Last Lupin Review, for Now
Still Enamored of Lupin
Third Lupin Review
Second Lupin Review–We Still Like It
Pussy Hat Story Accepted by Podcast–and a Review
I am excited that Jasmine DJ, at What the Writers Wrote Podcast, has accepted my horror story, “The Pussy Hat,” and will be reading it on May 31st. I really like this story, but it has been hard to place, and I’m not sure why, though politics and feminism are not exactly staples of horror.
I did get some unsolicited feedback from a place that gives that with its rejections, and I found it somewhat flummoxing. The editor alluded to the protagonist as “an ordinary guy,” when I was under the impression that he was quite horrible–that is, if he was “ordinary,” our “ordinary” has gone horribly wrong. Anyway, the editor thought the basis for the monster was flawed. I can understand that because the basis for the monster is its manifestation of the protagonist’s horrific flaws. Obviously, if you see the protagonist as “an ordinary guy,” you will not perceive any basis for the monster and will flail around guessing and blame the story.
Suffice to say, I don’t think it’s any accident that a male editor rejected the piece, and then a female DJ/curator accepted it. But I would be interested to hear what any listeners to the May 31st podcast think about this or other issues connected with the story.
In the meantime, here is the first of our reviews of Lupin, which we liked a lot.
Our First and Last Review of Enterprise
We Finish Reviewing Years and Years
College Poem Accepted, and a Review
A few weeks ago, when looking through a drawer of old stuff, I came upon some writing I did in college. A poem struck me as tolerably good, so I submitted it, and it has now been accepted by Right Hand Pointing. I was probably eighteen at the time I wrote it, which means it is from 1983! Talk about evergreen content.
The poem is Asian-inspired, in more ways than one. When I was growing up, my friend’s mother translated Chinese poetry, and I was interested by it. And at the time I wrote the poem, I was taken with a Chinese violin student at Oberlin. We were never more than friends, but I enjoyed his company, learned from his teaching–he would burst into my practice room and help me phrase better–and appreciated the mug he made for me, shown above. My poem uses the mug as a metaphor for how I felt about him.
The mug still makes me happy when I look at it, and the prospect of sharing the poem is a joy.
And now, for something completely different, a review:
