Flushed With...Steve!

I was recently pleasantly surprised to discover (via press release) that I may have been elevated to the status of reading author, not just attending author, at the book launch for the Royal Sacrcophagus Society Press’s Autumnal opus—Nuit Blanche: Poems for Late Nights, a themed poetry collection to which I contributed the very Dan Simmons-influenced "A Last Dispatch from Erebus, 1848". I’m apparently considered enough of a draw to be put in the headline, at any rate… So if you’re interested and in Toronto, here’s the skinny:

Sunday, September 23
The Artbar of the Gladstone Hotel
1216 Queen Street West at Dufferin
Toronto
7pm to 9pm
Admission: $6 ($4 for RSS Members who show their membership cards.)

One way or the other, even if access to the mic proves limited, I’ll be there with requisite copies of Dust Radio on hand, ready to pick up my complimentary book, mingle, and maybe make a couple of quick sales. Hope to see at least some people who aren’t sharing the contents page with me there as well.;)

In the meantime, a couple of different, unsolicited people have been asking me when my next collection is coming out. As I’ve said before, though I now have almost enough new material—barring stuff like Words Written Backwards and "Pen Umbra"—to assemble such an item, I really don’t know where I’d try to get it published, because I’m fairly certain I’ve shot whatever relationship I once had with Prime Books to shit. So let me throw the question open to people who’ve recently done this dance: lonesome_crow, jack_yoniga, what do you think? kelpqueen says I should perhaps approach Tightrope Books, but I’m fairly sure they’re sewn up through 2009; I know Michael Rowe—who I must write to about his own upcoming book launch!—tried to steer me towards Arsenal Pulp Press, way back when, but I’m not sure if they and I are really the right fit. Etc.

Sad fact is, I’m basically crap at selling stuff. I hate to schmooze, hate to push—I’d so much just rather sit in my room and write than have to sell said writing, afterwards. Still, the idea of placing some of my more recent stuff with a company who might actually be able to, say, get it into STORES remains a huge draw for me…as it should, I suppose. So any advice would be greatly appreciated, oh you with the slightly less clogged-up pipelines. I really have to get off my ass and start serving my public!

At any rate…now that "Drone" is done, I’m going back to Last Things, and hope to have a chapter posted by Friday—possibly even two. That’s the plan, and since I’m already 1,500 words behind, due to various family-oriented crap/editing the Words manuscript, I’m really going to have to kick it into overdrive. In the meantime, I’m also taking some new supplements which are aimed at flushing the incredible amounts of water I’m retaining due to PMS out of my body, and possibly convincing my abdominal area that it doesn’t have to store fat because I am not in any danger of starving. The good part is, flushing has definitely commenced; the bad part is, that means I’m peeing every five seconds and finding it hard to sleep. But who knows, maybe that’ll be good/useful, in the long run (ha ha).

Okay, update finished. I’ll see y’all.