Excerpt

A sliver of me and the current work in progress

I’m currently working through and enduring a dreadful depression.

I find prose poetry or prose that is abstract and more poetic and symbolic than expository to be more natural to write in these transient hauntings that seem to fall mostly in odd number ending years only. It is my pattern.

I have prose in my poetry and too much damn poetry in my prose, like chocolate and peanut butter cataclysms.

Spring is rearing it’s ugly yellow dandelion head in Georgia. I am basking in the new-turned sun like an iguana, as if the daystar can crisp up the darkness around and within me and I can slough it off when I next shed. Replace the old tight dull blackened char with something fitting and vibrant.

Everything is going well, except me. I have a poem “Near Teegardens Star c” published on Amazing Stories! I had my first publication credit of the year with one of my “Dreamfruit” cycle poems on Abyss & Apex. Both were goal markets. I have audio readings I did with both poems so you can hear my razor on velvet low voice. I’m a contralto, no surprise.

My very first short story of 5K length will be in the 2025 Vixens of Horror anthology “It’s Just a Toy” releasing on March 15th, my late mothers birthday.

I shall be in the next issue of my beloved Weird Fiction Quarterly again as well, with a story I love and is very personal. “His Arm, My Ring”, inspired by doppelgänger. It is a tribute to M. R. James ghosts. I read the piece to gauge response at an an Authortunities Hub reading and I got the ultimate compliment. One of my dear friends and peers blurted out immediately- “I don’t know whether to masturbate or to be afraid”. It was my favorite complement ever received on my writing. Eros and Thanatos encapsulated in 500 words. The acceptance was a delightful surprise as I thought I’d failed at a subtle malevolent ghost story after reading it. I love “His Arm, My Ring”- a poem/prose nebulous piece.

The Rhysling Chair is going well and the current is flowing. I hope I survive it. I’m off to a workshop now. Have a good weekend everyone!