From The Slush Pile.

There’s A Name For That, You Know

No, I didn’t, actually. But as it turns out, there’s a name or two (or more, I suppose, although some may not be very polite) for books, like Irish Firebrands, which cross several genre lines: Fusion Fiction, or Kitchen Sink Fiction.

Imagine … all that variety, traveling incognito under the Library of Congress’s classification of my novel as “American Literature.”

2014: Year of Destiny

That tidbit about Kitchen Sink Fusion Fiction (sounds like the retro life I’ve been leading, ever since the dishwasher broke down six months ago) came from Janowyn’s comment at Tara Sparling’s blog. I also learned there that in June, Irish Firebrands will go viral! That’s because it’s the synthesis and apotheosis of all three of Tara’s “bestselling” Rainy Day Romance E-book Titles: Weak Female Falls For Controlling Billionaire, Pseudo-Independent Neurotic Finds Out Boy Next Door Is Actually A Stud and The Implausible Marriage Proposal. (Feel free to brag, “I knew her when….”)

Moreover, I need to get cracking and get the prelude novel and the untitled sequel whacked out, because Tara revealed the imminent revival of The Family/Romantic Saga. It took me only three years to write the first one. Just nine books left, to go! (They’ll just have to pry the keyboard from my cold, dead hands.)

We Have A Winner!

My collection of poems (published separately at this blog), took the red ribbon in the adult category at my local library’s first annual poetry contest!

The Ornament (concrete verse, on writing the first novel)
Hibernian Fire (a poem of the parallel universe)
Queen Medb of Connacht (limericks from Chapter 25 of Irish Firebrands)
A Quiet Night: December, 1916 (after Li Po)
Rebels Ban Erasers (cliché parody of Robert Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra)