Update (Again): Bellowing Ark

These past few days have really been a whirlwind. Placements in Gentle Strength Quarterly and in Paradigm, as well as another solicitation from Bellowing Ark to round out their selection of my Lilith pieces for the Feature section of the Fall 2008 issue. I also just got notification that a grant proposal I wrote to help me get to a library conference in October was approved to the tune of $1000. As a pal on Friendfeed mentioned, it is raining awesome all over me.

Anyway, in addition to the general awesome mentioned above, I just received the latest response from Bellowing Ark. In addition to the pieces they've already accepted ("The Book," "God in my Throat," "Retrieval," "Drawing Board" and "Original Sin" from the Lilith collection, and "I Want a Man," "July Night in Hoptown," "Ice Storm" and "Flash in the Pan"), to round out the feature of Lilith pieces, they've chosen "Occupying the Children," "I Will Not Lie Below," "Temptation" and "It Would Not Have Been Well."

A deserved shout-out to Greg Pape, this semester's poetry mentor, who has seen and commented on all of these pieces. Dear Greg: at the rate the revisions you suggest are getting accepted, I will totally owe my first book deal to you. I hope your wife doesn't mind if I say I love you.

Anyway. Yes, woo for the coup at Bellowing Ark - I was really concerned that these poems wouldn't find a home, being such a related series. I am *so happy* that Editor Robert Ward turned out to be a fan of this sort of exploration of traditional roles and of a female speaker who refuses to fit into those preconceived roles. It's been a very personal journey for me (and one that's not quite over, I think), and I've been hoping that someone would see the value in the collection.

Imagine how thrilled I am to get a request for the full manuscript.

Oh, yes. You read that right.

A request for the full manuscript once I read the journal and see how they do their thang. Go ahead and gimme some intarweb high-fives, people. Poets go lifetimes without getting that sort of affirmation. And if it doesn't pan out, someone still asked for it. I think that's a thrill that will never go away.