Endless Love: Guest Blog* by Chris Crittenden

June 28, 2008

I stare at a blank page as I write this sentence and wonder how I am going to fill it and do justice to the poet’s craft. Indeed, I am doomed to fail. Even if I could somehow write a lyrical paean of utmost caliber, I would only start an unreckonable journey of praising the creative fount, where truths are cleansed and the miracles of life rejuvenated.

I feel a horrible stress today because eight hours from now, I have to get on a plane and fly to New York, then two more planes before I reach Maine. This stress I consider one of the most awful invaders. I have never felt this when poetizing, even though the process uproots me, carries me to another place.

When I write, I sometimes feel I have come home after being away for decades. I sometimes feel I have reached an eerie crepuscular crossroad, and a seeress in a mantle is waiting there for me. I sometimes feel I am falling in love, with no worries, like a child hypnotized by an autumn maple. But the act is not always without lust.

It is perhaps trite to say that writing a poem is like making love to a Muse. But love is essential to poetic creation. Perhaps everything about love has been said sixty times over sixty centuries, but it is still resplendent. Through all the gauze of pettiness and platitude we weave, it still shines, a venerable yet young lighthouse.

One of the most beautiful and cosmic statements on love is offered by Octavio Paz in his classic Piedra De Sol:

the two took off their clothes and made love
to protect our share of all that’s eternal,
to defend our ration of paradise and time,
to touch our roots, to rescue ourselves,
to rescue the inheritance stolen from us
by the thieves of life centuries ago,
the two took off their clothes and kissed
because two bodies, naked and entwined,
leap over time. they are invulnerable,
nothing can touch them. they return to the source,
there is no you, no I, no tomorrow,
no yesterday, no names, the truth of two
in a single body, a single soul,
oh total being …

I think many would read this and say something like, “It’s lovely but I’m not a teenager anymore.” This is a grave failure. What Paz talks about can be approached over and over. We can fall in love every moment of our lives. Just take up a pen. Perhaps you will have trouble summoning the Muse. But it is not as hard as one might think. One sentence can be a poem. Tears might well up. You might imagine you have died and are giving testimony somewhere.

When this happens, let no one tell you that your poem is bad. What you have recorded may not be perfect; it is a quivering attempt to transcribe a mystic union—that tryst in which you join with your unconscious “to touch our roots, to rescue ourselves.”

This daemonic love-making does not apply only to love poems. Such narrowing is another great error. One can make love to the muse of a stream, the muse of goldfinches, the muse of tombs, or the muse of outrage (as Neruda did in his anguished poem “United Fruit Company”).

In this way, you expose yourself to all sides of your being; and they become naked for you. Anguish and joy surface, and sometimes an afterglow of peace.

Many people think they can toss like Romeo and Juliet only a few times in their lives, usually early on, and once it’s had it’s gone, a naïve bliss unsuited to maturity. Such beliefs may be the most poignant anesthesia. Through poetry you can make love again and again, in a profound state, with more partners and more emotions than you ever dreamt.


Chris Crittenden is a hermit living in a remote area of Maine, but travels to Los Angeles to see his father. His poem “Meditation Sense” is forthcoming in the Summer 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn. Other recent acceptances are from: Boston Literary Magazine, Main Street Rag, Drunken Boat and “Walt’s Corner,” a literary column in the Long Island Newspaper, founded by Walt Whitman. He’s scheduled to be interviewed on Poets Café, a radio program of KPFK in Los Angeles, where he intends to mention the wonderful team at The Rose & Thorn.

* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

An Anesthesia of Miracles: Guest Blog* by Chris Crittenden

In this second blog, I would like to continue with my prophetic voice. By “prophetic” I mean writing that elopes with passion from the realm of the ordinary. Mary Midgley calls poets prophets in her excellent book Science and Poetry. She explains that poets, by breaking out of standard phraseologies, are on the leading edge of innovation—where life could go in the future. By adventuring in the underworld of thought, the poet garners hints of what looms.

What poet hasn’t written a stanza that “came out of nowhere” and yet was validated by later events? The words were the first tremor of a change in the psyche; but that wasn’t known at the time. In this way, a poem can be as ambiguous as the pronouncements of the Oracle at Delphi.

There is another side to the prophetic. It condemns what I once referred to in a poem this way:

on one side are pretermitters
and the other thimbleriggers
and between hullabaloo stirrers
and higgledy-piggledy pawns.

Deniers, deceivers, distracters and their dogs thrive in the status quo. That is why Thoreau said most people “live lives of quiet desperation.” It is why Kierkegaard lamented that the majority sleepwalk though their lives. It is why Plath wrote, “We stand round blankly as walls,” in her famously dark and mordant collection Ariel.

This brings me to the most important function of the poetic voice: to counteract the anesthesia of miracles.

From birth, we experience miracles. For years, these fascinations are fresh and intoxicating. New ones parade before our nascent eyes: the enticement of a mobile; the vividness of a flower; the sorcery of flame. But the seeds of quiet desperation are sown young, and the weedy shoots are eager to own the landscape of perception.

This degradation is aided not just by a stress-ridden society, but by the miracles themselves. They are everywhere. They are all-giving, never hiding their precious beauty, if only we look. This perpetual kindness is far beyond the gray ethos of our money-hungry life. We do not know how to handle the supernal gift of endless miracles. The result is a gradual erosion of our ability to perceive and appreciate them. We become anesthetized by what should invigorate.

The phrase “an anesthesia of miracles” is an oxymoron. It is an irony of failure and existential paradox—for it should be impossible for miracles to numb us, yet nevertheless they do. It is not their fault. Perhaps it is not ours either. Perhaps our soul-deadening culture has a collective mind that manipulates us as easily as the brain manages skin cells.

I don’t believe that. I believe even the deniers, who never admit their responsibility, are charged by a moral imperative to break free, at least in most cases. Why should it be so hard to LOOK once again at a camellia? Or even the amazing trickle of sand motes in a dune? Even in a jail cell, surrounded by drab gray, isn’t it possible to see nature’s divine plan in the flow stipples of the dried paint, or the willful nudge of cracks in cement?

Only one in a hundred US citizens are in jail (ONLY!!!—the number is preposterously high and scary). The rest of us have even less excuse to hide from the miracles around us. And this is where poetry can be our special guide—it is a pivotal miracle, capable of reviving the rest of the world’s magic, as I will discuss in my final blog next time.


Chris Crittenden is a hermit living in a remote area of Maine, but travels to Los Angeles to see his father. His poem “Meditation Sense” is forthcoming in the Summer 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn. Other recent acceptances are from: Boston Literary Magazine, Main Street Rag, Drunken Boat and “Walt’s Corner,” a literary column in the Long Island Newspaper, founded by Walt Whitman. He’s scheduled to be interviewed on Poets Café, a radio program of KPFK in Los Angeles, where he intends to mention the wonderful team at The Rose & Thorn.

* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Minds Within Minds: Guest Blog* by Chris Crittenden

It is a great honor to write this blog and correspondingly examine the progenitor of poetry, that mysterious labyrinth of xanadus and abysms we call the mind. The mind is indeed a magical place and, as I examine mine, I am brought to consider how small the self is compared to the unconscious. Sometimes I feel that my self—my “I”—is an elaborate flotsam, hostage to rogue waves, upwellings, and doldrums.

When I write poetry, I often become entranced. I feel the hint of many voices inside, perhaps dueling, perhaps cooperating, to speak in ways urgent and oneiric. And I have chosen to write this missive in that same state, channeling from the deeps. It is not my quotidian voice you are reading, the one of the “How are you?” and “I am fine.” Or even the utilitarian pragmatist or casual quipper.

