Smorgasbord Recipes for Neurotic Goat People

As the four people who still read my blog occasionally might notice, my postings have become a bit neurotic. Like goat people. Hungry goat people. Hungry goat people who want hot dish. This is a sure fire product of my impending graduation and the refusal of my university to acknowledge two dissertations in their stupid and pointless paperwork combined with too many rejections still coming my way. I was heartened to recently discover that Einstein, in his mid twenties, questioned why he was alive, and wrote to his parents saying maybe he shouldn't have been born. Therefore, my melancholoy will breed genius. It's inevitable.

But, some good things have been happening on the writerly front, so I will list them in an attempt to create some coherence and pretend I'm happy and everything is easier than it appears (or closer than they appear, like in a rearview mirror, you know....):

1) Two essays from the hybrid memoir are forthcoming in two journals: Sou'wester, aforementioned in an earlier post I do believe, and a special environmental issue of Amoskeag.

2) I won $1,000 last month for some poems of mine. I need to do that about 20 more times this year.

3) Ted Kooser will be publishing one of my poems from my other dissertation, a poetry manuscript, in his nationally syndicated column American Life in Poetry. It should appear in about 40 weeks. The man plans ahead.

4) I've sent out the last batch of essays to journals and contests and books to publishers, I hope for some time. It was a busy weekend. I will now focus on editing the memoir for the oral exam, and with an eye toward its full-blown submission to presses this summer: Borealis Books (Minnesota Historical Society Press), Milkweed Editions, University of Iowa Press, University of Nebraska Press.

5) Classes feel, to me, like they are winding down. But it's simply the calm before the storm: portfolios of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and the other class has a 10 page term paper. Class workshops, conferences, two field trips and a film will buffer spring break for our weary souls. Which is next week. Thank the Lords of Kobol. (2 episodes left and it's just now getting good! Don't abandon the Galactica! Don't do it! I love you BSG!!)