Poets in the Forest

I'm finally counted among the Poets in the Forest. While, I've been out to Leopard Forest Coffee Co.'s http://www.leopardforestcoffee.com/ monthly poetry readings sponsored by The Trillum Arts Center http://www.trilliumartscentre.org/ before, I've never had the guts to read. But after seeing Justin Blackburn read, I got brave. He is such a gifted poet, a philosopher wiser than his years and a fun, open, inspiriational performer poet. It was a fun night all round, I laughed a lot, (think I kind of rained on the fun mood with two of my poems, one of them about the neglect of New Orleans post Katrina. ) But I learned a lot, laughed a lot and am getting a bit better at readings. Still a wreck, still can't look at the crowd, only strangled on a few words this time.
Practice.
I met lots of cool folks, talked to Barbara Allen and Gil Allen. Gil is a professor of creative writing at Furman, veyr active on the poetry scene and has a small press too - 96 press.
So it's been a good week, what with my story "Creggie and the Coat of One Color" a disappearing shop story (dark fantasy -psychological horror) based on the dream of a friend, coming out in Dark Gothic Resurrected this month. Can't wait to get my copy. It's a gorgeous award winning magazine stuffed with goodies. And the cover is right up my alley. And following the dark themes of Halloween, Virgogray Press accepted my poem "Fear Not" for their death theme anthology.
Some weeks (like two weeks ago before I started this blog) are nothing but rejections, handfuls of them. I hate the days more than one comes in the email box, but they're par for the course, will always outnumber the acceptances by 80-90% and give me the impetus to either re-write the piece or send it back out into the publishing cloud of chaos.