Tatterdemalion and a New Book of Poetry

In an earlier post, I mentioned my novel 'Tatterdemalion' being picked up by Cauliay Publishing, and also promised to give a few updates from time to time. I've been sparse, dotting various Twitter posts in my revisions and other information, but thought it was time to post here and update the two people that read this on the happenings.

Tatterdemalion is nearly complete on the publisher's end. We've got the book finalized and ready to go out, save for a couple of incidentals that we're working on right now. I've spent a huge amount of my time (all of it, really) over the last few months putting together a supplemental material package to send out to reviewers. It's huge, autoruns, and I had to design every page in it both graphically and in regard to its content. Here's a list of some of the things on the disc (which is all nicely labeled with full-color inserts... the works (and I designed all of that, too).

1. Background information on the book, including specific reasons for writing it.

2. Author's Introduction

3. Publisher's Introduction

4. Character concept art of the heraldic characters in the book

5. Cover art for the book

6. Alternate/concept covers for the book that we didn't go with (7 of them)

7. Small Press tie-ins (the Main Character sends out to real mags, and often)

8. About the Author section (this is where a bio and all that is found)

9. Explanatory Notes (on the bizarre styling, characterizations, and trickery in the book)

10. The ebook version of Tatterdemalion

11. Contact, link, and order information

And a ton more. Each one of the above 'features' has a few pages within it, full of other related features. There's video, audio, images, effects, a lot of painful design that I've finally managed to make smooth, and it can interact with the internet cleanly. The entire thing is interactive, and runs as a stand-alone program. You can email me, surf the web for details on the book, and even read the book, all while in the bonus feature program, or outside of it. You can even set up your own music playlist in the bonus features, with your own music, to listen to while you read, if your the type who likes music on when you read. Every page is dotted in various graphic art I've made for it, even as background material. There are even easter eggs hidden in the depths of the features.

I've worked pretty hard on it. Here's a teaser screenshot:



I've also been working on a new book of poetry, with an incredibly long title. All my books have had shorter titles lately, so I thought I'd go out on a limb and use a long one. The title of my new book of poetry is:

I Won't Breathe for It-- The Dull Chatter of Ends, Humping Catastrophes and Lounging Where One Sets Aside the Mind.

So yes, long. Here's a couple of images of some poems in the book. I added effects to the pictures so you won't be completely bored.

That's about it for now. I was also recently invited into the World Poets Society, and had an interview recently in Tom's Voice. No Tell Motel will be featuring some of my work in April, and there are some new spoken word tracks up over at The Adroitly Placed Word, as well.

Lately (well, continually), I am entirely enamored with my little son's antics. Being a stay-at-home dad is wondrous (though at times, it can be extremely difficult to get things done... i.e. subsequent revisions of a novel for one's publisher...) Paint-paint is talking well now, and just last night sat me down to tell me a 'story'. I'm a writer so that was poignant as hell. His story was about a ghost playing with his toys. He struck the ghost on the ass with his fist and frightened it. The ghost then ran away and hid in one of my son's Hot Wheels cars, driving slowly away.

Funny, I never took him for the horror sort.

Interviews with the Twilight of Blood and Ink Pigs of 2007

It has been a small time since last post, but my initial point to this ugly little thing was to post about once a month. Much has been happening recently, and it's difficult to boil it into a format I can quickly type.

The writing has been going well. In the last year, I've written two novels, one of which is gigantic, and 4 books of poetry, at around 80 poems each. The last, 'In the Twilight of Pigs' is a bit different for me, but has worked out well. I've currently got it tied up in a few handpicked submissions to a few handpicked magazines that I'm hoping will handpick me back.

I'm going to start a new book of poetry later tonight, though am giving serious thought to working on some short stories for a collection, instead.

This year has gone well for me in the small press. This year thus far, 2007, I have poems appearing or forthcoming at Takahe, Skyline Magazine, TheEclectics, Kafla Inter-continental, Prakalpana Sahitya, Riversedge, Four Volts, The Verse Marauder, Paperplates, Small Spiral Notebook, My Name is Mud, Red China, Coconut, Ancient Heart Magazine, Ascent Aspirations, Kritya, Dispatch, Sein und Werden, Ceremony Collected, EOAGH, Unfettered Verse, Wandering Army, Wet Asphalt, The Persistent Mirage, Static Poetry, Pemmican, Tryst, La Fenetre Magazine, The Smoking Poet, First Time, Greensilk Journal, LostWriters, The Swallow's Tail, The Written Word, Wicked Alice, East Village Poetry, Tipton Review, Going Down Swinging, Ken*again, Bergen Street Review, The Scribbler Ink, Ygdrasil, Venereal Kittens, MEAT Journal, Brave Little Poem of the Day, Chaotic Dreams, The Flask Review, Clockwise Cat, Bolts of Silk, Death Metal Poetry, Salt Flats Annual, 2000, Blue Skies, Faulty Mindbomb, Ceremony, Breed, Ceremony Collected II, Flutter Poetry Journal, Rokovoko, Enfuse Magazine, Conceit, edificeWRECKED, The Aggregated Press, Halfway Down the Stairs, Riverbabble, The Cynic, Harûah: Breath of Heaven, Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), and most recently, The Blotter.

