December News and Links

Poet Jack Christian has a great chat with Poet Mark Leidner about Leidner's Factory Hollow Press book "Beauty Was The Case That They Gave Me"

Pre-orders for Emily Pettit's debut "Goat In The Snow" forthcoming from BIRDS LLC Press

With the news of the upcoming NBA season, writer Bethlehem Shoals writes his first NBA post for new sport blog The Classical

I'm excited to read in Providence, RI where I lived and had fun for so many years at RISD. The reading and panel is at Brown University, part of a program set up by the great Evelyn Hampton and Sarah Tourjee. It will be fun to see old roommate and singer of songs Mike Young, my old fiction teacher Joanna Howard, and the other great readers: Lily Hoang, Matt Bell, and Matt Salesses

12 hours later update

The basketball is better!

Magic

Here is half of my latest commissioned MSpaint, Magic Johnson, painted for the talented and charismatic Michael Kimball! (Click here to see a different view)

Jubilat 20 is out, and filled with great poems by Ben Fama, Peter Gizzi, Shannon Burns, Michelle Taransky, CAConrad, Lesley Yalen, and many more. Come to Flying Object on December 3rd to celebrate the issue and the raffle!

The MLP Stamp Stories Anthology is now available for order. In honor of this publication, Wigleaf published a special edition of 50 word stories. I participated, as did other MLP contributors: Joanna Howard, Joanna Ruocco, Claire Donato, Michael Bible, and more.

Emily Pettit and I's first double workshop reading at Flying Object was a great success. Thanks to all who listened and read.

The new powerhouse of creative, genre-defying, thought-provoking sports blogging, The Classical, is near launching. Currently they have a preview tumblr up, and have started posting.

Hopefully the NBA will return, because right now things are looking bleak.
The NBA looks like this:

Reading and Winter/Spring Class Announcement!

Tomorrow night (Monday the 21st) from 5:30-7:30 join us at Flying Object (42 West st., Hadley, MA) to listen to a reading by the writers who participated in Emily Pettit's class and my own class this past term. From what I know of the readers, I am sure it is going to be very varied and impressive!

Recent Developments

Edward Mullany's first collection of poems "IF I FALTER AT THE GALLOWS" is available from Publishing Genius Press. The collection is beautiful, and funny and strange. PGP runs an online journal called Everyday Genius, which posts poems and stories daily from really talented and varied authors.

The image to the left is one of Mullany's. It has been exciting watching his paintings transform on his blog The Other Notebook. For a long time the paintings were painted with bold wiggling lines, but in the last few weeks, a new De Kooningian quality is erupting within them!

Mike Young, young author of Look! Look! Feathers and We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough, is accepting students for his online poetry workshop with Barrelhouse. I have never taken a class online before, but if I was, I'd want someone like Mike Young to teach me, a man who has built a number of cultures on the internet, who has a couch in his chat room.

Additionally, I should congratulate amazing lunatic Nat Otting, whose first book of poems THE WRONG BOOK has won the 1913 Fanny Howe judged prize. Nat has been called The Human Hyperlink. His writing defies logic and delights me. I am very excited for his book to take shape.

It has been super exciting to witness the planning and designing of Emily Pettit's upcoming book GOAT IN THE SNOW, due out February from BIRDS LLC Press. The image to left is not the cover for Pettit's debut, but it was hard for me to not create many alternate covers, which one day might be considered for the Japanese translation. Emily's poems are a wise, comforting voice, giving me instructions while I dream, supporting all levels of wonder, encouraging life with no discrimination for what types of life will come. I am very excited to be reading with her in Denver this February!

This post feels like I am making a newspaper for my homeroom class. The most recent news, which arrived today, while my Adobe Acrobat Icon bounced insistently at the bottom of my screen wanting to update, is that I will be reading in NYC on November 14th at Webster Hall with Ben Fama, Ben Mirov and Marina Blitshteyn for the first reading of a new reading series called Death Hums created by Amy Silbergeld. I hope the reading is in The Marlin Room (pictured right!).

Lastly, here is an interview that I did with The Short Review. Thanks so much to Tania Hershman!

August News

I am very pleased to have a story in McSweeney's issue 38! The cover is stylish and simple, like discovering a great piece of jewelry in your friend's old log cabin, or reading a delightful historical fact.

Thanks to Hilary Plum, the talented writer of fiction and co-director of Clockroot Books, for interviewing me at Kenyon Review blog.

Lastly, here is a portrait I painted of my nephew. Email me at rachelbglaser at gmail dot com if you are interested in commissioning a painting of your baby or loved one!

Michael Kimball interviews me for Charlotte Viewpoint

The interview can be read here. Michael Kimball is the author of many books, including the new book 'US' which is out with Tyrant Books. Michael helped me edit 'Pee On Water', and is a big help to Publishing Genius Press.

In other news, the NBA lock-out.

Also, Blake Butler/Lily Hoang's dream-child 30 Under 30 is now out (Starcherone Books), with writing from Joanna Ruocco » Brian Oliu » Michael J. Lee » Angi Becker Stevens » Shane Jones » Devin Gribbons » Christina Kloess » James Yeh » William Seabrook » Danielle Adair » Megan Milks » Rachel Glaser » Michael Stewart » Sean Kilpatrick » Andrea Kneeland » Zach Dodson » Beth Couture » Mike Young » Kathleen Rooney & Elisa Gabbert » Joshua Cohen » Matt Bell » Adam Good » Andrew Farkas » Jaclyn Dwyer » Ryan Downey » Ryan Call » Kristina Born » Conor Madigan » Rebecca Jean Kraft » Evenlyn Hampton

I'm very excited to read it!

SoftSpot

I have a poem based on christina leung's Pizza Tree in SoftSpot's newest online show, alongside Ben Estes, Mark Leidner, Ryan MacDonald, and many other great artists!

"SoftSpot is pleased to announce its latest show, (Un)Seen + (Un)Heard.

Art is about articulating things that lay outside the realm of normal language. For (Un)Seen + (Un)Heard, we chose twelve works by visual artists and twelve contemporary writers that explore the complex human experience. We randomly assigned each writer one of the visual works, and asked them to respond."

May News and Links

There is a now a recording up at The Poetry Project website of me reading my poem "Sleeping Ugly Moon." Thanks so much to Macgregor Card and everyone at the Project.

The books of Mike Young, Alex Phillips and I, were all listed on The Believer's Reader Survey

Derrick Rose became the league's youngest MVP

I completed the commissioned painting of Muggsy Bogues for Blake Butler, which he commissioned on this very blog a year ago.

(I am open to commissions to paint any basketball player, past or present! Price varies based on format and size.)

Edward Mullany's first book of poems If I falter at the gallows is forthcoming from Publishing Genius Press!

new mini review

from Indie Reader Houston

I spoke about one of my favorite books

at the blog over at Rescue Books

New short short story on Route 9 magazine

I'm pleased to have some work alongside great writers like Mike Young, Jason Larson, Ryan MacDonald, Hilary Plum, Brian Mihok, Sara Jaffe, Dottie Lasky and Many Many More, Great Job Route 9!

New Poems Online!

at the new New Delta Review

check out 2 collaborative poems with the NBA expert, Denver poet Seth Landman

and the longest poem I've ever written

New Picture Poem Up at Noo Journal

read it here, editted by TODD ORCHULEK

New Epic Review of 'Pee On Water'

written voraciously by Lonely Christopher