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June 30, 2011

On Publishing Loria Taylor: The Journey to SOB

I first laid eyes on Loria Taylor when she moved from North Carolina to my Arkansas neighborhood when we were both in the 5th grade. If one got their hands on our yearbook from those days, my photo would reveal a basketball-like chubby face; Loria’s would demonstrate a perm-gone-wrong. Still, though we passed in the halls, counted each other out of swing-sets, and shared some mutual friends, we wouldn’t form our own bond until the 10th grade, when Mrs. Matheny assigned us to stage a production of Julius Caesar for our English class. Naturally, I was Caesar and Loria was some sort of witch. The scene we were assigned involved ketchup as a blood-substitute. I was wearing a toga and socks: fashionable, if not entirely historically-accurate attire. When it came time to spread the ketchup around me in my key scene, when I was ready for my closeup, Loria intentionally aimed at my feet and ruined a perfectly good pair of socks and my acting debut. So I did what any fifteen-year-old toga-clad boy would do. I spit in her hair.

We’ve been friends ever since.

Flash forward a couple of years to the illustrious Senior Awards Banquet at our High School. We’d both taken Creative Writing and we’d both been awarded the title of “Most Likely to Win a Pulitzer.” But we couldn’t share what we both desperately wanted: the coveted Creative Writing Pendant (which was actually a plastic brooch etched with a tiny replica of a pencil). Because we were both unwittingly and unknowingly gay-men-in-training, Loria and I daydreamed of winning the Pendant, attaching it to our Calvin Klein denim vests and/or our National Young Leadership Conference T-shirts, and strolling through the local mall’s music store, where we’d fight over the sole copy of a bargain-bin George Michael cassette. (“He’s so dreamy,” Loria would sigh. “I’m going to marry him one day.”) Afterwards, we’d sit in the Cafe Court and sip Cokes while the winner of the Pendant would attract the jealous glances of passersby, a courageous few of which would approach and ask for an autograph. After all, by this time in 1997, Loria had written a story about a teenage girl smitten with a straight, English pop star and I’d completed a novel that read like a homoerotic Saved By the Bell episode. In other words, the stakes were high, and our reputations were on the line.

In the end, I won the Pendant.

Suffice to say, Loria was crushed. She locked herself in her room for hours, listening to George sing “Careless Whisper” again and again. To console her, I made a promise that when I became a famous writer with my own publishing company, I’d offer her a book contract with a miniscule royalty rate and multiple required speaking obligations. She would also have to let me make use of her swimming pool should, in her adult life, she have access to one.

Through her tears, she accepted my offer, and fourteen years later, I can finally announce that pre-orders are open for SOB by Loria Taylor.

I keep my promises.

9 comments

February 1, 2011

Caution: Road Work Ahead! New Release from SRP and Raymond Luczak

It’s my honor to present the trailer for Sibling Rivalry Press‘s latest release – and our first full-length collection of poetry since My Life as Adam – Raymond Luczak’s Road Work Ahead! Raymond, author of the critically-acclaimed Mute, is a literary hero of mine, and it’s been a dream working with him. Road Work Ahead will become a cornerstone of Sibling Rivalry Press… soon you’ll see why.

Pre-orders start today.

4 comments

November 12, 2010

Less Fortunate Pirates: An Introduction

In one month and eight days, it will have been a year. A trivial milestone to acknowledge when the real markers are things like the first time we took my mother to a restaurant without him. My first self-prepared tax return (he was an accountant). The first big decision I had to make without his counsel. The first Arkansas football game. The first Thanksgiving, which will happen in a couple of weeks. How to have a family meal without his jokes, his eagerness to try anything I cooked, his hug goodbye, his insistence on paying for the groceries I’d bought? How to acknowledge my complete and utter fear of taking the reigns as turkey carver?

Last Thanksgiving, we talked over the pros and cons of self-publishing. We decided together to publish Adam in the manner I did. A year later, Adam sits at #1 in its sales category on Lulu, appeared as #1 on Amos Lassen’s Best Books of 2010 Lambda list, and opened the door for me to build Sibling Rivalry Press (complete with a storefront that went live yesterday). I’m a publisher now. People put their careers in my hands. Ocean Vuong’s first chapbook launches Monday.

Has all of this really happened within the space of twelve months? My dad’s death. Adam‘s entrance and subsequent dance, Lethe picking up The Hanky Code, Ganymede Unfinished (which is Number 9 in Lulu’s Top 10 GLBT Books, meaning two SRP books are in the Top 10). I’ve become friends with Gavin Dillard, my literary-hero and the man whose anthology A Day for a Lay: A Century of Gay Poetry changed me to the core, and he’s talking two SRP projects, one as author, and one as editor. My journal Assaracus debuts in January, and apparently it’s got buzz, y’all. I’ve been to New York City twice and made dear, real friendships there. I’d never been before this year, and now it feels like a second home. I say these things not with ego – but with amazement. I’m doing what I love. I’m happy. These are the things I’d want my father to see.

While building the foundation for Sibling Rivalry Press has taken much of my time and has taken me away from regular blogging, I’ve been dedicated to poetically chronicling the-year-that’s-been. I’ve still been writing, and I’m extremely proud of what’s shaping up to be Less Fortunate Pirates: Poems from the First Year Without My Father. This book will be my gift to him, and to anyone who’s lost a parent. To anyone who’s known loss in any regard.

