I guess it's time to do the blog. I'm in the solar system Chaos & it's raining all sorts of caca, mainly rubbish from Earth, like Tom DeLay. It's amazing how much detritus that tiny planet emits.

The big news is that the future best-selling very innovative literary anthology "Butterflies of Vertigo" is nearly ready to be delivered to our agent Sophia Seidner. We have some wonderful well-known out-of-stream contributors, including Brian Evenson, R. Federman, Mark Amerika, Lydia Davis, Dawn Raffel, Norman Lock, Michael Rothenberg, Stacey Levine, Lidia Yuknavitch, Gary Lutz, Eric Darton, Lucy Corin & Lance Olsen; and lesser known wonderful writers, including Fisher Thompson, Willie Smith, Girijia Tropp, Jimmy Chen, Peter Markus, Marc Lowe, Roy Kesey, Rich Andrews & ...... etc. etc. etc. So this won't be one of those anthologies with only the big names. My lovely co-ed Kathryn Rantala (I LOVE this woman!) and I are very happy with our collection. It's going to be "important." So there. I told you so!

Other news:

1) My piece in 5_Trope (Civil War)will be published later this month.

2) Former "street artist" clients Neil & Soo Balmuth are creating gorgeous Mad Hatters' Review buttons, which I'll either sell or give out at our inaugural reading on Friday.

3) The fourth installment of "The Perils of Patriotic Polly," the new political comic strip by me and Phil Nelson, will be up at MHR within days.

4) My new very fine friend, Word Riot poetry editor Charles Ries's interview of me will be up at webdelsol/portal del sol shortly. Can't wait to get the hate mail.

5) The incredible painting/next MHR issue cover Homeland Security (depicting a torture victim) by another of my most favorite people Marty Ison has arrived in the form of 16 posters. Marty's donated the posters for sale at our readings. The first poster printer to whom Marty took his painting refused the job, threatening to call the FBI. Charming, eh? Guess which State.

6) I need to finish revising Eating Habits of the Poor and get it out to out-of-stream mags like Ninth Letter (well, not always so out-of-stream, but I'm advised they like magic realism) & Black Clock. After sending that off and maybe also my latest piece Cluck Cluck, I'll have to return to The Runaway Bride (I'm on Part 2), my play Ham & Hen & maybe even the novel, The Sexlives of Starfish.

7) I'll definitely be taking the FC2 Collective workshop in Portland, OR this July & visiting friends & relatives in BC Canada, Seattle, San Fran & environs, maybe La La Land & San Diego & environs (CB Smith is somewhere half-way between LA & SD). Should be a fun July and August!