What I hope to access here is the shamanic immersion, the possession by some daemon that lures. I want to loosen the restrictions imposed by propriety on the Jungian archetypes, which effectively compose a psychic pantheon, and on the panoply of Hindu-like gods and goddesses within the inner sanctums of our cerebral kingdoms, their many arms and multifaceted faces seeking everywhere, twining and ramifying. They are like mirrored kaleidoscopic statues that slowly dance together, reflecting and digging into infinities in bizarre yet truth-rich ways.

When I am propelled by creative forces, I hope to be lifted into ecstasy. Not the frisson of joy associated with the primary meaning of the word, but the “state of emotion so intense that one is carried beyond rational thought and self-control,” and the “trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation” (American Heritage Dictionary IV).

So propelled, I can catapult above the drab landscape and the smoggy sky of the Los Angeles of worries in me (Los Angeles is where I am right now, hence the trope). The cerebral cortex is thickly populated by the denizens of such a megacity of stress—it is perhaps the seat of internal bureaucracy that deals with the practical.

This realm has its place, but to escape it through inspiration—the artist’s afflatus—is to starburst and transform a dreary stratum; to radiate out like wish-laden comets; to seek extraordinary emotions, the sort tucked away like argentine mementos. Or perhaps these hidden emotions are less kind—pockets of angst, karsts of grief, embolisms of rage.

Whatever their profound nature, to tap them is cathartic. The poet and the spirit guide must ensure that, as Virgil insured Dante’s well-being (albeit perilously). The connection must, whatever else it is, ultimately heal or, if not, at least edify more than destroy. I suppose each poet and her voices must choose how far to go. And I do not deny that some go too far. There is the danger of an Icarus flight, or prodding one’s Virgil too hard.

As I’ve written this, a signpost has come to me, with an arrow on it and the phrase “An Anesthesia of Miracles.” In my next blog I’d like to explain the dangers imposed by this concept, and why the poet is well-suited to escape them, and defang the anesthesia itself.

Chris Crittenden is a hermit living in a remote area of Maine, but travels to Los Angeles to see his father. His poem “Meditation Sense” is forthcoming in the Summer 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn. Other recent acceptances are from: Boston Literary Magazine, Main Street Rag, Drunken Boat and “Walt’s Corner,” a literary column in the Long Island Newspaper, founded by Walt Whitman. He’s scheduled to be interviewed on Poets Café, a radio program of KPFK in Los Angeles, where he intends to mention the wonderful team at The Rose & Thorn.

* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Lessons from Pkachu: Guest Blog* by Mark Joseph Kiewlak

I was just watching, of all things, an episode of Pokémon where they were talking about art. There was a character named Jack Pollackson (inspired by guess who) and he said a lot of important things about the life of an artist and his methods—how he is guided by inexplicable feelings and how his mission is to await inspiration and to create universal beauty. There was a discussion of abstracts and how the true power of a work can only be experienced firsthand, sometimes even through tactile contact.

I have often felt this way about my stories and poems written on the page. The notebooks containing the original scribblings—the first time these particular ideas were released from my being and concretized through ink—possess for me a power, a type of sacredness that does not transfer well onto a typed manuscript page printed out by a computer. That said, I have found that those works which I create right on the computer itself do seem to possess a measure of this power. It reminds me of the videotape productions I edited in college—each successive retaping creates another generation and further dilutes the transfer quality of the original images.

The episode also spoke to the fleeting nature of beauty. Old Jack Pollackson painted an entire wall of a building only to have it washed away moments later. But in those few moments a whole town was inspired by the beauty he created. I often find myself overly concerned with creating lasting works of beauty, rather than simply doing my best and letting Time make its own judgments. In my best moments I keep in mind that the creative process itself is filled with all the joy and purpose any artist would ever need.

Not unlike the character in that episode, I have discovered that the days themselves possess an inner structure, a rhythm that—should we allow it to do so—can carry any of us along on a path of joy. I am more convinced than ever that the universe is structured with complete harmony in mind and that it is our individual conscious decision within each moment that determines whether we ride with the flow or against it.

Have you ever noticed, for instance, upon hearing for the first time a really great piece of music, how you can almost anticipate where it is going an instant before it gets there—as if you are taking part almost in its very creation? As if there is a template, or at least parameters that define a work of art unto itself, and the closer the work adheres to this inborn pattern the more it is universally understood. Sort of like the sculpture in the stone, I guess, just waiting to be discovered.

Aren't we all like that?


Mark Joseph Kiewlak's poetry and fiction have been in print for some fifteen years now. In 2008 his work has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Wild Violet, The Oracular Tree, and AlienSkin, among others. He was privileged to have served as judge of the 2007 Wild Violet Fiction Contest. He has also written for DC Comics (FLASH 80-PAGE GIANT #2).


* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

A Different Reality: Guest Blog* by Mark Joseph Kiewlak

"They're not real, Mark. You can't interact with them. They can't be your friends."

I had been hearing this from my parents ever since I was too small to reach the comic book racks down at MacDonald's newsstand. Every time I began to really enjoy myself, my parents would start in about imaginary worlds not being able to take the place of real-life friends and activities. Every time I was on the verge of complete escape, they would ensnare me within their web of worries. Couldn't they see they were preventing me from the very thing they claimed to want for me—happiness?

Now I was turning sixteen, and they were on me like never before. "How are you going to get a date for the junior prom if you don't even speak to any of the girls in your class?"

How could I explain to my mother that none of those girls could ever compare to the magnificence, the classical beauty of Wonder Woman? Why, they didn't even have the working girl spunk of Lois Lane. Real-life, I knew, would always disappoint. But superheroes—and the values they embodied—were forever. Superman had existed, untouched by time, his morality and basic goodness unaltered, for seventy years now. Why bother with a life as mundane as my mother's chores, as disheartening as the string of low-end blue collar jobs my father had toiled in for decades, when there were epic adventures to be lived every day within the pages of my mind?

When I announced to my family, in the middle of my birthday celebration, that I intended to become a comic book writer, it was more than my parents could tolerate. After everyone had departed, as I lay sprawled in the corner easy chair, reveling in the latest BATMAN comic, they delivered their ultimatum:

"You will not waste any more of our money on these stupid comic books," my father said. "You will get a job and you will take up some sport or other activity at school. I don't care what kind of job or what kind of sport, but you will not waste away around here daydreaming while everyone else is out there living."

Seeing that I was in tears, my mother tried to comfort me. "It's just . . . well, look at yourself, Mark. You're as thin as a scarecrow. It's the middle of summer and you're white as a ghost. We just want you to be healthy and happy."

Anger welled up inside me. This seemed to me more unjust than any crime ever committed in Gotham City. But what was there to say? They were my parents and they would never understand.

I had to go away now. Not to some Fortress of Solitude in the arctic, but deeper within the world in my head—a world where heroic deeds were possible because people had the courage to believe in heroes. A world where actions were grand, statements were bold, and tales were epic. The comics would be hidden now—the stories shared with no one. I felt a profound sadness over this decision, but I knew that a part of me would have to remain closed off forever. That was just the way it had to be.

The next year, when I was seventeen, I fell in love with a real-life girl. And another when I was eighteen. And two when I was nineteen. I discovered all on my own what the real world had to offer. Eventually I found someone that I could share all my passions with, and the struggles of my youth faded like the memory of Krypton from Superman's mind.

I became a comic book writer.

And on the day my first story was published, I smiled with an inward satisfaction as my parents told me how proud they were of my accomplishments.

"I couldn't have done it without you," I said.

And as I said it, I saw myself winking at an imaginary reader, just like Clark Kent used to do at the end of every story to let us know that the world we believed in was safe, and would continue on.


THE END

"A Different Reality" first appeared as an End Piece in the January 2001 issue of ByLine Magazine.


Mark Joseph Kiewlak's poetry and fiction have been in print for some fifteen years now. In 2008 his work has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Wild Violet, The Oracular Tree, and AlienSkin, among others. He was privileged to have served as judge of the 2007 Wild Violet Fiction Contest. He has also written for DC Comics (FLASH 80-PAGE GIANT #2).


* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Struggling in Obscurity, Biding Your Time as a Freelance Writer: Guest Blog* by Antonio Graceffo

This article is dedicated to anyone who has ever written an article for $70 or less. It is particularly aimed at anyone who has been rejected by a magazine which pays $70 or less. And most important, it is for all of those who aspire to write an article for a magazine that pays $70 or less.

Unless you are a complete mook, you have probably figured out by now that you won’t get your first article published in Vanity Fair, Playboy, or National Geographic. More than likely, you probably fought tooth and nail to get your first article into a non-paying, regional magazine in rural Iowa, with a circulation of two thousand. When you first started writing, seeing your name in print, in the “Propane Salesman Monthly,” seemed an unattainable dream.

The day the issue finally hit the newsstands you were afraid to leave the house for fear of being mobbed by your new fans. You knew that someone very important was going to read your treatise on charcoal vs. propane, recognize your genius, and give you an assignment to write for the New Yorker for $4.50 a word. You hung around the house, waiting for that phone call, the phone call, the one that would make your career. Eventually, the need to go out and buy a pizza or rent a video overtook your desire for anonymity. You donned a fake mustache, putty nose, and dark glasses, and headed into town.

No one noticed you.

In my case, I actually went to a store, picked up a copy of the magazine, and "accidentally" flicked it open to the page with my name on it, hoping the checkout girl would notice. She didn’t.

“That’s me.” I said, turning the magazine around so she could see the story.

“That looks like a barbecue grill.”

“No, I mean I wrote it, the story, I wrote the story.”

“Well...”

Yeah, this is about the best response you will get showing your clippings to strangers. Nothing in their past experience prepares them for insecure writers hoping to redeem their self-image by soliciting praise from them. When in doubt, the average person says, “Well…” This is often followed by, “Isn’t that nice.”

In my case, it was followed by, “Do you want to buy the magazine?”

It was four dollars. “Sorry, I can’t afford it.”

“Do you still want the other stuff?”

Just so it wouldn’t be so obvious that I was praise-grubbing, I picked up a random collection of compulsion purchase items at the checkout counter. I looked at this pile of Kit Kats, Reese's Cups, batteries, and a dental pick, wondering what I was thinking.

I had been sweating pretty heavily during this whole exchange. Finally the adhesive dissolved, and my false nose fell onto the counter.

“Just the candy bars.” I said. I followed this up with, “Can I pay with a check?”

This was the beginning of my life as a freelance writer. Over the next seven years, I published more and more, and in bigger and bigger magazines. Finally I published books and wrote for television. I sometimes get recognized, and I receive reader mail daily. I get to do a good number of interviews and appear in web videos, television shows and movies. But things never got any easier financially.

As for recognition, with the exception of the celebrity authors, whom we will talk about later, authors don’t often get recognized. In 1996, I read an interview with Isabel Allende, who was at that time the number-one female novelist in the world. One day, she went to a grocery store and they refused to accept a check without identification. She was earning millions, but no one in the store had heard of her, her books, or her movies.

I gave up on maintaining an apartment about two years ago. Currently, I am sleeping on a wooden bunk bed in a small, concrete-block room in Manila. The room has no windows and no air conditioning, and the temperature hangs around ninety degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t have to beat off fans with a stick, but even in the Philippines, people recognize me from martial arts videos or magazine articles.

“You’re famous. What are you doing living here?”

“It’s research for my next book.” I say. Luckily, no matter how bad things get, I can always claim I am getting into character for a new book. But in reality, I live in a 3,000-peso-a-month cell, because that is all I can afford. And actually, I can’t even afford that. The money for my rent was donated by deposed Burmese Shan royalty who support the writing I do about the war in Burma.

That is a whole other story, which illustrates the bizarre dichotomy that is your everyday life when you have almost made it. When I turn on the television or flip open a newspaper and see anything about Burma, Cambodia, or obscure martial arts, I will inevitably know either the journalists or the people they are interviewing. Someone showed me a memoir he had bought, written by a Shan princess. I said, “That is the woman who pays for my studies.” You get to know a lot of interesting people and stories along the way, but you suffer financially.

Everything I own fits in two backpacks, but I lost one of the backpacks in an accident on the Burmese border. Now everything I own fits on the upper bunk of my concrete room. Most days, when I wake up, I have to think of a good reason not to jump off something very high after taking poison.

For the last six months, before coming to the Philippines, I had been embedded with the Shan State Army, one of the rebel groups opposing the Burmese government. My project, called “In Shanland,” called for me to publish one story and one video per week in about two hundred magazines and websites around the world related to Burma and human rights. I was doing this for free because I believe in the cause. Also, the rates that no-name magazines pay are so low that it makes no sense to give them an exclusive. They want to make all sorts of copyright demands for $50. It would be better to give it to the magazines for free, and have it run all over the web as an advertisement, rather than have it run once in a web mag with 100,000 readers.

This could be a good consideration for any freelancer. If the magazine is offering you a ridiculously low sum of money for your piece, and wants an exclusive, it might make more sense to give it away for free, to a number of magazines, to get yourself some advertising.

An extremely well-known Burma author named Edith Mirante contacted me to say, “When I was at the front desk of the library the other day, a lady checked out a copy of The Monk From Brooklyn."

Monk was my first book, and the one I am most closely associated with. My nickname has become Brooklynmonk, which is the name I use on all of my blog sites.

Someone checked out my book? Now 108 people have read it.

The standard commission to an author is usually 9% or 10% of the cover price of a paperback. If your book sells for $12.99, you get $1.20 for each copy sold. The average income in the USA is about $4,000 per month. So, you will need to sell nearly 3,000 books per month to make it. The poverty level is about $800 per month, so you will need to sell more than 600 books a month to stay out of the projects.

The numbers are depressing.

When I first started out, I thought I would build up from the free and $50-a-month magazines up to the $500-a-month magazines. I would get a few of those per month, plus some book sales, and it would add up to a living. I was doing an assignment, both playing in and covering the World Elephant Polo Tournament, in Thailand. My presence at the tournament represented a cooperative effort of about ten magazines, all pitching in a little bit of money for my lodging, bus ticket, and pay for the resulting articles. There was a big journalist from New York covering the event for two very large magazines. I envied him. It must be great to earn $2,000 to $4,000 per story. His first book had come out a year earlier and he had received an advance of $15,000.

Later, when he was drunk enough to talk, and no one was listening, he told me the truth of big-time journalism. True, he earned a lot more per story than I did. But, he spent 90% of his time in New York, tracking down contracts and submitting proposals. He received less than one assignment per month and his annual income was less than $50,000. When he went on assignment he was traveling, often at his own expense, so he wasn’t even clearing $50,000, which in New York would be a paltry sum to try to live on.

True, he had received an advance on his first book, but it didn’t sell 15,000 copies. So he hasn’t received any more money from that book, and probably never will.

To make a living, you need to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. You can promote and do a number of things yourself to make that happen, but it will become a full-time job, and you will need to ask yourself if you are a salesman or an author. With a few exceptions, such as L. Ron Hubbard or Tony Robbins, few people can promote their own book to riches. The publishing companies, on the other hand, can. They have the budget and the contacts. If they decide to make your book a bestseller, it will be. But if they just publish it and let it sit on the shelves, it is unlikely that you will be very successful.

The Burmese community in exile is pretty supportive of my Shanland project. A Burmese doctor in California offered to send me copies of Edith’s books. We have known each other for over a year, but I couldn’t afford to order her books. It is also difficult to receive mail when you don’t live anywhere. I have never read my latest book, Adventures in Formosa, and was hoping that my publisher would send me a copy. It has been out for almost a year now, but I haven’t managed to save up the $12.99 plus shipping it would cost to order it.

