January 2016

Welcome to the launch of this website, and special thanks to its designer, the talented, patient, and very reliable Edison Chee (a highly-recommended chap)!

You might detect a nautical fixation. I dive, and when I’m not diving (that is, when I’m home in Brooklyn), I long for the water. I think of it as a wife whom I miss terribly, but who’s detained elsewhere, indefinitely, entertaining friends, while I’m exiled at home. One of these days …

I’ll be using the site for practical purposes: personal or New York Writers Workshop related announcements. And, on occasion, when I’m feeling foolish enough, I might offer a perception or two about this or that book, or film, or music, or issue.

Regarding the personal: I’m happy to be doing readings from the recently published chapbook, Yolanda: An Oral History in Verse, even as I develop more poems from the oral histories I gathered from Super-typhoon Yolanda survivors (a fuller collection is in the works).

Several new stories appear very soon: “Græy Area” (January, Mulberry Fork Review), “Reunion” (February, Helen Literary Magazine), and “Trap” (March, Sin Fronteras). I’ll post links when they go live.

Regarding New York Writers Workshop: we’re thrilled to be launching a new reading series, third Thursday of every month, beginning Jan 21, at Red Room, the totally swank and tres chic space located at 85 East 4th Street, one floor above KGB Bar. We hope you’ll come see us there.
​
And we’re adding a new component to our organization: Prison Writes, an organization devoted to bringing the craft of writing to those who have run into trouble with the law.