New column is up!

My newest column is up at GotPoetry.com: Your Mediocre Political Poem Is Hurting America. Usual Victor grumpiness. Eventually, all of these columns are going to be taken, reworked some, and expanded to produce what I hope may be the least-encouraging book on writing ever. Because a career in writing is NOT the Special Olympics. NOT everyone is a winner.

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Missing the wife like crazy wile she's gone. Got many, many pages of "Nihilist Chic" revisions done last night -- blocked off another bit for where I realized something was missing, but was too tired to finish off the new section last night.

Still, it's my hope to finish this draft up before Lea gets home. Also want to finish the Theseus poems in that time. Like I said, I miss my wife madly, but if I'm gonna have solitude, I may as well use it.

Bye, bye Tatnuck Booksellers

So, the big news today is that Tatnuck Booksellers, Worcester's venerable independent bookstore, is closing down. (It appears their second store will remain open, although I'm not sure of that.)

I've gotta admit, we've not been shopping there lately. Their shelves have been more and more dilapidated since they've opened the new store, and frankly, while the rank-and-file employees were always friendly and helpful, there were one or two individuals associated with the store who were frequently rude.

They had some good authors come through -- Christopher Moore being top of the list for me, although other events were terribly, terribly run, such as the New England Horror Writers fiasco I was involved with -- where no one heard a word we said because there were no microphones. Not to mention the employee running the event practically brow-beating authors into leaving books, which promptly sat in the back of the store untouched for months.

But still, it always sucks when an indie bookstore goes down. Feels like the culture has lost a battle somewhere, and while I'm kvetching a little about the place now, I have to admit, I always poked my head in, in feverent hope that it would pull through, because it was once a great bookstore, and I'm sorry to see it go.

Observation I was surprised to hear myself make on the phone with a friend tonight...

The world would be a poorer place without all the bad poetry in it.