July (and June!) Writing News

Yes, we’ve gone into extended two-month issues for the summer. You know how it is, what with family visiting and being out of town and moving in with girlfriends and all. At least that’s what I did on my summer vacation! In between, some creative activity has occurred as well. To whit:

Film- “Geek Wars”, one part of my three-part short film “Triptych” (formerly “Three Conversations About No Thing”) screened at the Victoria Theatre on June 7th. The audience seemed to enjoy it. You might too! You can see it on the Scary Cow website, project #33: http://www.scarycow.com/videos/round0008/round008.html . You can also catch me playing the pizza delivery guy briefly at the beginning of #22, “Just Super”, which I did set management & costuming for as well. The crew is currently working on editing the remainder of Triptych, which we’ll screen during Scary Cow’s next quarterly screening this fall. I’ll announce more as the time approaches...

Publication- I’m at 22 submissions for the first half of the year, not far off my goal of one a week, and already higher than all of 2008! The acceptance rate is currently at 9% versus 2008’s eventual 14.3%, for those of you with a statistical interest. Two of the latest fruits of this labor to appear are “Post-separation alone at night listening to Patti Smith sing “Dancing Barefoot” while thinking of mistakes I made while living in Hong Kong blues” in Lit Up Magazine (posted May 30^th): http://litupmagazine.wordpress.com/ and “Twelve Steps to the New Israel of the Beats” in the July issue of SoMa Literary Review: http://www.somalit.com/New_Israel.html

Performance- I read at the Café Brainwash open mic on May 18^th, my fourth public reading so far this year. It was a really fun, boisterous venue, and I got to be all prophetic by reading a new poem on autoerotic asphyxiation before that whole David Carradine business. My next targets are to read at Magnet’s “Smackdab” reading series on Wednesday July 15^th and at the Gallery Café poetry series on Monday August 3^rd. See you there?

Novel- I’m currently absorbing the manuscript evaluation feedback from the freelance editor I met at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference in February regarding my novel, Out in the Neon Night. What she advises would be some significant structural reworking, but it is intriguing, I just need to figure out if I agree and if I’m up for it. Until then, you can read the first chapter on my blog: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2009/02/first-chapter-of-my-novel-in-neon-night.html

Blog- Did I just say Blog? Yes I did! You can catch up with my attempt to write 40 poems in 40 days, musings on Dylan, and other topics at: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/ Definitely check it out in August, when I’ll be traveling in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia and doing updates from the road as frequently as time and technology allow.

I look forward to sharing more with you in all these areas now that we’re in the second half of the year!