So it goes...

 I watched a Barnes and Noble interview with Barack Obama the other night about his newest book, The Promised Land. I'll confess, I didn't watch the entire thing, as I had screen/zoom fatigue by then, but what I saw of it was interesting.  What I found the most interesting wasn't necessarily the content of the book, but the commonalities we share as writers. He was frank and honest about his routines and methods. He mentioned he tends to do his best writing between 10 PM and 1 AM. This is actually the polar opposite of when I like to write. I tend to like writing first thing in the morning and into the afternoon.  He also mentioned that he writes all of his stuff using longhand on yellow legal pads. He said that is more productive for him and makes for a cleaner transcription. I thought that was particularly interesting given my efforts on my latest manuscript "At the Lake" (Working Title).  As I've mentioned, I am trying to write this one entirely in longhand...

Over the weekend I got news that my manuscript, Cretin Boy, was accepted for publication by Burning Bulb Pulishing. If you're on Facebook, you already know this, but for those not, well, now you know. This will be my third published memoir since I began this whole writing thing 10 years ago. Getting a book published is an amazing feeling and it never grows old. I am so excited by the prospect of this book about my high school experience becoming real! Like my other books, it's been in the works for years, in this case, about 3 years. When you put that much work into something, there is nothing better than to see it validated by a willing publisher. And as weird as it may sound, I have always thought that until I have 3 full length books, I'm still not legit. I know that is warped, untrue and self-defeating, but it's a number I had in my mind. I also have 5 poetry books, but I always look at those as a bonus to my success as a nonfiction writer. It's these 220+ page ...

Last night I attended a book launch for a poet friend of mine. Kathrine Yets' chapbook is titled, So I Can Write , and it is her first published book of poetry. The event was held at Art Bar in Riverwest. I'd never been there, but I love the whole Riverwest scene, so was glad to be able to attend. Having lived on the East Side of Milwaukee many years ago, I miss the nightlife and eclectic crowds that were part of living in that area. The suburbs are so blase' in comparison. The Art Bar features a lot of art within it, obviously, and was hoppin' busy when I got there at 6:15 or so. It was a diverse, youngish crowd with a great vibe. I'd say these are my people, but I'm probably a bit too old and suburban to get away with it. It's fun trying though. Despite my age difference I felt comfortable enough - I think the Riverwest crowd is cool with you no matter what your makeup is, old, white, bald dudes included. It sure seemed that way to me. Anyway, I wa...

It seems I have another book in the books, so to speak. I finally got my cover for my newest chapbook, Genetically Speaking: Poems on Fatherhood , from my publisher, Local Gems Press. After the last of my textual edits, they've sent it off to press and I should be receiving my copies in three weeks. Huzzah! For those who don't know, my other collection, Thoughts from a Line at the DMV , came out a couple of weeks ago. (It's been a very good year). I was waiting for this one to come to completion so I could schedule a dual-book release in November. Watch for details on that, tentatively pending for Nov. 16th or 23rd. The book came about through a NaPoWriMo contest by Local Gems Press back in April. Poets are encouraged/obligated to write a poem a day for the whole month. Then, at the end of the month, we were supposed to submit our manuscripts for consideration. I was a "honorable mention" that also got an offer of publication. Thus, Genetically Speaking was...

So here is the cover to my forthcoming poetry collection. I can't say enough about how happy I am with it. It is perfect! For starters I have to give full credit to the artist. His name is W. Jack Savage , a fellow native-Minnesotan now living in California. I have touted his work on my blog before, right here . You should check out his work if you get a chance. He is also a prolific writer and a Vietnam Veteran, making him a hero at many levels, in my eyes. His artwork has always fascinated me and I am lucky to have a couple print copies that he has sent. One is in my office at work, the other in my home writing office. I'm not sure what you would call his style, but it looks Impressionistic to me, and I've always favored the impressionists. I don't claim to be an art expert or historian, but I know what I like. I approached him and asked first for some pieces for ideas and secondly for permission to use one for my cover. He was gracious enough to both requests...

I was a little too young to fight in Vietnam. I think my older brother might have had a draft card, but I can't recall for sure. I remember hearing that our neighbor a few doors down was caught at the draft office trying to burn draft cards, but again, details are sketchy. I do remember seeing snippets of video on the nightly news. Soldiers walking through swamps with guns, Huey helicopters and battle scenes. They say it was the first war to come into peoples' living rooms...every night. I also remember a protest march going from West to East down Summit Avenue sometime in '71 or so. I didn't understand enough to grasp what the marchers were marching for, but it seemed weird to protest something that we were supposed to be trying to "win," if that's what you call bringing a war to an end. As the years have gone by, I've gained a deep respect for the veterans of Vietnam. These guys were put into an unjust, unwinnable war and when we withdrew from ...

So a while back, I sent a copy of The Portland House: a '70's memoir to THE Portland House. It was a suggestion by my sister, Jane. She thought it would be a cool idea to surprise the owners and let them know that their house was famous in a sub-atomic micro fame sort of way. I sent them the book with a short note basically telling them that it was the house I grew up in  and I thought they might enjoy reading some of its history. I also told them that if they felt compelled, they could leave it for the next owners or even share it around the neighborhood. I sort of hoped for a response, just to see what they thought. Well, today a card came from The Portland House family. The card was written by the wife of the current owner - the same owner who bought it from us over 32 years ago. She said that they did a big renovation five years ago, including a new garage from what I can see. They also removed the open porch and put on an enclosed one. She said they had 3 boys and...