The one bright spot in my wrist-slitting publishing career is: I watched an interview with Stephen King on YouTube. Apparently, he had 'made it' in freelance journalism, writing for name magazines on a regular basis, but he still had to teach school full-time and couldn’t always afford to have electricity in his house. He got a $2,500 advance on his first book, which he was grateful to get, but he still hadn’t made it. The next book sold shortly after that for $250,000 and the one after that for $400,000. All three sales came in over a period of months.

I guess the answer is, it is a struggle and writing for big mags is not the goal. The goal is the big book contract and the movie deal. When I started out, I never planned to write for magazines. I wanted to write books. Also, I wanted to be like Jack London, the celebrity author. In addition to being an adventurer, seaman, and boxer, he was the first author to do product endorsements. He used to write out his proposed spending, mostly to support his boat and his lavish lifestyle, and match it with his writing. He knew how many stories he had to write to earn X dollars, and he wrote accordingly.

Something I learned from my own experience and from reading about Jack London is that the absolute least common reason your work is rejected is because it isn’t good. Most rejected pieces are never even read. They aren’t even opened. And there are a million reasons why something is rejected. Often it is rejected simply because it doesn’t fit the plan for the upcoming issue. The same piece, submitted to the same magazine, and read by the same editor, might be accepted if it was submitted at a different time.

The novice writer believes the editor read his stuff and rejected it because it was bad. The novice writer then scraps what he wrote, changes his style, and tries again. Jack London, on the other hand, believed in himself and what he had written. He saved all of his rejected items in a trunk, for years. When he became famous, he knew he could sell anything he had ever written. He opened up that trunk and sold every piece of previously rejected material. He actually sent pieces in with red REJECTION stamps on them, and they were purchased. Some of the pieces had been rejected from free non-paying magazines, and were now purchased for top dollar by prestigious periodicals.

I always save everything I write, and now that I have published a number of books and have a bit of a name, I find I am selling pieces that were rejected five years ago. Sometimes I rework them into new pieces; sometimes I just attach the word file and send them in.

I answer every single reader mail that comes in. Many of these pieces of correspondence I save and re-work into saleable magazine articles (like this one).

In another interview, Stephen King was talking about how the total market for books has shrunken dramatically, and now there are a limited number of genres. To be carried in book stores, or even to get published, you have to fit within these very few categories.

I know that one of the issues holding me back is that I don’t fit clearly into a genre. There isn’t really an adventure genre. There is fantasy adventure, but this means stories about winged beasts and crossbows. And although I do occasionally have a crossbow in my stories, it isn’t a good fit.

All of my big breaks--television, movies, and now two more book contracts with large publishers, and two more contracts with magazines--all came from martial arts writing. It is a small market and a not-very-well-paying one, but it is an accepted genre, and now I am getting known in those circles. So, I am getting more assignments and offers.

Unfortunately, however, martial arts is only one area about which I write. It is also the one I least wish to be remembered for. I also write articles about linguistics, ethnic minorities, Asian culture, and adventure.

The book I am doing now, Pinoy Paramedic should be a lot of fun and very interesting, but, like most of my writing, it won’t fit neatly into a genre. It is based on my experience of attending paramedic school in Manila. It follows me and my classmates through our training, where we are taught, “When you cut the clothes off an accident victim, be careful to cut along the seams, so they can reuse the garments.”

The teachers also urged us not to become a broker for the sale of organs if our patient died. “You can give the family a phone number for the organ salesman, and that’s all. It would be unethical for you to accept a commission.”

The book, like all my books, has humor and adventure, and represents a deep and intimate involvement in a foreign culture which most foreigners would never have. I am not the paramedic instructor. I am the student. I sit in a room with twenty-eight Filipinos, and go through the training and experience with them, as one of them.

When I read other people’s travel writing, it seems so superficial. I really get into these cultures before I write about them. The Monk from Brooklyn is my diary from when I spent three months living and training at the Shaolin Temple in China. To prepare for that experience, I first spent more than a year in Taiwan, learning to speak Chinese.

The book was rejected 3,000 times by agents and publishers before it was finally accepted. There is almost no marketing for it, apart from my other writing in magazines so, to date, it hasn’t had a huge impact on my poverty.

Pinoy Paramedic is one more Antonio-esque work which doesn’t fit nicely into a category. I know that in terms of quality it is a thousand times better than Monk, because it is less angry and, after seven years of publishing, I have nothing to prove. It is written from the heart. Being a book about paramedics, it also uses the words “vomit” and “nipples” quite frequently, words I generally don’t get to use.

Pinoy Paramedic will be an exceptional book, and I don’t want it to go to a no-name publisher, then languish on the shelves, generating $800 per year in revenues. Unfortunately, I don’t know what will become of the book, and as I am in the middle of living it, I have no time to worry or think about what to do with the end product. The same is true of my Shanland book, which I hope to complete when I get back to Thailand. No writer has ever spent the amount of time that I have with the Shan, learning to speak Thai and doing countless interviews to understand the victims of a genocide. I wear the Shan State Army uniform, and work as a hand-to-hand combat instructor for the soldiers while I document and write about their lives. Part of the reason I went to Manila to become a paramedic was so that I could help the Shan with direct medical aid when I return. As a writer or photographer, we take an interview or take a photo. As a paramedic, I can give something back. And, of course, the book will have one more unique dimension to it.

Of course, there is no “Southeast Asia Conflict Paramedic Books” section at the bookstore. So, I have no idea what to do with the book when it is done.

Recently, I read Tim Page’s autobiographical book, Page after Page. Being a Cambodia hand, he is one of my huge heroes. He has been considered a leading expert on Cambodia and Vietnam for the last forty years and one of the greatest Vietnam photographers of all times. Yet, he didn’t make any money until about five years ago, when his newest book became a best seller.

Both King and Page were substance abusers and alcoholics, and they struggled financially, really struggled. Page, like me, normally didn’t even have an apartment, just lived and slept where he happened to be.

Page was already world-famous and regarded as a leading expert, but was still poor.

Is this encouraging, that two of my greatest heroes suffered? Not sure. Perhaps it means I should also become a substance abuser. I am too broke to afford alcohol or drugs, but a lot of street children in Manila use rugby, a plastic bag full of glue that they inhale. They pass out on the sidewalk, in front of the 7-11, and I have to step over them when I go to get my breakfast in the morning. Some basic medical equipment has already been donated to me, so I have an inhaler mask, but I am not sure where you are supposed to insert the glue. We weren’t taught that in my paramedic training. Or maybe we were, but that was one of the questions I missed on the exam.

Whether I chose the rugby option, the suffering and substance abuse of two great writers makes me think that there might be a glimmer of hope somewhere down the trail. Even though I haven’t made it yet, maybe someday I, too, will be passed out on the sidewalk in front of 7-11, and Stephen King or Tim Page, visiting the Philippines, will have to step over me when he goes to buy his breakfast.

The intent of this article was supposed to be to encourage young and upcoming writers. So, let me just say two things. Don’t quit. And buy some glue.


Antonio Graceffo is the author of four books, available on amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=antonio+graceffo
To see Antonio Graceffo’s Burma and martial arts videos, click here.
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=antonio+graceffo+shan+state+army&search_type=
Currently, Antonio is in Manila attending paramedic training. When his course finishes he will return to the conflict in Burma as a medical volunteer. He is self-funded and seeking sponsors. If you wish to contribute to his paramedic training or his “In Shanland” film project, you can donate through paypal, through the Burma page of his web site.
http://speakingadventure.com/burma.htm
Contact him at: Antonio@speakingadventure.com

Check out Antonio’s web site http://speakingadventure.com/

Get Antonio’s books at amazon.com
The Monk from Brooklyn
Bikes, Boats, and Boxing Gloves
The Desert of Death on Three Wheels
Adventures in Formosa

*The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Recommendations: Guest Blog* by Jeanpaul Ferro

I would like to end my guest blogging at Roses & Thorns with some reading and listening recommendations.

