5. I had two poems published in the Spring 2014 issue of Wilderness House Literary Review. The poems are "Australia" and "The Fading of the Heart." The first one I wrote for a workshop at the Poetry Center in Chicago. At the time, I was a fairly frequent visitor to the poetry slams at the Green Mill in Uptown, and so I think the poem shows that influence in its length and use of alliteration. I had returned from Australia, where I spent about a month in the Outback, less than a couple months before writing this poem. The second poem was written more recently. It's about Ireland, a place where I used to spend a lot of time and loved but also experienced a fair share of heartbreak, frustration, and disappointment. I'll probably return there of course, but it may be a long while.
4. On Easter Sunday in 2014, Literary Orphans released its Irish-themed issue, guest edited by James Claffey. My non-fiction piece "All Apocalypses, Bitter and Sweet" was included. It's a longer piece. I hope people will read it if they haven't already. Looking back, I'm surprised this got accepted, as it's rather local and much of it is about a medieval Irish saint that most people outside of Ireland have never even heard of. I'm glad Literary Orphans took a chance on this anyway, and I hope readers like it.
3. In August another poem of mine was published at Eunoia Review. The poem is called "Transference (Middle West)." It's about my maternal grandfather and the transition he made as a young man moving from the farm in Iowa where he grew up to the south side of Chicago where he raised a family. A lot of people seemed to like this one.
2. In the fall, Literary Orphans accepted another piece of mine, a short poem for its Ingrid Bergman issue. The poem is called "Golden Day." Some lovely photography by Marta Beveacqua was chosen by the editors to go along with this one. The photo below, meanwhile, best illustrates how I felt about getting something accepted by Literary Orphans twice in one year.
 | |
| Pinky Tuscadero. |
1. And finally, the most viewed post on this blog for 2014, by a mile, was my post about Second City, the famous improv school and theater here in Chicago: You Can Fail Here. What was the big attraction with this post? Why did it get more than double the hits compared to most of the my other posts in 2014? Beats the hell out of me. Second City is a popular and revered place. So is Chicago in general. And failure is always a winning topic--so many of us can relate. I know I certainly could in 2014, between a truckload of rejections I got for other poems and stories I wrote and a fellowship I applied for as well as a huge fire that nearly wiped out my workplace and displaced me and all my co-workers for more than half the year. On the other hand, I think I had a pretty successful year in terms of getting a few things published--this was my first year of submitting regularly after all. I also got a chance to contribute to a couple new great projects: Rockwell's Camera Phone and Booma: The Bookmapping Project.
Still, I really hope 2015 is a better year. I'll have some thoughts on writing goals for the upcoming year in a post within the next couple weeks, and tomorrow I'll hopefully have a post up that reveals some travel plans. Thanks to those of you who have taken the time to read my writing. I appreciate and am helped by any support and encouragement more than you might know.
 |
| Chicago in January 2014. Good motto for 2015 too. |
No comments:
Post a Comment