Wink wins!
A short entry this week. Before attending to the title, above, I would like to mention the following small evils as things that are so clearly wrong with the world that “there oughter be a law.” In no particular order, these are:
Mosquitoes
Ticketmaster
Trucks kicking up rocks on the highway
The lock-step of mass culture
Health insurance
Partisan politics
Intrusive waiters
Vapid music
Strategy-free parenting
Regarding the latter, my boys are not perfect. Neither am I. We picked up a slip-n-slide at the beginning of the summer. It has been nothing but trouble. Why a nine-year-old and a five-year-old who get along for 98% of any given day collapse into constant squabbles when confronted with a slip-n-slide, I have no idea. By way of contrast, the supposed violence of the game called “Killer Bunnies” (trademarked) evinces nothing but hours of dedicated cooperation. Go figure. I shall be purchasing “Killer Bunnies” expansion packs in the near future, not only because the game is fun but because it promotes harmony within my household. The slip-n-slide is a heartbeat way from relegation to the garage, at least until next summer. Nothing else we own requires such constant parental intervention…
Professionally, two things of note. First, six of my photographs will be published in the Australian literary magazine Skive in their September 2009 issue. I also had a short story, “L.A.D.,” appear in Skive about a year ago. It’s a good-looking magazine with a large number of quite short fiction and non-fiction pieces. Don’t live in Australia? No worries; it’s easy to visit their website and download a copy.
Finally, my novel, In the Wink of a Stone God’s Eye, just won the First Coast Novel Contest. I’ve been a finalist in this contest before (finished second with The Investor five years ago), so it’s nice to tip the balance in my favor at last. The contest does not come with any kind of publication deal, but the final judges are authors David Poyer and Lenore Hart, and they have plans to recommend the manuscript to an appropriate agent, so I will be hard at work scribbling out some revisions based on their notes/reactions… Fingers crossed, this will be a big stepping stone into the thus-far elusive realm of the novel.
My Blog
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