To cool you off when it is hot:

Richard Hawley (Burt Bacharach meets Elvis—both Costello & The King): http://music.download.com/richardhawley/3600-8591_32-100054804.html

Jens Lekman (Cool and crazy Swede sings to ’60s Motown jingle-rock):
http://music.download.com/jenslekman/3600-8591_32-100372106.html?tag=MDL_listing_song_artist

Jenny Lewis (hates George Bush, was once in a Jell-O commercial and sings like a drunken angel—what’s not to like? Check out: The Big Guns): http://music.download.com/jennylewiswiththewatsontwins/3600-8691_32-100881671.html?tag=MDL_listing_song_artist

The Schemers (never made it to the big time, but they should have!): http://www.emersontorrey.com/index.cfm?sec=stuff

Sufjan Stevens (quite possibly the most-overlooked young musician in the U.S.): http://music.download.com/sufjanstevens/3600-8575_32-100606251.html?tag=MDL_listing_song_artist

Softlightes (If someone at Geico car insurance hears this it will wind up in their Caveman commercials): http://music.download.com/softlightes/3600-8591_32-100991487.html?tag=MDL_listing_song_artist

Band of Horses (Great guitar)
Her Space Holiday (Techno-tripping; great lyrics)
Jessue DeNatale (New Orleans rises like the Phoenix)
Low (Any group that has a song called Monkey has to be good!): http://music.download.com/low/3600-8592_32-100594689.html?tag=MDL_listing_song_artist

New Young Pony Club (If you can’t smile after listening to their song "Ice Cream," you can’t be human--or, quite possibly, you’re Dick Cheney): http://music.download.com/newyoungponyclub/3600-8362_32-100985389.html?tag=MDL_listing_song_artist

The Shins (minimal garage rock at its best)
Ulrich Schnauss (techno-dance at its finest)

Poets to look up:

Corrine de Winter
Amber Decker
Tom Chandler
Lisa Zaran
Richard Loveland

Great literary journals:

Arsenic Lobster: http://arseniclobster.magere.com/
Cause & Effect Magazine: http://www.cemagazine.net/
Apple Valley Review: http://www.applevalleyreview.com/
BlazeVOX: http://www.blazevox.org/

Novelists (dead or alive) to check out:

Richard Yates
John Fante
Jhumpa Lahiri
Michel Houellebecq
H.P. Lovecraft

Events:

WaterFire Providence, Rhode Island: Earthy, scary, scenic, lovely, beautiful, awe-inspiring: http://www.waterfire.org/image-galleries/waterfire-gallery



Jéanpaul Ferro’s poem “Armageddon Days” is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn. He is a 4-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared in the Columbia Review, Bryant Literary Review, Cortland Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Review Americana, Portland Monthly, Identity Theory, and The Providence Journal. His poetry has been featured on WBAR radio in New York City and he will be the featured author in the August 2008 issue of Contemporary American Voices. His book of short fiction, All the Good Promises, was published by Plowman Press. Additionally, his work will be featured in the upcoming NPR series "This I Believe" on NPR. He currently lives in Providence, RI.



*The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Was Walt Whitman Really Gay?: Guest Blog* by Jeanpaul Ferro

I just finished watching PBS’s American Experience segment on Walt Whitman. It left me wondering why any modern mention of his poetry and work is always side by side with his much-conjectured-about sexuality.

First, you must pity any man whose parents thought it was a good idea to name most of their children after dead American presidents—George Washington Whitman, Thomas Jefferson Whitman, Andrew Jackson Whitman—yet they named their second son Walter Whitman, or "Walt" for short. Life has a funny way of straightening out what humans try to plan and manipulate. George, Thomas, and Andrew all turned out to be basically losers in life, while good ol’ Walt Whitman became the family head and father of American free-verse poetry.

Walt Whitman left Long Island in his early twenties for the bawdy grit of New York City. He liked horse-drawn cab drivers, ex-slaves, gypsies, other writers, and anyone who was slightly off-kilter or not in charge, because he was a little off-kilter himself and certainly not in charge of anything.

In the late 1830s and early 1840s, Walt Whitman was hired and fired by six different newspapers over the course of a few years because he was so outspoken in his writing. One day he read an article by Ralph Waldo Emerson in which Emerson laid out the qualifications of a would-be American poet who he thought did not exist but wanted to find: a man and writer of the people. Whitman responded, rather dimly actually, as though this article were a call to arms and something he could apply for, like a job. He got to writing Leaves of Grass straight away. Over the coming decades Whitman would add and subtract various poems from Leaves of Grass—almost compulsively, as though he was unable to leave it alone. He wrote about America, what he dreamed America could be. He wrote about the common man, about the scents and sounds of the Long Island that he knew in his childhood. He wrote about the human body as though he could document it piece by piece. He wrote about amorous love, ending slavery, New York City, and everything that he saw, observed, and thought about as though his internal edit button got stuck in the on position. He truly is one of the great American poets. But was he a homosexual?

Walt Whitman is whoever you want him to be depending upon the stance you are viewing him from. If you want him to be homosexual, then every word he uttered, wrote down, or scribbled in one of his notebooks is examined like you are Sherlock Holmes and you undoubtedly are going to be the one to unfurl the great mystery. If you are someone who is religious, well, then the Him of "For Him I Sing" cannot be a male lover but has to be something spiritual or God himself. If you are a poet or writer then you examine the tones, mood, and descriptions of what Whitman put down in beautiful black ink. You look at him differently. He wasn’t one to deny that he used symbolism and purposely wrote passages to be obscure—although sometimes he did not do this at all. The point is, though, that to box Whitman into a corner strictly to capture his sexuality is to lose most of the complex and whole human being that he was. To make him into an archaic symbol of gay liberation or a gay hero is to lose the man altogether. This is a man who absolutely and naïvely believed that his book of poems Leaves of Grass could stop the Civil War from ever happening. This was a man who lived among extremely conservative and religious viewpoints. You cannot at once say Leaves of Grass is a spiritual call to arms, aimed at those conservatives and spiritual people who he was calling out in order to implore them to follow their Godly conscience and end slavery and stop the drum beats of war, and then, on the other hand, call Leaves of Grass a great homoerotic tome. The two do not mesh with what Walt Whitman was trying to accomplish. Whitman was an extremely bright individual and also driven by his causes. He knew that mixing homosexuality and at the same time extending a call to end slavery and war back in the 1850s and 1860s would be like protesting in the nude at the Vatican—no one would ever take you seriously, even if you really were serious. Some would say that is why he masked his writings, but he didn’t, really.

So back to the original question: Was Walt Whitman gay? Maybe. Could have been. In a court of law there would be a lot of evidence on both sides. But personally I know that I would not want biographers, writers, teachers, or anyone else who never once met me, talked to me, observed me, knew me, or knew anyone who knew me, to draw up a portrait of myself or some aspect of my humanness because it served their agenda or called attention to themselves or their book, Madonna-style. Neither should modern-day “observists” do this to Whitman. His sexuality is one component in literally hundreds of components that made up the DNA of the man.

Look at Whitman’s writing. Drink it all in through the darkness of time. Travel the paths down which it takes you. Observe. Listen. Learn. Deconstruct. Breathe in the aroma, sounds, alleys, and back alleys of this most fascinating world.

Walt Whitman was a complex personality. Whether he was a vegetarian or a meat eater, whether he was an environmentalist or capitalist, whether he was an atheist, Catholic, or Buddhist, whether he was a socialist or a Democrat, and whether he loved men, women, or both, he was a human being and poet, first and foremost.

