Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Writing Project Update

Blogging, right? Good to do. I get so busy with other projects I rarely pop in anymore but it seemed like time.

Currently I have three completed novels and a poetry collection that I am shopping around with small presses. The novels are in the same world and kind of a series but they're all stand-alone work. It seemed too difficult & grandiose to try to find an agent and big press to publish them as much as I loved Harry Potter. This is X-rated queer Harry Potter for adults where the magic may all be a Schizoaffective delusion. Mary Gaitskill-influenced dives from glamour to abjection. Bit of a niche audience but literary fiction nevertheless.

Scaffolding is a nineties punk Portland prequel to my first novel Jet Set Desolate that took me 20 years to write. I have a query in to Bedazzled Ink for it. An excerpt, "Bent Scaffolding and Robotussin" is coming out at Entropy July 5, 2016.

Angelina at the Serrano is a noir journey of addiction, MFA and recovery in San Francisco, San Diego, CalArts and Los Angeles. It took 12 years. I have a query in to Publishing Genius about it. Excerpts were recently submitted to The Rumpus and Switchback but I'm still waiting for those believed editorial emails.

In Diary of a Hollywood Hedgewitch, a widowed Wiccan searches for love and sobriety from a fabulous Hollywood address. This one took 2 years. Barrelhouse Press is looking at it. There is an excerpt "Sidepiece Blues" in The Fanzine here.

Bleed Almond is poems about a queer mentally ill Latina struggling through love, alcoholism and heartbreak in Los Angeles. GusGus Press is looking at it. I submitted it to 15 contests as that is apparently how one gets a small press poetry book published. All rejections so far, still waiting to hear back from 3 of them.

Apparently productivity comes with sobriety. Good to know. Wish I'd figured that out so much earlier. I might still be married. I'm super-happy to be doing what I love & seeing results as I relentlessly submit work & keep trying. The sacrifices and hard choices of never having children, not pursuing a PhD, not cohabitating anymore or getting married again, managing Schizoaffective Disorder & dedicating my SSDI and family money-fueled free time into artistic and literary pursuits are what I'm doing. It is what it is. I must accept it & I do.

Angel's Flight Literary West, an exciting new Los Angeles online literary magazine is featuring eight oil paintings, a Q & A and a breakup poem in their Bastille Day issue on July 14, 2016.  Queer Mental Health will publish my essay, "Intersectionality and the Orlando Shootings" when they fix their technical difficulties. apt is publishing three poems in December 2016. I have a piece of Creative nonfiction in Bedazzled Ink's anthology Haunting Muses that is coming out October 2016. Thrilled to bits.

 I'm trying to send out more artwork to online magazines as right now all of these paintings and collages are sitting in my apartment gathering dust. Entropy's seasonal "Where to Submit" articles have been invaluable in my marathon sessions of carpet-bombing submissions. I understand that persistence, willingness to write for free, professionalism and social media networking are how this game is played. I'm in it to win it & I want to play.

Here's a mixed media oil painting called "Three Ladies." My too graphic for most NSFW Series is here.


Here's a photo of me my BFF Alicia took when I let her do my makeup. The revelation of eyeliner after being a red lipstick girl for so many years. The top is on backwards but tits never hurt.