AWP Dreams and Other Updates

Last night I dreamt I accidentally showed up to AWP a week early, but there were all these booths set up anyway. Real dorky guys selling crappy made-at-home comic books. I bought a new outfit and was wearing really classy stuff, guys. Really classy. And I had to meet dorky make-your-own comic book guys instead of, you know, AWPeople.

Rest assured, I will do my best to make it to AWP on schedule in real life, because advance copies of my chapbook, Ether/Ore, will be available for perusal!

Another surprise is that I have a split ebook coming out on Valentine's Day with poet Russ Woods, who is also a librarian, rap aficionado, and co-editor of Red Lightbulbs. If you want to check out the cover of our soon-to-be-book, go here!

The end of the year is coming up and aside from writing my butt off, I'm also eagerly awaiting some rejections to add to the heap, and looking forward to some 2012 publications! Can't wait to see my name in an issue of Beloit Poetry Journal and an issue of RHINO, two publications I respect the hell out of.

Go forth and be merry, eat some turducken, and show up to AWP on time, okay?

A Fun Way to Feel Bad

I have been putting off a blog post for a long time for a number of reasons.

First of all, this post SHOULD consist of a number of things. I promised a review of Ginger Piglet Press's Issue One, which really is lovely, and which I will, eventually, delve into more. For now, just know you ought to go to their website and purchase a copy yourself. The layout is beautiful, and is probably one of my favorite things about the magazine (not to devalue the words inside!). It's visually pleasing, and the binding is durable; it has survived in my work bag for three weeks. I tote it to and from work every day as a reminder of my promise to review it. I walk and bike to work, so the bag bumps my rump and has seen better days. But this little magazine is still going strong, and has a few coffee stains on it, like all my other well-loved items.

I have also been meaning to give a few words about Hayden Ferry Review's Word of Mouth, which is a fantastic collection of interviews with some really kickass writers (among them, Francine Prose, Bob Hicok, Franz Wright, and others). I love interviews and hearing about how other writers dive into their craft, and this is no exception. I'm addicted to the Paris Review interviews, and if you like those, you'll like this, too. Check it out. And to put myself on the line again: a longer review will come later.

This should say a little more about how busy I have been: my bookmark in Word of Mouth is a handwritten letter sent by a dear faraway friend which I have been meaning to respond to for a few weeks. I keep my to-dos closeby and together so as to add the guilt exponentially, which is a fun way to feel bad!

There is also some news to report that's not just ways that I'm slacking.

I have been named Managing Editor for Specter Literary Magazine. I am very excited about this. I am reading all of the poetry submissions, so please send in whatever you have. There are also other duties, such as remembering passwords to a new email address, a dropbox account, one more Submishmash account to look through, etc.

I have been going to classes at my local YMCA, and my legs feel like tiny things are inside of me lighting fires.

Another thing I have to do is remind myself of the good things that are eventually going to occur. I was pleased to be reminded that I have two poems up at Metazen. Some other upcoming publications include Beloit Poetry Journal and RHINO Poetry (both in 2012), Camroc Press Review, Stone Highway Review, and S/Word (all forthcoming this fall/winter), and I am STOKED to say I have had two poems accepted for publication in the third volume of Stoked!

Obviously things are changing up. I have had little time to write in the past few weeks, things with Specter are new and exciting, and the leaves are beginning to turn colors (I absolutely adore autumn).

But there are some things in which I find some consistency and comfort: reading submissions for PANK is always a delight, the rhythm of poetry editoring at Stymie is old hat, my husband keeps farting in his sleep, and of course I keep getting rejected. The count so far this year is six.

Look forward to some more posts from me in the near future. For now, we go to celebrate Will's birthday! Happy golden birthday, husband. (Oh Lord, we are so young. That is a good thing.)

Internet Games, Reviews, Rejections... All That.

Forgive me, Internet, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last blog post.

I have been getting ready for the kids to come to school. They do that on Tuesday, and I am simultaneously ready and not ready. I'm happy to be getting back into a routine, and glad to start getting to know the kids I will be teaching, but I know that I'm going to have to see kids pee their pants and hear them cry, and those are not things I enjoy.

Also, I have been playing the crap out of some internet games. My mom made me start playing another Facebook game called Gardens of Time, and I hate it and love it so much I want to puke. I think I wasted two hours today trying to find stupid hidden objects.

Oh, here is a picture of some old people jumping:

Later on this week, I would like to post a review of Ginger Piglet's first issue, whose theme is "Conversations Over Coffee." I got sent this in the mail a few weeks ago and have not gotten to it yet, as you can imagine, because I've been so busy playing Gardens of Time! I'm very important.

Another thing I'd like to review is a book called Word of Mouth, which I won from Hayden's Ferry Review in a twitter contest. So far, I have only read the first chapter, but my husband has been reading it in the bathroom, so I'd guess that he is further along than I am, and he might post a little review of it on his blog if I bother him enough about it.

Also, hey wow whoa it is September already! This means a couple of things:

1. It's not August anymore.

2. Today it's autumn-like weather, and hopefully we'll have lots more of that before winter pushes through. Autumn is my favorite season.

3. Publications galore!

This month I have a poem in Writer's Digest, which you can buy at any major bookstore or newsstand.

Also, I have a poem in this month's issue of Bluestem Magazine, which you can find here. I'm so delighted to be featured next to my friend Jen Knox, and my Specter cohort Will Henderson. Please make sure to check their pieces out as well.

I will make sure to alert you about my other September publications as they are made public.

Another treat for you is that September 1 marked the end of 1 Year, 100 Rejections. For your viewing pleasure, I will have a complete list of my rejectors up at Specter Magazine's blog on Labor Day. For the record, I racked up 127 rejections and 22 acceptances.