If you really want to know who Walt Whitman is, you simply have to read his published work. Who he was as a writer, American, man, poet, prophet, and human being is found, complete, in his own words written down on the pages that he painted with everything that he ever knew. What you might find snooping around his bed really can only add up to crumbs. And there is no DNA left in crumbs, because a man is made up of much more than that, and so was Walt Whitman.



Jéanpaul Ferro’s poem “Armageddon Days” is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn. He is a 4-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared in the Columbia Review, Bryant Literary Review, Cortland Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Review Americana, Portland Monthly, Identity Theory, and The Providence Journal. His poetry has been featured on WBAR radio in New York City and he will be the featured author in the August 2008 issue of Contemporary American Voices. His book of short fiction, All the Good Promises, was published by Plowman Press. Additionally, his work will be featured in the upcoming NPR series "This I Believe" on NPR. He currently lives in Providence, RI.



*The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Why Is It So Difficult For a Writer to Find a Literary Agent?: Guest Blog* by Jeanpaul Ferro

Being a naïve writer, I have always believed that if I wrote my novels, short fiction, and poetry at a high level and became what others considered a good writer, a bona fide literary agent would want to represent me one day. Create a good track record, get published in a lot of publications, get nominated and win some literary awards, create a foundation of published work that you can build upon. Someone will knock on your door! Or you can knock on someone’s door and someone might answer it. They might even invite you in and ask you to dinner. I also foolishly believed that literary agents represented authors. This concept is not true at all.

If you go to the Web sites of most well-known literary agents, you will usually find a very highly visible tab listing the authors that this agency represents. This is great, right? Literary agents represent writers! No. Literary agents represent books. No, correction: literary agents represent books that they believe will make a lot of money. No, wait, correction again: literary agents represent books they know will make a lot of money. It has to be a home run, too. A triple is not good enough even if you think you can steal home plate.

You would think that someone in the book publishing business could spot talent, nurture it, and ease that talent into the big leagues. If you believe someone has the ability to sell a million copies of a novel by their third novel, you would take them on and help them enter the publishing realm. Maybe their first novel or book would sell 50,000 copies and their second book would sell 100,000 copies. For goodness sake, even if their first novel sold 10,000 copies, but they kept on selling more and more books each time out, that would be worth the hard work and investment in the long run, correct?—as long as the potential was always moving upward on the chart? Agents can get authors published via boutique publishers and small press publishers and then, when they have that so-called home run, bring them over to the big boys in New York and get them that nice contract that benefits both of them. Yes, this takes hard work and dedication by an agent, but if you know what you are doing and you select the right authors that you believe in and that you think are future bestselling authors, then you have mitigated the risk. But this is not reality.

When you go to a literary agent, you have to hock your novel/book as a bestseller. You, the author, are of secondary or no importance at all. Your book must fall into one of a thousand anorexic categories—Chick Lit, Mystery, Romance, Thriller, etc.—and it must be written in a vein similar to that of the other books that are currently being sold in that category. A book or novel that crosses genres really has no home, even if it transcends all categories and has a little bit of everything for everyone in the book-buying public.

One of the book publishing industry's dirty little secrets is that book publishing and marketing are extremely segregated. Each segment in society is stereotyped, and then that stereotype is marketed and sold to only that segment. In many instances this is blatantly sexist, racist, and every other -ist you can think of even if you are Shaun Hannity incarnate. Imagine quadriplegics only being marketed and sold books about quadriplegics. This is what the book industry is doing to everyone in society. If you are an African-American you certainly don’t want to read a book that has a white main character. If you are white you certainly are not going to read a book that has an African-American main character. If you are gay you don’t want to read about someone who is straight. If you are straight you don’t want to read something about someone who is gay. Sounds a little fascist to me, but, hell, what do I know?

When you look at the cityscape of writers being published today you do not see anyone even remotely like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, James Joyce, or William Faulkner. Heck, you can’t even find a Richard Yates. Why? Because usually, after ten years of trying to get published, these modern day would-be novelists recline back into the waves of their day jobs and fade into the static of cigarettes, mortgage payments, and the opposite sex that they just promised to support with minimal madness. There is no literary agent waiting to hold their hands. There is no publisher looking for the next great talent. There is no one to help or encourage young writers to break into the business. Write a vanilla novel overflowing with plot skeleton, red herrings, stereotyped characters, John Grisham-like blank-page-ness, with a staged ending. . . . well, this will sell a lot of books and a literary agent will want to represent this: a bestseller. How difficult is it to sell heroin to a heroin addict? This is what being a literary agent has become for most literary agents. Many will even apologize for being like this. But if you are a young Kurt Vonnegut or Mark Twain, there is no place for you at the table. You cannot write something that is both literary and commercial. There are these small slots you must fall into like useless smoke, or you cannot move beyond go.

This is your destiny: Come to the plate in the World Series and hit like Babe Ruth in your first at-bat without ever having played before, or you will be left out in the cold, Jack.

Sadly, there are a lot of would-be future hall of fame writers who have already written the next great American Novel or bestseller, but those books are destined to stay lost on the C-drives, on memory sticks, and in desk drawers, because no one is willing to take a risk on a book that might not be a full-fledged best seller. It is a cruel world out there. So it is your choice to ignore this. Write the book that you believe in. And let the chips fall where they may. Just don’t quit your day job. You literally are on your own out there. Don’t forget this, and you might not be disappointed. Unpublished? Perhaps. Disappointed? That is ultimately up to you. Just always know that you are buying your own dinner and there is no invitation waiting for you in your Inbox.



Jéanpaul Ferro’s poem “Armageddon Days” is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn. He is a 4-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared in the Columbia Review, Bryant Literary Review, Cortland Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Review Americana, Portland Monthly, Identity Theory, and The Providence Journal. His poetry has been featured on WBAR radio in New York City and he will be the featured author in the August 2008 issue of Contemporary American Voices. His book of short fiction, All the Good Promises, was published by Plowman Press. Additionally, his work will be featured in the upcoming NPR series "This I Believe" on NPR. He currently lives in Providence, RI.



*The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Stop! Leave Ancient Greece, Mythology & Buddhism Out of It!: Guest Blog* by Jeanpaul Ferro

Is it me, or does every Tim, Dick, and Harriette who gets published lately quote something from Greek philosophy, name-drop a Greek hero, or talk about mythology within their poem like it is some bad exercise in a 101 writing class for kindergarteners?

Please! We, the reading public, can no longer stand anymore poems about Narcissus, Persephone, Dionysus, or Eros. Dropping lines or names from Greek mythology does not make for a good poem. Nor does it make you seem any smarter for being able to use crib notes in order to even know these names. Talking about philosophy or Buddhism in your writing does not make you enlightened. It does not impress chicks either. It does make you seem rather lame, out of touch, and worried about the New York Times Book Review section, or what some professor at Brown University thinks.

If more writers took the time to write about the world around them, then maybe more people would be reading nowadays. There are not a lot of writers who are trying to reflect modern society within their writing now. Writers seem more worried about the next conflict their character has to overcome or the next line having some deeper meaning than the line before it. But any good poem or story has depth to it from the world their characters are living in: the two boys who are always hanging out at the street corner, the North Indian restaurant on A Street where only Americans go to lunch, the black sedan with tinted windows that shows up at 9:00 a.m. and leaves at 9:05 a.m. without anyone getting in or out, the young couple who have their infant taken away right at birth by Child Services. Now, who can relate to Dionysus? How many times can a writer refer to Narcissus looking into the stream? What does that have to do with any of us? It is really about vanity. And vanity does not make good literature.

So the next time that old reference of some long-lost goddess or a two-thousand-year-old nymph is barreling around your brain as it tries to go down your arm into your hand and into that poem you are writing: Stop! Take a deep breath. Look out the window. And write about what you see out there.

Everyone else might be able to relate to this. And isn’t this what we want Narcissus to do also?

