TOMORROW

Gala Recap

So last night was the Writers Community Gala, where 20 BSU undergrads got a chance to read a single piece of poetry or prose less than 500 words in front of an audience and a group of faculty judges.

I cannot be more pleased with the results. We had a turnout of about 85 people. I was really impressed by pretty much all of the readers. Also, it was nice to see some new faces/voices read.

The two main changes we made this year seemed to work out really well. Instead of using Student Government Association money to buy prizes, our plan was to ask for donations from faculty and then use club funds to buy the rest. Our faculty came through in a big way, donating enough prizes that not only did we not have to buy anything, we had enough to give all 20 participants a prize just for competing and have a free raffle as an end-of-semester thank you to the audience. The other change was a heavily enforced 500 word limit per reader, which helped the reading go quickly and smoothly.

Congratulations are in order to Spencer McNelly and Lindsey LaVal, who got 3rd and 2nd place respectively. Of course, big congrats to Layne Ransom who won the whole thing. All three readers got a sweet stack of books that others should be jealous of. All three will be asked to participate in a reading in the Spring, so be on the lookout for that.

Elysia, my fellow WC officer, did a great job hosting beside me. I'm also proud to say that I had few awkward moments and slept well last night.

Big thanks are in order to the judges for donating their time and talents: Cathy Day, Rai Peterson, Jared Sexton, and Audrey Brown. Also, thanks to the donators, who went above and beyond in providing prizes for this event: Jill Christman, Mark Neely, Sean Lovelace, Todd McKinney, Andrew Scott, Victoria Barrett, Peter Davis, and Cathy Day. Big thanks to Todd and Elysia again for helping me out so much putting this together. I'm also hugely thankful for all the readers and audience members who have made this such a successful semester.

REALLY I COULDNT BE MORE GLAD THIS IS OVER AND I MEAN THAT IN A GREAT GREAT WAY LIKE IT WAS SO GOOD AND LETS BASK IN ITS GOODNESS

Three Chapbooks Are Sitting Here Beside Me And I'm Gonna Write A Paragraph About Each One

This fun little thing is chapbook I did with my poems and my wife Sara's recipes. We are giving them to select friends and family for Christmas. I did the cover art. That dog is the only I can draw. Someone once called it "endearing." Someone else once called it "stupid." I think it's a dog drawn from a 25. For real though, it is a cool little thing with 8 poems and 6 recipes. You know what that means: you better hope you're on that list of friends and family.



This is one of the coolest final projects I've ever done, besides probably my manifesto project. Really stoked about this Writers Community chapbook, featuring work from Ryan Rader, Tyler Fields, Mead Jackson, Ben Rogers, Spencer McNelly, Cody Sean Davis, Layne Ransom, Jeremy Bauer, Elysia Smith, and myself. Also, the cool cover photo was taken by Rochelle Martin. These are some of my best friends, favorite student writers, and biggest supporters. They are $3, but I kinda wanna throw them at parents and friends and say look what we do. I'm seriously impressed by the writing in here. It’s been a great semester for the Community and this book is a testament to that.



This one is my pal Ryan's final for the manifesto class. I helped him with the formatting, so he was nice enough to give me a copy. I was also smiling big to see my name in the acknowledgments. That's our friend Joey Haney on the cover. He was a Jackon Pollock painting for H-ween. I danced with him when he was in that costume. That was funny. About this book though, seriously, it's an essay/manifesto called "The Millennial Hipster: Superficial Reflections," and it's one of the more thoughtful things I've read in a real long time. The book came out beautiful, but the words, man, the words shred hard.

I LOVE CHAPBOOKS AND PROBABLY LOVE YOU TOO.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

@) The Collagist blog, CHECK OUT THE NEW DESIGN BY THE WAY, holds three interviews that I did with some cool poets: Nick Ripatrazone Alexander Lumans and Erin Lyndal Martin.

&) The reading went well. I didn't get booed; I didn't cry. That's always good. The others read some cool stuff for real. Sorry missed it. Also, last night was the Writers Community Faculty Panel, and that was informative, helpful, and fun. Thanks people if you are good people.

#) I'm getting spooky.

Two Quick Cool Things That I'm Involved In On The Web

1. Interview with the nice Brynn Saito at The Collagist Blog about her poem "17 Again."

2. Interview with me (I'll let you pick the adjective) at The BSU English Department Blog by Jeremy Bauer about The Writers Community.

HOLY WOAH THAT IS A LOT OF LINKS

The difference between rivers and poems is the thirst one quenches the other dissolves.

1. Steven D. Schroeder was nice to my questions here. Gave some cool insight into his poem, which is part of a manuscript that sounds awesome (see question 5).
2. Super stoked to be helping out with a reading with Jennifer L. Knox, Shanna Compton, and Peter Davis at BSU. Read about it here. Very pleased to be able to give a BSU student the chance to open for them.
3. We have all of this stuff--a printer, karaoke machine, towels, etc.--that we don't need on the floor of our spare room. Rummage? Where?
4.