Weekly Update: The Rain Returns

71º ~ the rains began Friday afternoon around 5:00 p.m. and doused us all night long and on/off Saturday, today remains gray, cool, and wet without the showers ~ we rejoice the return of more sensible temperatures, even if the rain is too late to save the farmer's from the drought


Classes are well underway, and this past week I felt like I might have my semester sea legs back beneath me. Why, on Wednesday afternoon, I wasn't even exhausted yet! 

This coming week is going to be poets, poets, poets!  I'm so excited.

First, we have Marck L. Beggs, an Arkansas poet and singer/songwriter who will be appearing at the Big Rock Reading Series (curated by yours truly).  I heard Marck read seven or eight years ago, but I haven't heard him perform any of his music, so I'm doubly thrilled for Tuesday night.  If you are in Central Arkansas, we hope you'll stop by! (6:00 p.m. Tuesday, PTC's Main Campus, Campus Center, 2nd floor)

Then, the wonderful & amazing Traci Brimhall will be in town for a reading at UALR Thursday evening (6:00 in the Donaghey Student Center, Room D).  On Friday, Traci is going to make an appearance in my creative writing class at PTC before heading over to Hendrix College to do a reading and shop talk with the students there.  I'll be her chauffeur on Friday, which means I get to hear her read THREE times.  Wahooooooooooo!

Traci Brimhall

In the meantime, I've been learning the ropes of co-editing a journal and reading the first sets of submissions to Heron Tree.  Remember, we take submissions through December 1, so if you haven't sent anything our way yet, you know what to do!  Check out our guidelines here.

Finally, a bit of good news.  Two more of the sickly speaker poems have found a home.  Endless thanks to Patty Paine and the good folks at diode for their support.  I'm super excited about this acceptance because the first of the dictionary definition poems has found a home.  I'll keep you posted for when they hit the web.

Sadly, no time for submissions today, since I need to hit the school work to prepare for the big week of poetry, which will take me away from some of my other duties.  Still, I'm feeling pretty good about the new work load (school, poetry, house/spouse/pets), except for the fact that I have so little time to be on the blogs!