My prison pen pal “Conway” continues to wait for a hearing on his early release petition, three years after California retroactively repealed the “three strikes” law mandating long sentences for nonviolent crimes. If you have enjoyed his work on this blog, feel free to send me a letter of support that I can forward to
New Poetry by Conway: “They Have a Cave” Read More »
The Tarot, in the school of thought that I’m currently studying, is a tool for asking questions and receiving insights from one’s own intuition, from a higher consciousness, from the psychological emanations of other people, and/or from spiritual beings. This is also how I write fiction. So naturally, in working with Tarot, I haven’t confined
Tarot Spreads for Novel Writers Read More »
Carmine Dandrea is a retired English professor, Korean War veteran, and world traveler whose diverse life experiences inform his award-winning poetry. The work he has published with us at Winning Writers spans a train ride across India, a pilgrimage along China’s historic Silk Road, and a child’s memories of an Italian-American family funeral. In contrast
Two Poems from Carmine Dandrea’s “In a Kept World” Read More »
2014 has been a year of self-transformation. I became a redhead and got a lion tattoo. I finished a major revision of the Endless Novel. I hope to finish-finish it for real in early 2015, after I nail down the details of my new poetry book launch and marketing plan. My second full-length poetry book,
Reiter’s Block Year in Review: 2014 Read More »
As my readers doubtless know from the national news, the killing of unarmed African-American men and boys by white police officers has sparked protest movements across the country, challenging us white Americans to confront our participation in a racist law enforcement system. On Aug. 9 in Ferguson, MO, Officer Darren Wilson shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael
A Long-Overdue Education in Racism: Where to Begin? Read More »
This past October I participated in Dead Poets Remembrance Day, an annual reading series organized by Walter Skold of Dedgar.org. Walter is on a mission to host tribute readings at all the graves of notable poets in the U.S. He is working on a documentary that will incorporate video of these readings and other anecdotes
Videos from Dead Poets Remembrance Day Read More »
One perk of having a Kindle is the unlimited supply of M/M romance e-books that I can now enjoy, free from concerns about privacy and shelf space. I’ve read a couple of standouts that I’ll discuss below, and meanwhile have been thinking about some peculiarities of the genre. I was never really a fan of
Summer Reads: Some Gay Romances Read More »
Of the numerous poetry books I’ve read this year, Ruth Thompson’s Woman with Crows (Saddle Road Press, 2013) is the most personally meaningful to me. I just turned 42, undeniably middle-aged, and my son starts preschool this fall. All around me, it seems, are warnings and laments that youth is fleeting, and we must cling
Two Poems from Ruth Thompson’s “Woman with Crows” Read More »
Poet and political historian Diana Anhalt moved to Mexico with her family in 1950, where her parents joined a community of left-wing expatriates who’d left the U.S. to escape Senator Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist persecutions. She would live there for the next 50 years. The full text of her nonfiction book A Gathering of Fugitives: American
Two Poems from Diana Anhalt’s “Lives of Straw” Read More »
This year, I resolved to lose 200 pounds. Of books. We are surgically attached to our iPhones in this house, so much so that Shane’s first instance of imaginative play was holding a block up to his ear and pretending to talk to it. However, I haven’t been able to warm up to reading e-books.
Thoughts from the Great Book Purge of 2014 Read More »