I knew that reading comic books would pay off for me someday…

My chapbook, “Female Comic Book Superheroes,” has been accepted for publication by Pudding House Press and will be out sometime early next year. So I will finally have something to bring to all my readings 🙂 The very cool people at Top Cow comics have given me permission to use a silhouetted version of my fave comic heroine, Sara Pezzini from Witchblade, for the cover art and I just wanted to say thank you thank you thank you. I wrote to another contest to withdraw the chapbook from consideration, and the very kind editor there wrote back and said the chapbook had done pretty well in their competition, too! Which was a nice pick-me-up. But since I would miss submitting to chapbook contests too much, I’ve put together a new one to start circulating to the presses.

Strangely enough, I was looking through an online mag called Pedestal Magazine, just browsing through the poetry in their political anthology, and found my name there – what a surprise that was! So I’ve put a link to the poem on my poetry page – but be warned: there may be irony ahead. In fact, I think it’s a very bad idea to write political poetry at all, unless there are liberal (no pun intended) amounts of irony. I make an exception for one or two really good non-ironic political poems (“Dulce et Decorum Est” is still one of my favorite poems about war.)

I really need to update my poetry page, maybe make it its own mini-site, but I just haven’t had time yet. Still busy with work and work and then reviewing and homework. And, for some reason, my voter registration has been caught in a terrible loop – first, for months they claimed they hadn’t received my registration, though I sent it in three months early, then, that they received it but it wasn’t signed (it was!) and that I’d have to make a hundred mile drive out to correct it, etc. I sent in an extra, completed, signed form last month, just in case, and I’m going to fax in a corrected version with extra signatures too. I’m determined, but it’s like the forces are working against me being able to vote! When I think of what a pain it is, I think of what must happen to people who are much less enthusiastic about the political process than I am. I mean, I’m enthusiastic about voting, not necessarily about the candidates. I really wouldn’t trust either guy with five bucks, much less the nation. Hey, when are we going to get some candidates who are neither stupid nor dishonest? I’d vote for that ticket…Vote for us – we are neither dumb nor evil! And when is there going to be a woman running for the big office, anyway? What are we, stuck in the fifties? political rant> Anyway, I’m used to this kind of bureaucratic problem – last year I happened to check my credit report before buying a car, and it turned out they had me listed as “deceased.” What a surprise that was for me, living and breathing! It took me six months to get listed as un-deceased. Six months of almost weekly, long, boring, repetitive telephone calls. Who says the system ain’t working?

Much to be thankful for, either way. Sun is shining over the island, I just had a friend (a terrific poet) land two poems in Prairie Schooner, and I have a wonderful husband and family – my little brother is the one helping me design the Top Cow cover art for the chapbook. Plus, pumpkins everywhere!