In Celebration of Routine (and the Wisdom of Pets)

I used to joke that my pets used me—they come when I am making lunch, or dinner. They come when it's cold and want to be warm. I marvel at their routines, as they wait in the kitchen, same times each day, awaiting their dinner or their treats, and I marvel that their lives comprise primarily these little moments. Do they not know grief, loneliness, despair, happiness?

I am sure they do. After all, they are rescue animals, and perhaps routines are the greatest happiness they can imagine. Every day, their owner has not renounced them, still feeds them, allows them a place in her distracted life. They know great loss, being shuffled to strange homes and shelters, skin clinging to their bones, and now they know that if each day is the same, they will not know this loss again, at least for today. And they look forward to tomorrow with the same hopefulness—a place to eat, a place to snuggle, a place to really call home.

I have my routines. I cherish them just as much as my pets do theirs. Because between the great scales of love and loss, the real joy is in knowing each day of routine is one day removed from loss, one day until joy. And I am thankful that it took a collection of discarded pets to help me realize this.

New Work Up at "This Zine Will Change Your Life"

I loved Harriet the Spy as a child. In fact, I still read it every couple of years, along with The Long Secret. My Harriet story, "Excerpts from the New Adventures of Harriet the Spy," is up at This Zine Will Change Your Life. I hope you don't think I did Harriet M. Welsh a disservice; above all, I always loved her combination of stubbornness, indignation, but naivete about the world.

Best of Baltimore!

It's official: City Sages is a Best of Baltimore!

Looking Ahead

I am happy we've booked the Wonderland Ballroom for the dogzplot/jmww/wigleaf/Sententia off-site reading at AWP in February 2010. We're looking at 12 contributors to read, and it'll probably work much like the slam earlier this year at the KGB Bar.

I know we'll still be living in Baltimore until February, because (1) AWP and (2) I'm teaching another writing class at the Creative Alliance around that time. But that's as far as I'd like to think ahead—too much can happen between now and then.

I got another really nice rejection from one of my favorite journals. These rejections hurt more than anything, when your story is "great" and "so close" but not quite the "right fit." I never understand the "right fit" thing. Everything is the "right fit" for jmww if it's a good story, whether it be a romance, a historical romance, sci-fi, or western. As long as there are satisfying, literary elements (although I admit, these combinations are rare) in it, it can be about anything.

So I have to wonder how much of my story is that it wasn't really as good as it could have been, not that it was a good fit, per se. The story of mine in question takes place in World War II and is actually an excerpt from my in-progress novel (although it was a story before a novel).

I must admit, I miss cable a little bit. There's only so much "Antiques Roadshow" and "Wine Country" you can watch on PBS.

Reading Events, Baltimore, June 19-23

Another City Sages reading this week:

CITY SAGES: BALTIMORE Reading Party at the Creative Alliance

"There is a saying in Baltimore," Mencken said, "that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good." CityLit Press’ popular new anthology, City Sages: Baltimore (CityLit Press, 2010), includes Baltimore’s best writers gathered by editor Jen Michalski, including greats Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Douglass, and F. Scott Fitzgerald; contemporary writers Laura Lippman, Anne Tyler, Madison Smartt Bell, and Rafael Alvarez; and upcoming writers.

Sage writer Jen Grow hosts an evening of music and performances by Sages contributors Rafael Alvarez, Joe Young, Jen Michalski, Michael Kimball, and multi-talented Geoffrey Becker, who’ll also be playing acoustic guitar. MC’d by Gregg Wilhelm, founder and Executive Director of CityLity Project, this evening will include special guests Deborah Rudacille and actors Charley Scalies and Benay Berger from The Wire reading from Gertrude Stein, Mencken, and others. $5 mbrs. (Free popcorn for mbrs!)

Thursday, July 22nd 7-9 pm
Creative Alliance
3134 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224
Copies of City Sages: Baltimore available for purchase and signing

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Purchase City Sages at Amazon

City Sages Reading Video, Atomic Books, 7/15

Here's the video from last night's City Sages reading at Atomic Books. Thanks so much for coming out!

City Sages: Baltimore review

Here's a succinct little review of City Sages: Baltimore in Baltimore Magazine.

If you've picked up a copy and like what you've read, consider taking a minute and writing a little review on Amazon. We much appreciate it!