I forgot to mention this earlier (probably because I haven’t been posting) but right now the best place to read excerpts of my novella The Butterfly Collector and view other images of the corresponding art books is here at the UH Honors College website.

Onto the real news: I got official word yesterday that two of my poems will be appearing in the upcoming Fall/Winter issue of Poet Lore.  The two poems are “House of Cards EP” (which I wrote in 2007 about my sister being carjacked at gunpoint) and “What Happens Behind Boarded Windows” (which I wrote earlier this year about Hurricane Ike).  This will be my first major publication, so I’m fairly excited.  Frankly, I never in my wildest dreams thought that my poetry would be published before my fiction, but I suppose stranger things have happened. 

I made a deal with myself that for every poem or short-short that gets accepted by a publication, I have to write two more (strong) poems/shorts by the time it actually appears in print.  I might have to come up with a different rule for electronic publications and longer stories, but for now that’s what stands.  I hope to send out more poems and get some shorts out by the end of the month.