Opening Gambit
Neon nebula
Big Bang star shock righteousness
Creation in bloom
Well, another one bites the dust. May is now officially a moment of the past. A blip on the radar. A passing ship in the night. So it goes. I’ll continue to keep my eyes focused on the future, but I think it’s cool to at least say a few words about some of the recent happenings…
First of all, I’d like to thank the editors associated with these twenty-five venues for accepting and/or publishing my words during the month of May:
The Blue Mountain Review; Section 8 Magazine; Nibstears; Poetry Paraphernalia; Dissident Voice; Dead Snakes; Visual Verse; The Commonline Journal; The Piker Press; Slim Volume: See into the Dark anthology; GloMag; Sick Lit Mag; Immagine & Poesia; Whispers; Tuck Magazine; Kind of a Hurricane Press 2015 Storm Cycle anthology; Scarlet Leaf Review; Infernal Ink Magazine; International Times; First Literary Review-East; Ink in Thirds; Birdsong Poets; Setu Magazine; bear creek haiku; and The Metaworker.
Links to all the work from these publications can be found on the Poems, Reviews, Interviews, and Essays Pages here at 17Numa.
Issue 3 of The Blue Mountain Review was released through The Southern Collective Experience in May. It features poetry, prose, photography, and interviews from many talented contemporary writers and artists. My essay “Trust in the Process” serves to close out the issue. We are already hard at work putting together issue 4 which will be released during the Summer.
Akiwemimo Idris and Awwal Karrem of Nibstears published an interview in May that I was asked to give after winning the poetry contest at their site earlier this year. I did my level best to answer their questions genuinely.
Also, an interview I gave several months back was published by JD DeHart to launch his new site Poetry Paraphernalia.
Holly Holt wrote an incredibly generous review of my chapbook “Songs of a Dissident” recently that the fine folks at one of my favorite venues, Section 8 Magazine, were kind enough to publish. I was truly humbled by what Holly had to say about my work. If you have a moment, please check it out here.
The radio show (Dante’s Old South) that fellow members of the SCE and I recorded for Chattanooga, Tennessee station WUTC/NPR back in April aired a couple of nights ago. I’ll be sure to post a link to the broadcast as soon as it is archived and made available at their site. I also had the privilege of reading alongside Cliff Brooks and Holly Holt at a Visions of Verse event during May. Mechelle Wilson Ballew did us all the honor of capturing some great photographs of our performances, and Holly was on the spot to record a video of me reading “Such a Novel Concept” from my forthcoming collection, “Chaos Songs,” which will likely be out sometime this Fall through Weasel Press (check out my last post to read more about how I hooked up with the awesome team at Weasel Press). The video can be viewed on our Instagram page via this link.
I’ll be kicking off June with another reading as members of the SCE will be calling in live via Skype to headline an event in Texas being put on by the wild wordsmiths at Mad Swirl. I’ll be hitting the road soon to make the drive up to Jasper, Georgia where we’ll be meeting at the WYYZ radio station. I imagine it’s going to be one hell of a good time.
My main priority over the next week will be sending Raja Williams at CTU Publishing the final edits for “Happy Hour Hallelujah.” At that point, all that will need to be done is making the decision on which photograph to use for the cover, and then the book will be right on schedule for a late June release.
There are a number of other upcoming events this month that I’ll be writing about as they draw nearer. For now, I just want to say thank you to everyone who stops by here at 17Numa to support my work. It means a great deal, truly. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy month ahead…
Selah,
Scott Thomas Outlar
17Numa 