it for Hunter Parrish too, of course. He is simply beautiful
I totally agree with you on the over the top thing. There are moments when I go, really guys? You are just doing that cause you are on cable
And now I know who Hunter Parrish is! I really like Kevin Nealon’s character. Just cracks me up. I’m only a little into season 2 now.
I want to see What Would Jesus Buy
I think you’d enjoy it
if you want to do a viewing party sometime let me know!