The drought is over!  I received word today that four of my poems were accepted at a magazine.  Seems as though all of those envelope-stuffing-induced paper cuts do pay off!

I had a lovely day in Montgomery today.  Kurt Curnutt, a wonderful writer, and I appeared on Troy University Public Radio’s Community Focus, and were  interviewed by the lovely Carolyn Hutcheson.  It was inspiring to be with a group of people who cared so deeply about promoting the arts in Alabama, and I’m very excited about my reading at Troy State on November 2nd.

But first, I’m in the middle of preparations for my reading this Friday at my old high school, the Alabama School of Fine Arts.   It’s difficult to believe that it’s been almost ten years since my last reading there, my senior reading in May (was it April?  I think May) of 1998.  Yes, I just revealed my age on the Internets.  Lord help us all.  Every senior at the School of Fine Arts is required to have some kind of public performance to showcase their work in order to graduate; for creative writing majors, this means a senior reading.  As the only senior in my department that year, I was alone, and, I remember, terrified.  I also remember that I made the unfortunate choice of wearing a pair of ridiculously high-heeled wooden Candies.  That reading took place in the recital hall; this reading will take place in the creative writing department’s auditorium, built a few years after I graduated, in the new creative writing wing.  It’s amazing and inspiring to see how the creative writing department has grown and developed in the past ten years, and it’s always inspiring to be around so many young, talented people with such a devotion and passion for writing.  I wonder if I’ll be able to snag my same old parking space under the overpass outside …