Quick, Blatant Self-Promotion Post

I'm so thrilled to share that my poem series, "Super Dan Comics Question Box Series" has now been created into a beautiful chapbook, Old School Superhero Loves a Good Wristwatch. It will be joining the amazing catalog of chapbooks published by Dancing Girl Press. Hit here for a direct link to my chapbook's information and purchase page at the press's website. And a few photos taken by publisher Kristy Bowen, as the chapbook is coming off the presses:

The cover illustration and design is custom-made for me by Michael Edholm. Check out his website here. His work is phenomenal. Soon I'll be posting on this blog a complete pictorial process of how he drew the cover. It's pretty darn cool.

I am very excited about this. The Old School Superhero, he flies!

Super Dan Comics Question Box Series

Before coming down to land in a full-length verse collection in 2016, my Superhero series of poems will be celebrating its very own exclusive chapbook launch this year, in late summer 2014. It is titled OLD SCHOOL SUPERHERO LOVES A GOOD WRISTWATCH and will shine its light out from the capable and refined environs of Dancing Girl Press. I am thankful to editor Kristy Bowen for her delighted response to this  series. 

Here is a very early pencil sketch, a tiny partial view, of what will become the cover. And yes, this time I'm giving you a complete coax.

Super Shoes in conversion

The final version is going to be nothing short of magnificent. The illustrator for the cover is, well, nothing short of genius. I'm privy to every step of every drawing, and I cannot believe how intense, deliberate and complicated this work is. When it's completed, I will post photos on this blog from the very first sketch all the way through to final cover, and you won't believe the remarkable transformation that happens. I mean, jaw-dropping. Not only am I staggered by the process of illustration, but I believe I've stumbled upon new material for yet a third collection of poetry. You never know where the material's going to turn up, but you know it when you turn it over.

Witnesses Report Superhero Seen Flying Over Main Street!

Just in time for summer’s end – two new “SUPER DAN COMICS QUESTION BOX SERIES” poems in the gorgeous new issue of THE MAIN STREET RAG. Volume 18, Number 3, Summer 2013. This issue is so cool it has an outer and inner front cover, both poignant and engaging, particularly as played off one another. 

Find out how a mere mortal can make a superhero speechless AND stupefied, simultaneously, all on the basis of a gingerly-placed, albeit spectacular, sofa. 

Then find out how a superhero can kick a mere mortal’s ass in the “just do it” department.

Martha Schulzinger’s take: “I really enjoyed SUPER DAN COMICS QUESTION BOX SERIES #24. A lot. I've read it a couple of times and I feel I can identify with Super Dan on that quite a lot. SDC #40 is very inspiring. As I read it, I feel Super Dan is inspiring us to take action, action we may not want to take. It's hard work, but we can do it.” 

In some circles, “SDC #40” is affectionately referred to as The Closer.

Thrilled to be pagewise side-by-side with the gifted poet and critic Bill Christophersen, in addition to a bevy of first-rate poets, including Roy Bentley and John Guzlowski.

Many thanks to publisher/editor M. Scott Douglass for his astute, dedicated and guiding care in constructing this special summer issue as well as the full body of fiction, poetry, interviews and artwork constituting The Main Street Rag Magazine and Publishing Company since 1997. 

The Red Hen Press Poetry Award and Me

SENSATIONAL NEWS!!

I have won the RED HEN PRESS POETRY AWARD for my poem “Super Dan Comics Question Box Series #18.”

I am so elated I'm practically speechless. And for a poet, I assure you, this is hardly ever a predicament. I am profoundly beholden to the editors at Red Hen Press for selecting my poem as a finalist, enabling it to be chosen as the winner by the final judge, Cynthia Hogue.  Thank you to Cynthia for choosing my poem for this amazing honor from a powerful pool of entrants that made it to finalist status. This award is especially gratifying because the competition is a completely “blind competition,” from the minute the entries hit the desk at the Red Hen Press offices. A blind competition is important to us in the literary community because it’s immeasurably significant for a poet to know that the poem alone speaks for itself - and nothing else, no identifying authorial information whatsoever, colors its potency. Just the lines on the page. I am over-the-moon with joy that my poetry has impressed the editors at Red Hen Press – bless you!, Editor-in-chief Kate Gale, and Judge Cynthia Hogue. You bet I’ll be thrilled to come out to LA to visit the offices, meet Kate, and the other editors, and staff. Don’t have to ask me twice!

The Los Angeles Review, Issue #14, will publish “Super Dan Comics…#18”, and if I’m not mistaken, also the runners-up, along with a fine collection of wonderful work by other poets and writers.  Please pick up or order a copy! Support the written arts – and welcome to the world a wise alien new to our planet, making his rounds in the “Super Dan Comics Question Box Series.”  Hurrah!

The “Super Dan Comics Question Box Series” is a sequence of poems occupying one section of my new verse collection-in-progress, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in 2016.

Background on Award:

The Red Hen Press Ruskin Poetry Award is named after John Ruskin, and in honor of The Ruskin Art Club in Los Angeles, CA. The Ruskin Art Club, founded in 1888, is Los Angeles’ oldest cultural association.  Its 1922 clubhouse was declared a Los Angeles Historical Monument in 1997. 

So this is what it looks like on the other side of the moon. Fabulous!