Good news is always nice.

Got word last night that Blood Orange Review is taking two of my poems, "A Field Guide, A Map" and "Snow at Midnight." (And thanks to Charlie for his post a while back that tipped me off to this nice little online journal!)

If I'm not mistaken, I now have more poems in the "forthcoming" file than I ever have. That feels good. Publication isn't everything, and it's not the reason I write. But I will admit, uncool as it may be, that I do enjoy it. It is heartening to know that not only did someone like my work, they liked it enough that they want to get other people to read it. To me, that's a heck of a compliment.


A heartfelt "well done" also to fellow blogger Diane K. Martin, whose manuscript made the runner-up cut in the Tupelo Press first-book contest -- frustrating, I know, to feel so close and yet so far, but at least you know you're playing on the right ballfield! And congrats as well to Theresa Sotto, a fantastic poet I met this past summer in Provincetown, whose manuscript made the finalist roster in the same contest.

May we all find the best of readers for the best of our words.