This afternoon I had coffee with a Vietnam Veteran. Bob Goswitz served a year overseas in the 196th infantry division in 1971. I consider it an honor to sit with someone of my generation who served in a war that marked my first exposure to military conflict. I was only 10 years old when he served, but I remember watching the news at night and seeing snippets of guys in combat. People have said that the Vietnam War was the first war that kind of came into peoples' living rooms. Well, Bob lived it and was fortunate to be among those who made it back home. I have an elevated respect for the men and women who served that war. It was a war that should have never happened, certainly not to the level it went. The soldier who returned were never treated as the heroes they were, a travesty in my opinion. It was a contentious time in our country with civil and racial unrest at levels never seen before and the debate about the war was a large part of it. Anyway, Bob has written a book ...

As part of my book promotion, I run a giveaway contest that encourages people to send me photos of themselves with my book,  The Portland House . I had a lot of fun with the same contest for Dirty Shirt , so thought I would do it again with this book. The prize for a couple of randomly drawn winners is a signed copy of the book. Social media has made people much more willing to share photos of themselves, so doing it with the prospect of maybe winning something garnered some creative photos. A House on the Beach Quite possibly the most creative one was by Jody Morris, who owns a goat farm in Upstate New York. She showed that goats are more intelligent than we give credit for. Here's one of her goat pictures. Then, there were a fair number of people posting pictures from warm places. Florida, California and Mexico were a few of the favorites. As hard as it was to know that they were somewhere I wanted to be, it was still great to see that they were reading my book on...

Like many of you, I love to read. Part of the problem of attempting to be an active writer is that much of my reading time is consumed by writing time. My wife and I have end tables on either side of our bed, and they are always stacked with books. Some in progress, some on deck, and some read that need to be shelved. I don't often do book reviews as part of my blog, but a book I recently read begs to be talked about a bit. The book is titled, Two Trees , by Julie Beekman . Julie is a friend and, in case you were wondering, did not put me up to this, nor ask me to review her book. I've really only met her a few times, usually at a writing retreat offered by AllWriters . But I can tell you from those meetings that her laughter and presence can light up a room. Her book details her young life as an adopted child. The story goes south when her adoptive father dies and her physically and mentally abusive mother raises her and her three step brothers. Without giving it all a...

Well, it's done. Book number two, or four, depending on how you look at it, is finished. I look at it as two, but that's just me. I'd tell you the title if I knew it myself yet, but I don't yet. I'm still waiting for it to come to me. And, like every word in the book, it will eventually. I feel like I'm zeroing in on it, with the help of friends and family. A few statistics about the work: It stands right now at 75,438 words. This might trend downward a bit depending on what a publisher might do to it. My goal once I saw where it was at was to keep it above 75K words. Why? Should that ever be a criteria for how to write? No. But once I hit it I was determined to keep it around that number. Okay, I'm weird. It also stands at 240 pages - including introduction, acknowledgements, dedication, and page breaks. I'm guessing this may go up as it gets formatted by a publisher. Again, I wanted to keep it above 240 pages for some unknown bad reason. Dirt...

I spent my Friday night with a couple of good friends working on a fun project. I've been kicking around the idea of a book trailer for awhile. A book trailer is like a movie trailer; a short teaser as to what the book is about in video form. They vary in length from 1-2 minutes and are another way of publicizing your book. In this day and age, you need all the help you can get, and I kind of like the whole video creation process, so I thought I'd give it a whack. My friend Nick is a musician who has actually produced a couple of CD's of his own. Going under the auspices of SnowCap Weber , he is extremely talented and adept at multiple instruments. His focus is guitar, but he does bass, harmonica, keyboards and probably a few others. He's one of those guys who can pick up an instrument and just blast away. In fact when I mentioned some harmonica he picked one up and said it would probably sound like this - and proceeded to blow a tune that I can only dream of eve...

Needless to say, it has been kind of a crazy week for me. A week ago yesterday was one of the best days in a long, long time, and it kind of threw this week on its head. After talking to the publisher on Friday, I received my publishing book contract last Sunday night and returned it on Wednesday. The rest of this week involved a lot of cloud-walking and inability to focus. I've got a million things I'm thinking about with regards to what a book release involves, and am trying to work out what precedes what. I've got a great set of friends, peers, and mentors around me to help, which is nice, but it's still overwhelming. Now, Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir doesn't come out for another five months, but my immediate reaction is to get everything setup and ready in the first week. It goes without saying that this is not a healthy approach. It leads to sleep deprivation, as my mind refuses to shut off when I go to bed. On the couple of nights I was a...

I finished my BWCA book on Monday night. Well, I should qualify that statement. I finished "writing" the book on Monday. Maybe I should qualify the qualifier, I finished writing the last chapter of my book. What remains is another 45 pages of "final editing" with my Thursday workshop group, whom I am growing to really appreciate. The book as it stands now is about 255 pages long and about 70,000 words. I started writing it in "concept" in 2005 during a class offered through the City of Waukesha titled "Writing from your life." What came out of that class was a seven-page piece that was the kindling for the bonfire that has become my book. As it turns out, it was written badly enough to be used for kindling, but that's a different story. In looking back through the piece, I cover a little bit of everything from a camping standpoint. I talk a little about the characters, a little about the shopping, fishing, portaging and the rest. It was l...