I am very thankful that things have turned around lately. I'd be stupid not to be.

Maisy and I are trying to move to Portland, and were hoping to be there at the start of September, but now it's looking like we'll have to wait another few months. We spent too much money trying to scout out a place to live there, and everything we got a lead on went bust. We can always wait until tax season, and then use our return to move, if we have to. Especially now that we've paid off that ancient student loan of mine that septupled in size long before Maisy and I ever met, and for which I didn't even attend school with ($1500 loan that turned into nearly $8,000 worth of debt over seven years, with most of these years seeing me homeless or on the verge, spare-changing and groveling about my little town to keep alive). I almost miss those years, as much as they battered me at the time.


Painter is growing and talking galore. Today, he woke me up by shouting, "Oh, mail! Dada, mail!" I love it. I've gotten all milky and dopey in previous posts about how much I love my kid, but jesus, it's powerful, right? What a scampish, bright little man he is. Anyway, being a stay-home dad is enjoyable, though not without it's difficulties (cabin fever, for one, getting my boots pissed in one morning, for another).

I've been writing for Blood and Ink for quite a few months now. It's a sort of repository for a few writer and illustrator colleagues to post articles we're writing on the different facets of creating art. I've been focusing on publishing in my articles mostly, but have some new work to place there soon on various forms of poetry (Ghazal, Sonnet, Pantoum, Fugue, etc...). I've just realized that I have yet to mention it much here. A shame, as it's worth your time. The articles at Blood and Ink are written from the knuckle, truly.

http://www.bloodink.blogspot.com

Also, I've been doing interviews with certain celebrity writers over at Interviews with the Dead, for some time now. The people I've interviewed thus far are Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Homer, Kobayashi Issa, Walt Whitman, and Dante Alighieri. Most of these were difficult interviews, but a few of these authors were cooperative, sort of. Interviewing the dead is always hit or miss. I've contacted Mark Twain and he's consented to an interview, so I've been preparing questions the last few days.

http://www.interviewswiththedead.blogspot.com

Oh, and you may have noticed the syndicated Cat and Mouse strip at the top of my page. This is a product of my illustrious friend Elijah Brubaker. Visit him immediately at EJB Comix.

Enjoy the rest of Summer.

You Sap

It’s been some time since I mentioned the fatherhood thing, which was to be my original subject of this online journal. The reason there hasn’t been much in the way of parenting posts is because things regarding fathering and raising my baby kid happen with such incredible frequency that they begin to blend together into one, long memory. The minute I have something I want to post, something I’ve come up with or even a basic observation, something else will occur, and I just can’t keep up with all the parenting happenings I’ve wanted to place here, online. So, I’ll keep it brief and give an update from time to time.

While going through numerous pictures on my backup drive, I found some of the early images of Painter, and found myself shaken considerably by the sheer amount of change he’s already gone through. Two years ago, I looked no different than I do now. But the difference in Painter is astounding. Sure, all kids change considerably between birth and two. They have to. It’s still baffling to me just how much difference there is. I know that the shocked sensation I felt was only due to having been with Painter for two years, and his growth and development have been somewhat analog to me. Things slowly change, day by day, and you don’t notice so much until you see an old picture. But it still catches me off guard when I note this:

and then look at this one, taken on his second birthday.




This has occured during the time I’ve had this blog.

Being a father is both incredible and completely mundane at the same time. I love it. It’s like finding a buck laying on the ground, but every time you leave the house. And I get at least another 16 years of it (or until I get outmoded by his more interesting friends, somewhere in the vacinity of junior high). Fuck, I hope this next decade doesn’t go by too fast. I’m digging every minute of this.

Of course it will. And so will I. And so will you.

So for now, I get to hang out with my little man and my wonderful Maisy, most days, and write novels and poetry, and publish and revise and do most of the things I like doing, and I can even feel generally good about it. I’m ugly and broke, but that’s never really hindered me with these things.

I hope I see this the same way in hindsight, much later, and remember what a lucky piece of shit I was.