For all who drop by and wonder if I've dropped out: I've been journeying on the west coast of Canada & the US since July 17th. Currently, I'm staying with poet & good friend Michael Rothenberg, editor/publisher of Big Bridge, and his partner Terri Carrion, in a lovely house in Guerneville, Ca. The natural environment here is spectacular and there's a little community of writers about. I've finally found my Shangri-La and intend to move here within the next few years. My stay here will end this afternoon, when we head to Berkeley for a reading and gathering. Michael will be one of the two featured readers at Moe's Bookshop tonight. I'll be staying with the amazing art editor of MHR Tantra Bensko, and will fly to L.A. tomorrow night to stay with a friend from college days in Santa Monica till the 22nd or 23rd, when I'll return to NYC. I'll be a featured reader at Jim Ruland's Vermin on the Mount series in Chinatown, L.A., Sunday night, August 20th. Will post a flyer when I get one.

I started out in Vancouver, spent a week with my second cousin Rani & family on Vancouver Island, caught a ferry to Seattle, where I stayed with my old high school friend Meg. During my stay with Rani et al, I managed to arrange a get together with the magnificent Professor Don Bergland, our very Mad Hattrish Director of Digital Multimedia Fusions. A delightful meeting indeed and in fact.

The 3 day Fiction2 Collective "innovative writing" workshop/conference in Portland (July 28th through 30th) was a wonderful experience for me. I got to meet a bunch of brilliant writers and warm folk, including Lance and Andi Olsen, Ralph (RM) Berry, Lidia Yuknavitch, Susan Steinberg, Michael Martone, and Kris Saknussem. Fell in love with a few of them. :-) The Olsens (Idaho residents) and Ralph (Florida res) will be in NYC in September and October. I've invited them to read at our MHR issue 6 launching reading whenever and wherever that is --- hoping for The Four-Faced Liar in The West Village, the first, second or 3rd Sunday in October.

I submitted a collection of my short fictions, "The Eating Habits of the Poor and Other Fictions," to Chiasmus Press before my departure on from NYC. I was encouraged to submit the collection to FC2 as well. My new friend Debra Di Blasi (to be published in MHR issue 6 and featured in our Sept. 15th KGB reading) will be "sponsoring" the collection, i.e., recommending it for publication by FC2. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm feeling vaguely optimistic, for a change.

I don't use this blog as a straight/conventional diary, but I wanted to explain my absence from blogdom to passing readers.

Signing off for a while. Happy summering!