1097 Launches

It's been a really long time since I mentioned it, but a few friends and I have been working on editing a print-and-online little monthly zine, called 1097 Magazine, and the first web version is now online at 1097mag.com. Feel free to come on over and check it out. It's all of our first forays into editing and publishing, so it should be interesting to see how much we trip over ourselves. It's been fun - a LOT of reading - and it definitely helps to get inside the heads of those that read my own work. I never really understood how a minor infraction against submission guidelines could send some editors into an insane fit of rage. Now I do. When you're reading 200 poems, give or take, one being out of order and taking an extra five minutes to format feels like the end of the world, and it's incredibly hard not to reply and just scream your brains out at the thoughtless bastard behind it, until you realize you have been that bastard ... and you don't.

In more personal news, I've been a bit down. The second of Western Oregon's two seasons (the rainy one) has arrived, and I'll need a bit of time to adjust to it. There are other things too, but frankly, this has never been a particularly personal blog. I had one of those once, one of the billions of "Waaaah, I hate my life" blogs, and frankly, I bored myself. It's been an odd year, and that may be all that needs to be said.