I'm excited to move onto the second annual 1 Year, 100 Rejections. I even received my very first rejection on September 1. One down, 99 to go.

A Short Story

And by short story I mean a quick tale from my true life. I didn't start writing fiction. I have a husband for that.

This story ought to subtly tell you a lot of things about me, my past, and who I am. I just remembered it and chuckled to myself. Maybe not so much a chuckle as a titter.

When I was in junior high, I was in cheerleading. During things like halftime and part of third quarter, we got to take a short break. I of course went and bought a Mountain Dew and probably a Three Musketeers bar from the concession stand, inhaled them, and then went to the bathroom to take a leisurely pee.

As I entered the bathroom with one of my cheerleading buddies, I saw a man standing at the sink, washing his hands. Appalled, I yelled What are you doing in here!?

He turned around to reveal that he was, in fact, a woman. I'm... I'm washing my hands.

All I said back was Oh.

News-A-Palooza

The summer is wrapping up and I have tons of news to report. The school year is beginning, which means I'm starting to work with kids again, teaching them how to be awesome, i.e. teaching them how to read. I've spent this week in a preparatory class for kindergarten, working with five-year-old spitfires who are gearing up for the ol' grindstone. A surprising true fact: two almost-kindergarteners agreed by head nod that a unicycle should actually be called "finger wheel."

There's big news at the end of this post, so if you haven't heard already, keep reading!

Other news: I got my contributor copies of Neon in the mail this week, which are excellent and full of awesome words. You can check it out online or buy a copy yourself! It should be noted that Neon is a British publication, and you can tell because in my poem "The House Does Not Look Burnt" the word "color" has a U in it! I don't know how the Euro/Dollar stuff gets handled, but I would suggest just getting published by Neon, and then you get the copies for free and don't have to do math.

During the last week of July, I had five poems up at fwriction : review. You should check out everything they published in July, because they did a whole poetry month, which is pretty sweet.

In September, I'll have some things coming out in an array of magazines, including Metazen, Bluestem, Writer's Digest, and Specter. The poem I'll have in Writer's Digest is included due to the awesome fact of me winning a contest.

If you haven't checked out Specter yet, go ahead and click on that link right now. It's a great newbie mag that is kicking some butt, and not just because I blog for them.

This post is so full of links!!

Another little piece of news is that September 1 marks the anniversary of One Year, One Hundred Rejections, which I've talked about here and elsewhere. After September 1, I'll make sure to give you a grand total of rejections, maybe along with a little list of the acceptances I've gotten.

And now for the big news. My first chapbook, Ether/Ore, is going to be published in 2012 by NAP! I'm excited, and I ate ice cream today to celebrate. It's book time!

Overdue Blog Post

I am overdue for doing all sorts of things, the least of which is updating this blog, though by far the easiest to remedy, so I'm doing that now instead of an array of other things I ought to be doing.

It is always pleasing to me to go on the stats page for my blog and see the different Google searches that lead people here. It's also thrilling to see that one of my viewers is still using the Yahoo! search engine. I hope that he also still logs into ICQ to chat with his buds.

Some of my favorite search hits that lead people to my blog are "underwater basket weaving," and "angry Jenkins" or "Brett Jenkins angry" or any other combination of my name with the word "angry." Of course I get a lot of traffic from people looking up different kinds of rejections. But I think the most alarming of the hits so far has been "hired brett e. jenkins." Does somebody want to know who hired me? Or does somebody want to hire me? Is my employer looking up potential reasons to fire me? Who can say?

At any rate, keep putting strange things into Google. And also, if you want to hire me, I'm of course living in poverty while I work for AmeriCorps, so you are free to send me money for menial tasks, which can be writing related or otherwise. Nothing that the government is going to want records of, though.

Fledgling Mags and Rejected Rejections

So I've been watching a lot of Buffy, and doing the normal summer stuff: swimming, biking, complaining, night running, clacking away on my trusty typewriter, and reading a ton of lit mags.

I've been submitting to a lot of new magazines lately. I don't mean new to me, though they are that also; I mean baby magazines. The ones on Duotrope that say "fledgling." Ones that don't even have issues out yet.

What are your thoughts on submitting to new publications?

Anyway, all that aside, I've also been submitting to the tried-and-true mags, taking my lumps from the old favorites. Just this month I've added rejections to my pile from Caketrain, Wonderfort, The American Scholar, The Pedestal, and AGNI. It's a slow month, compared to June, when I got nearly twenty rejections. I suspect the editors are out doing the normal summer stuff, too.

Another thing I've been doing is sliding into the groove over at Stymie. I'm really loving this poetry editor gig. I do love reading for PANK, but the one great thing about Stymie is that I read only poetry as, duh, the poetry editor. Poetry is the thing I know about. I can read fiction and react to it, but the fact that I don't write fiction lends some ignorance to my opinions.

Apparently some people don't think my opinions are that valuable in the poetry arena, as just today I received my first rejected rejection, which the PANK editors know all too well. It wasn't an exceptional letter. Filled with the necessary expletives that one is prone to utter in her garage/living room/dorm room/kitchen pantry when she is rejected. The grammar was spot on. I just wanted something... more.

Some of my poems came out this month, too, so hooray for summer (Buffy Summers, ha). Check out two of my pieces in the latest issue of Emprise Review, and seven of my little nuggets at The Legendary. This coming week, check out fwriction : review, where I'll close out their poetry month. And of course, go forth and submit your own writing to these classy journals. And continue to take your rejection lumps without, you know, all the angry letter writing.