WORDS WORDS WORDS

A wackyweirdstressfulconfrontationaladjusting week weaved with good words is nice.

Tuesday, a few of my friends--Ryan Rader, Ashley Ford, and Cody Sean Davis--read at one of my favorite bars, Be Here Now.

Cody read a few things including his poem "Virgin," which is gonna be in the 2011 Broken Plate, and a short story, which I saw an earlier draft of and man his edits blew me away. LANGUAGE TIGHTENED IS LANGUAGE USED.

Among other things, Ashley read this powerful story about her brother wearing her clothes. I'm stoked that Ashley will be reading at the next Vouched Presents... reading on March 26th. It'll be nice to see her get an outside-of-Muncie audience for her strong personality.

Ryan released two chapbook, one of which I've blogged about before, and another, First Rodeo, that features himself, Shaun Gannon, Jeremy Bauer, Joe Betz, Joe McHugh, and Daniel Bailey. I read First Rodeo on the bus this morning; having read/heard several of these pieces before, it was awesome to see them packed together in this nice-for-reading-on-the-bus collection. Ryan's poem "Self-Portrait at 21" is killer associations and images. I WAS IN AN ODD MOOD THAT NIGHT BUT IT WAS FUN.

I haven't read in a while and I miss it.

Last night, super pal Layne got to open for a Faculty Reading here at Ball State, featuring Cathy Day and Matt Mullins. Of course, she ruled. She'll be reading again, for longer, as the winner of last Fall's Writers Gala, at the Gala Winners Reading on March 1st.

I'd never seen Cathy or Matt read, but they were both excellent readers. Matt read a mix of poems and short stories, some stories which will be in his forthcoming book from Atticus Books, as well as showing a poem/video thing he's been working on called Highway Coda. Really dug the feel of the video. Also, his reading approach matched his content so well. Excited to be going to read with him (AND LAYNE) at the Slash Pine Festival in Alabama later this semester.

Cathy Day's approach, like RESEARCH HEAVY and mashing lives/stories/etc., is so impressive. The book she read from seems more Sara's style, but definitely an interesting writing project.

Odd writing related thing of the day: My former professor Michael Meyerhofer just walked in here, I'M AT WORK SHHHH, and had me sign as a witness for his contract in which he won ANOTHER book contest. I won't give details. I don't know if I'm allowed, but SWEET.

I've also been doing a good deal of reading. In addition to the Dickman book (see previous post) and First Rodeo, I had the pleasure to read Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder. While sometimes, my eyes pulled away in the middle, a little loose at times, the tightest moments were emotional associations and cool images. Take Dobby's Sweatshirt. OH MY GOODNESS.

Also, I Vouched Brian Oliu's story in the new kill author. WOAH-WEE the pile of sentences buried me a little then I was all hugging it with my lit-reading arms to never let it go. Also also, Oliu is coming to Ball State in two weeks for the Alabama-BSU exchange. SWEEEEEEEEEEET.