Jéanpaul Ferro’s poem “Armageddon Days” is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn. He is a 4-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared in the Columbia Review, Bryant Literary Review, Cortland Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Review Americana, Portland Monthly, Identity Theory, and The Providence Journal. His poetry has been featured on WBAR radio in New York City and he will be the featured author in the August 2008 issue of Contemporary American Voices. His book of short fiction, All the Good Promises, was published by Plowman Press. Additionally, his work will be featured in the upcoming NPR series "This I Believe" on NPR. He currently lives in Providence, RI.



*The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Online Literary Journals & Other Musings: Guest Blog* by Jeanpaul Ferro

The last time I sent any of my work to a non-online literary journal was 1994. Bill Clinton was president. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was on its way toward 4,000. There were no-fly zones in Iraq. Pulp Fiction was playing at your local theater. Gasoline was 99 cents a gallon. And F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were both dead—replaced by John Grisham and Erich Segal. Oh, boy!

So why do so many little pithy journals still live back in the dreaded time period of the twentieth century? Aren’t the editors of these journals the same environmentalist of the seventies? Aren’t they the ones who wanted to turn poetry and fiction on their ears? Aren’t they the ones who were ready to embrace technology?

In my own little experiment I have found that you get a reply via an e-mail query about 95% of the time. It is about 50% when you send a hard-copy query. Via e-mail you get a personal reply about 50% of the time. Via mail you get a personal reply about 1% of the time.

The cost via hard copy query includes: paper, ink, envelope, stamp, electricity, gas (sometimes), and spackle—to fix the hole in the wall where you’ve been banging your head as you wait for a timely reply. The cost to send a digital query or submission is the same cost of typing and hitting Enter. Considering that your laptop is probably already turned on, that is not a lot of dollar bills.

Oh, but, Jéanpaul, my inbox is full and I can’t get through all those ugly unsolicited queries! Some of it might be spam! Or, worse: there might be an e-mail attachment. If you have a nice spam filter and a few organized rules for submitting, like asking would-be submitters to write the word “Submission” in the subject line of their e-mail, then you will be okay. Don’t be fooled by that little number sitting beside your inbox. That is how many submissions your poor associate has over on their desk under their lunch, but it is all printed out. Quite frankly, I don’t see any difference between a digital slush pile and a physical slush pile, except that digital is easier to organize.

The biggest advantage of going digital is that online literary journals give your work a worldwide audience. I have personally had editors from India, China, Japan, Italy, Serbia, and England e-mail me and request that I submit work to their journals after they read it in The Rose & Thorn, Pedestal Magazine, Review America, Cortland Review, etc. Now even old dinosaurs like The New Yorker are fully online and all submissions are fed to them via e-mail. Some of the other older journals have completely abandoned their print versions and have gone digital now. This is the future. It is already here!

A decade from now there will be no more literary journals in print. As we speak, online journals are already charging a nickel to read a story, a dollar to download a PDF version of their journal, pay-what-you-want for books, novels, and e-files, and two-dollar e-novels. Writing will be sold the same way music is being sold. You’ll get an e-mail listing the twenty new authors and books available for that week. It will all be categorized and summarized for you. It will even remember the types of books that you have already bought and/or read, and what other authors you might like, or what other people who bought the same as you book are now reading.

So when you hear that guy trying to tell you that online journals are not real literary journals, what they are really trying to say is: I remember when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was on its way toward 4,000; there were no-fly zones in Iraq; Pulp Fiction was playing at your local theater; gasoline was 99 cents a gallon; F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were both dead—just stop them right there. Send them an e-card with a printable coupon for a free Starbucks coffee and a link to your favorite literary online journal. They will thank you later. Or as soon as they wake up and see what century it is.

Jéanpaul Ferro’s poem “Armageddon Days” is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn. He is a 4-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared in the Columbia Review, Bryant Literary Review, Cortland Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Review Americana, Portland Monthly, Identity Theory, and The Providence Journal. His poetry has been featured on WBAR radio in New York City and he will be the featured author in the August 2008 issue of Contemporary American Voices. His book of short fiction, All the Good Promises, was published by Plowman Press. Additionally, his work will be featured in the upcoming NPR series "This I Believe" on NPR. He currently lives in Providence, RI.


*The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Bizarro Central: Guest Blog* by D. Harlan Wilson

If you're interested in exploring the outer limits of literature, check out Bizarro Central, the dominant online venue for all Bizarro-related issues and textualities. The Web site features information about key Bizarro authors, sample writings, a discussion forum, and important links.
Bizarro conflates many forms and genres. Most frequently it has been tied to the cyberpunk movement of the 1980s in terms of how it extrapolates cyberpunk style, ethics, motifs, and world views.

The best starting point for Bizarro fiction is, appropriately, The Bizarro Starter Kit: Orange (Bizarro Books 2006), a collection of short stories and novellas that begins with a handful of my stories. Other authors include Carlton Mellick III, John Edward Lawson, Steve Beard, Bruce Taylor, Vincent Sakowski, Kevin Donihe, Andre Duza, Jeremy Robert Johnson and Gina Ranalli. Coming soon is the second installment in the series, The Bizarro Starter Kit: Blue (Bizarro Books 2008), featuring work from Steve Aylett, Andersen Prunty, Bradley Sands, and many others.

D. Harlan Wilson, Ph.D.
Dean of Eggman Studies and Plaqudemic Affairs
Stick Figure University
http://www.dharlanwilson.com/
http://www.dreampeople.org/


Read a review of Dr. Identity and read an interview with D. Harlan Wilson.

* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Greetings from Eggland: Guest Blog* by D. Harlan Wilson

Hi, folks. I will be an R&T guest blogger this week and want to introduce myself. I'm D. Harlan Wilson—Bizarro author, English professor, Ripperologist, and hack bodybuilder. My books include The Kafka Effekt (Eraserhead Press, 2001), Stranger on the Loose (Eraserhead Press, 2003), Pseudo-City (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2005) and Dr. Identity (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2007). I'm also the editor-in-chief of The Dream People, an online journal of Bizarro texts, and the screenwriter for an award-winning film, The Cocktail Party (Corporate Demon Productions, 2006). I've been writing fiction seriously for about fifteen years; I published my first story in 1999 in a now-defunct ezine called Liquid Fiction. Besieged by cornfields from every direction, I am the Dean of Eggman Studies and Plaquedemic Affairs at Stick Figure University in Ohio, where I live with my wife Xtine (an English professor at SFU) and my one-year-old daughter Madeleine Sue, who is the cutest little girl who has ever existed on earth. This my shit, as Gwen Stefani sayeth.

I've never officially blogged before, and I'm a (ahem) man of (ahem, ahem) few words. But I'll do my best to write something worth reading. In the meantime, nice to meet you . . .

D. Harlan Wilson, Ph.D.
Dean of Eggman Studies and Plaqudemic Affairs
Stick Figure University
http://www.dharlanwilson.com/
http://www.dreampeople.org/

Read a review of Dr. Identity and read an interview with D. Harlan Wilson.

* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

And They Lived Happily Ever After: Guest Blog* by Jenny Gardiner

In one of my favorite films last summer (Paris, je t’aime, which is actually a series of short films about love set in Paris), there is a vignette in which a long-married man is about to leave his wife for his mistress. Years of mutual apathy have rendered the couple’s marriage stale and wilted. All of the little idiosyncrasies that he once found charming and endearing about his wife have become irritants that make his skin crawl. He fairly loathes the woman. Nothing short of an injection of a serious dose of “I actually give a care about you” could save it.

But (without spoiling it!) the husband learns something that completely alters his approach to their relationship. As their relationship evolves, the narrator intones, “Once he began to act like a man in love, he became a man in love.”

I love this line, and the concept behind it. It is, in fact, this very kernel of an idea that grew into my novel, Sleeping With Ward Cleaver. So I found it interesting to hear it verbalized in the movie. There is, to me, such a simple truth to it.

