Doug Draime...

I was really jazzed to discover that late, small press legend, Doug Draime has a website. Now people everywhere can continue to marvel at his terrific body of work. Doug was a truly interesting person, one who lived many lives, experienced the highs and lows and knew it all well enough to report back from the hard, sad, dumb, and beautiful front lines of the human experiment. He seemed driven by a deep need to push and constantly create and probably threw away more great poems than I’ll ever write. There’s no one label or box you can stick his work in, and he was ever restless as a creator and artist. I miss his emails, his insights…and I really miss seeing new poems pop up every few weeks. I am glad to know things are still churning, and if you don’t know Doug’s work — do yourself a favor and go read yourself some.

I was equally delighted to find that Doug’s terrific short story, “Joe’s Smoke & News” is now FREE over at smashwords. It was published by mendicant bookworks — which put out a handful of great little yarns some years back, including THIS ONE (wink!).

Helluva Decade...

Pictured here are the various editions of a few of the highlights from the last decade. It seemed to be a good time to take stock — remind myself of the victories. I imagine it’ll be hard for me to top this — poetry, short stories, a book of letters, and my first novel — so I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank the editors and publishers who took a chance on the bigger projects over the last 10 years.

Jason Behrends of Orange Alert Press, Bill Roberts of Bottle of Smoke Press, Ryan Bradley of Artistically Declined Press, and Pete Lally of Pig Ear Press. I also managed to place some work with Johnny & Giselle Brewton’s BAGAZINE and a couple of offerings from Michael Curran’s Tangerine Press, as well as a re-release of two out-of-print titles with Matthew Ward’s Mary Celeste Press and a new imprint from Bill Roberts, Ternary Editions. I sure can’t thank each of them enough for believing in my work.

With the release of Chinese Gucci, I also started my own DrunkSkull Books, and with a cache of ISBNs under my arm, I will likely look to self-publish the occasional new title from here on out as well

And while I’m giving thanks — let me thank each of you reading this for your interest and support over the years. Your support of writers, small presses, and.artists makes the whole dang thing possible and that means more than you know to me.