I’ve not yet decided how to bring Less Fortunate Pirates into the light. I can always publish it through Sibling Rivalry Press, but something tells me the book needs another path. I have to listen to those voices. They’ve not led me astray before. The manuscript isn’t complete yet – and won’t be until December 20, the anniversary of my dad’s passing. After I write that final poem, I’ll make a decision on how to move forward. I can tell you that these poems are the strongest I’ve ever written. They are for my father, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Memorial Day

It is Memorial Day again. The neighbors
fly a flag from their front porch. Our family

visits, my in-laws, my mother. It dawns
on me I no longer can use the word parents

in the present tense. These are our holidays
now. My husband cooks hamburgers

on the new grill. The onions I chop for salsa
sting my eyes. When it is time for dessert,

I put out too many bowls, one too many
spoons. After the meal, we play badminton

in the backyard. As the sun goes down,
I clean the grill before the charred meat

sticks to the grates. It is the beginning
of summer. I smell like a grown man.

I’ll leave you with how the table of contents for Less Fortunate Pirates is shaping up, which will give you some idea as to the content and context of the book. A couple of you have read earlier versions of the manuscript and have helped me along the way. I love you for that. Some of you will recognize a few poems that have appeared at vox poetica or on the blog.

I’ve never written something that rips me apart before. These poems rip me apart, then put me back together. I can’t wait to share it with you.

Less Fortunate Pirates: Poems from the First Year Without My Father

Instructions on How to Approach the Bereaved
Walnut Lake
Christmas Day
Social Network Obituary
The Moment I Read Walt Whitman to Three Hundred People
My Companion Piece
Coincidences and Synchronicities
Saturdays Before My Birth
The Day I Break the First Commandment
Recalling A Last Conversation Between Father and Son
Dream Journal, 26 December
The Night I Laugh Inappropriately
Your Birthday
Valentine’s Day
The Lady Chablis
The Day I Kiss Science Goodbye
Car Crashes Are My Family’s Cancer
How Your Explorer Ended Up in the Lake
Dream Journal, 30 December
On Being Intimate in the Company of Ghosts
The Day a Man Asks My Mother on a Date
The Day I Run the Little Rock Marathon
The Nights I Think of My Brother
Dark Horse
The Day I Pack His Things
Mergers and Acquisitions
Introducing a Grandson to his Grandfather
The Day I Find My Father’s Lost Wedding Ring
On the Significance of Dark Horses
Phantom Limbs of Family Trees
Reasons My Father Did Not Commit Suicide
A Study on the Grieving Habits of Humans
Memorial Day
The Days I Believe in Ghosts
There’s Talk of Selling the House
Long Division
In the Doctor’s Office Waiting Room
Father’s Day
Father’s Day II
The Night I Fight with My Husband
The Day I Start My Business
The Fourth of July
The Morning I Stare at the Water for Hours
My Birthday
The Day We Do Not Choose Your Headstone
The Day I Return To My Wanton Ways
Arkansas Post and Other Battles of the Civil War
The Day the Fair Comes to Town
The Day My Mother Says She Wants to Move
The Words We Choose
The Day I Cross the Bridge
Two Examples of Many Instances
The Day Tears Explode Like Bombs
The Night My Marriage is Saved
Watching Inception at the Movie Theater
August 25: The Morning I Call the Psychic
August 27: Two Days After Mary
My Father’s Hanky, Left Pocket
The Afternoons I Sip Herbal Tea
How to Grieve
The Day Arkansas Plays Alabama
The Day Cemeteries Change
Acceptance
Swale
Ancestory.com
Apples and Oranges
How to Carve a Turkey
Spared
Thank You Note
What I Want You to Know

16 comments

March 11, 2010

RAINBOW BOOK FAIR UPDATE

The Rainbow Book Fair, which happens on March 27 in New York City, continues to take shape. A schedule of presenters has now been posted. I’ll be reading a few poems at 1:30. I’ll also have a table at the event where, along with me, you’ll be able to meet Philip F. Clark, author of the introduction to My Life as Adam. You’ll also be able to meet my old college roommate, Beth Bloch.

9 comments

February 22, 2010

MY LIFE AS ADAM – NOW AVAILABLE

My Life as Adam is now available for purchase on Lulu. As the next six weeks progress, it will also become available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retail outlets as it flows through the distribution channels. You will also be able to request it at fine bookstores throughout the world.

My Life as Adam is a 121-page collection of 70 poems, many making their print debut. It is mostly autobiographical and tells a narrative of my journey to self-acceptance while struggling with the primary dueling forces of nature in the southern United States – sexuality and religion.

I will be reading from My Life as Adam on March 27 in New York City at the Rainbow Book Fair and April 10 in Little Rock at the Arkansas Literary Festival, with more dates and events forthcoming.

Never give up on your dreams, folks. It can happen. I want to once again thank those who have helped Adam come into existence. My father, of course, to whom, along with my brother, this book is dedicated. The love of my life, Christopher Baxter, and my wonderful family. My friends, both in the flesh and on the computer screen, who have provided support, comfort, and encouragement. John Stahle, Philip F. Clark, and Seth Ruggles Hiler, my publishing supergroup. Loria Taylor, David Koon, Jessie Carty, and Stephen S. Mills, whose time and opinions I value greatly. And finally, to the readers of this blog, who have taken me from a tentative, toe-dipping pseudo-poet to a manic scribe with a bullhorn, shouting from the rooftops, I say thank you, thank you, thank you. I am forever grateful.