You know you've gone underground when...

You know you've gone underground when you get a twitter message asking why you haven't been in the twittersphere. Wait - I'm so susceptible to opinion that twitter can make me feel guilty?

Here's some of what's been cranking out of Timely Manor - a piece for the ever entertaining Pop Matters. More work coming in The Writer in December.

Other news from Timely Manor --- am successfully not eating the Halloween candy lurking in the pantry. Am packing for two different Invisible Sisters related trips this month; the brain-impressive NonfictioNow Conference in Iowa City next week, and the I'm so excited about this I can barely imagine in Oxford Creative Nonfiction Conference in Mississippi the week after that.

PS Don't forget to VOTE on Tuesday!


(image from ScaryCandy.com)

An early Halloween present

Because it's almost Halloween, here's an early treat. It's my annual link to The Shaggs , in all their wonderful horrible-ness, singing - sort of - "It's Halloween."

This sticks in your head. It's stuck in my head every October since, I think, 1980. Mwah haw haw.

You've read this new online literary magazine, right?

You know about Prime Number magazine, don't you?

Uh huh, I thought so.

Deadlines go around and around

If you could only see my desk. The piles are mountainous. I can see part of the window. I can also see part of the door.

Deadlines. As Ann Lamott famously wrote, take each one "bird by bird."

What? You're a writer and you don't know "Bird by Bird ?"

Your assignment for today is to get a copy and read it.

What every writer needs

Every writer needs a great big Claes Oldenburg eraser, like this one. It's at the Enid Haupt Sculpture Garden . That's where I went the day after "Story/Stereo" at The Writer's Center in Bethesda.

Thanks Kyle, Sandra, and everyone at TWC for inviting me. Those of you in DC and the vicinity, get yourselves to The Writers Center! They have readings, classes, a theater, a library... muy impressive.

I had the immense pleasure of reading with poet Jenny Browne , and watching DJ Will Eastman do his stuff.

Went to dinner with old friends G., and N., and the next night with another old friend M, and his family!

What else. Got some museums in on Saturday. Did you know that Link Wray was Shawnee? I didn't until I heard "Rumble" coming out of an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian .

The Writer's Center . That's what every writer needs. And an old-fashioned eraser for typewriters, only smaller than the sculpture, which is really tall.


PS Eraser photo by me and my cellular phone.

I don't know what you're doing tomorrow, but if you're in the DC area...

This is Story/Stereo at The Writers Center in Bethesda. Never mind me, there's poetry from Jenny Browne (!) and music from DJ Will Eastman!

It's free, it's fun, it's what's up tomorrow night.

Just ask the Washington Post's "Going Out Gurus. "

See you there?

What to read next...

Here's a link to what to read next , especially if you're in the mood for something really odd and fun. I'm hoping that M will be done with it by the time I fly to Iowa City next month -I'll need diverting airplane reading.

Over to you, Me, Cheetah.

Defunct is here!

Hey, Robin Hemley (who's always up to something interesting) and his pals are behind a new online mag! And they let me come play, too, in this 2nd issue, along with folks like Chris Offutt, Ander Monson, Judith Kitchen... oh, I'm swooning.

I so dig the spooky art, too.