Most everybody starts out in a marriage happy (I hope so, anyhow!). But long after the pheromones have fizzled out and the yearnin’, burnin’ love settles down to a quiet smolder instead of a raging inferno, life starts getting in the way of that original optimistic version of love. It is then that many marriages wither into a state of tolerance, or worse yet, intolerance.

I know it’s a clichéd line, but the truth is, you have to work at a marriage. All the time. But the daily reality of life tends to clash with that mandate; with kids and work and chores and all of life’s have-to’s, who’s got time to work on something that you take as a given, even take for granted?

At a point in life in which my husband and I started seeing some of our friends’ marriages dissolve, I started to embrace the idea that you really can go back. It just takes a bit of effort. This is what I set out to explore when I wrote Sleeping With Ward Cleaver. Perhaps with an optimism born out of folly, I wanted to set straight the defeatism that seems to plague so many marriages eventually. But I wanted to do it with humor. And because I tend to be a smart aleck, with a little tang of sarcasm.

My own parents’ marriage fell apart after twenty-five years. It was not a pretty sight, and in truth it was a long time from when the first thread was picked from the tapestry of their marriage until the entire thing unravelled. But even though things played out in a worst-case scenario, I couldn’t help but believe that they could have forged through the worst of things and found some sort of positive resolution had both of them really wanted to do it.

Through the demise of their marriage, I learned that there really is—pardon the cliché, again—a very fine line between love and hate. Like fiber-optic-line thin. So if you can morph from a deep, unyielding love into almost hatred, can’t you then go back again? Or is this evolution only uni-directional?

I know that mentality seems a little Pollyanna-esque. And rarely have I been accused of being very pie-in-the-sky. But I very much want to believe that—like with that man in the movie—perhaps what it takes is some sort of revelation to help two people, once so much in love, to re-vamp their attitudes and try to rediscover what it was that thrust them together in the first place.

Who knows if this really can work out in real life? But the beauty of fiction is that a writer can resolve what in real life seems un-resolveable, and provide a little impetus for that happily-ever-after that we all expected in the first place.

Jenny Gardiner’s work has been found in Ladies Home Journal, the Washington Post and on NPR’s Day to Day. She likes to say she honed her fiction writing skills while working as a publicist for a US Senator. Other jobs have included: an orthodontic assistant (learning quite readily that she was not cut out for a career in polyester), a waitress (probably her highest-paying job), a TV reporter, a pre-obituary writer, and a photographer (claim to fame: being hired to shoot Prince Charles–with a camera, silly!). She lives in Virginia with her husband, three kids, two dogs, one cat and a gregarious parrot. In her free time she studies Italian, dreams of traveling to exotic locales, and feels very guilty for rarely attempting to clean the house. Her debut novel, Sleeping with Ward Cleaver, is the winner of Dorchester Publishing/RT's American Title III contest.

Read a Roses & Thorns review of Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Jenny Gardiner will be YOGing with us in March.

Are Contemporary Poets Dated?: Guest Blog* by Michael Meyerhofer

Today, I was revisiting the work of three of my favorite contemporary poets--George Bilgere, Bob Hicok, and Tony Hoagland. As I read through some of their works, I got to thinking about how certain elements in these books--like popular references to songs, electric razors, jets, and of course the war in Iraq--might cause some critics to label these poems as "dated". By that, I mean that the imagery and subject matter of these poems (and to some degree, probably the syntax and style too) are invariably tied to the poets’ social background and politics. However, since these are fluid elements, there’s a substantial risk here because future generations will not be able to view these poems in context as well as modern readers. Put another way, would we all be safer only writing poems about trees?

I think the answer is an obvious, resounding no. Personally, the poets whose work I consider the most vibrant, the most viserally, politically, and socially relevant, are also the poets who take big risks by tying their subject matter to a context that future generations may or may not understand. For example, Bob Hicok’s wonderful poem, "O My Pa-pa", gains enormous power and relevance when one places it in the context of our post-confessional era, when poems about one’s parents abound. Thus Hicok’s poem takes on his trademarked tone of tongue-in-cheek humor culminating in heart-wrenching vulnerability.

Certainly, family is likely to continue playing a significant role in poetry for as long as poetry is written, but what if trends shift dramatically away from confessional elements? Hicok’s poem might very well go unappreciated or even--the horror!--taken literally as a narrative of fathers who "have formed a poetry workshop" and genuinely "sit in a circle of disappointment" over their sons’ fastballs and wives.

If one entertains the possibility that contemporary poems with less reliance on social context might have a longer academic shelf life, it seems to me that the bravest poems are those in which poets write not with the goal of detaching themselves from the impermanence around them, but rather, with the goal of entertaining and (dare I say it?) perhaps even enlightening the readers around them.

Michael Meyerhofer’s first book, Leaving Iowa, won the Liam Rector First Book Award. He has also published four chapbooks: Cardboard Urn (winner of the Copperdome Chapbook Contest), The Right Madness of Beggars (winner of the Uccelli Press Chapbook Competition), Real Courage (winner of the Terminus Magazine and Jeanne Duval Editions Poetry Chapbook Prize), and The Clay-Shaper’s Husband (winner of the Codhill Press Chapbook Award). He received the James Wright Poetry Award from Mid-American Review, and both the Laureate and Annie Finch Prizes for Poetry from National Poetry Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in River Styx, Arts & Letters, North American Review, Green Mountains Review, Verse Daily, and others. He enjoys sleeping, boxing, and naming pets after J.D. Salinger characters.

* The Guest Blog Series at Roses & Thorns features occasional tips and tidbits by literary notables, among them past contributors of The Rose & Thorn.

Writer, Audience, Subject Matter: Guest Blog* by Michael Meyerhofer

I was thinking the other day (because I’m a nerd and there was nothing good on the History Channel) about the tricky negotiation a writer has to have with his or her audience and subject matter. It seems to me that poetry audiences—and probably the audiences for all other art forms as well—want very much to be moved, to be entertained and stirred down to the core, to be metaphorically blown away, but they’re also very resistant to what artists have to say because none of us want to be told we’re making a mistake. And people especially don’t want to be told they’re making a mistake by someone who might be just as muddled and imperfect as they are. After all, one of the possible goals of good writing is to point out to an audience where we as human beings aren’t necessarily living as well as we could be.

Yet beginning a poem or a story with a simple, straightforward statement like "Human beings should be more compassionate towards each other," or "We should care more about the homeless," or "We should pay more attention to seemingly simple, insignificant things because they can end up being quite profound" will get you exactly nowhere, because it’s preachy and lyrically flat. So in a sense, poets and storytellers have to fool their readers, like magicians tricking the audience, into letting their guard down. How? Different writers have different answers, but in my opinion, the best approach consists of simple language used in an elegant manner, incorporating provocative but tangible images and strong lyricism.

I’ve always felt that getting my point across without going overboard and sounding like a sermon or a greeting card is tricky business, but I think it’s made even harder whenever one shies away from their subject and writes in a substantially veiled, distanced manner—often involving noncommittal or overly elevated language, a kind of lyrical acrobatics that’s all form and no substance. That’s why I’m always encouraging my students to write using simple, direct lines filled not with generalizations or exposition, but IMAGES—which, no matter how cynical readers become, seem marvelously adept at tricking all of us into lowering our guard and going where we want to go anyway.

On the other hand, there’s still such a thing as writing too simply, in a way that’s so straightforward that it becomes two-dimensional and asks little or nothing of a (hopefully) intelligent, thoughtful reader. So the balance between accessibility and what I’ll call academic concepts (for lack of a better term) is one that each writer has to negotiate for himself or herself. Which means, of course, that different perspectives on how that balance should be struck is what gives us different schools of poetry in the first place.

How, then, do we as writers and individuals approach