Elizabeth Cohen, editor of Saranac Review informed me they will be using two of my poems in next year’s issue of this annual journal from the State University of New York in Plattsburg. The common thread of the two poems is racism and bigotry. “Tent Bugs” was written during last year’s residency at Willapa Bay, “Uprising,” based on painting by Susan List, during the 2015 Palm Beach Poetry Festival.

Congratulations to Cortney Davis, winner of the 2016 Wheelbarrow Books Prize for established writers for her poetry manuscript, Taking Care of Time.  My manuscript, Long Past the Last Stop, was identified as one of five finalists sent to the judge, Naomi Shihab Nye. I was floored to see that my finalist notification letter included several specific comments from the contest reviewers, both on why my manuscript was selected as a finalist and why it was not picked as the winner. Thanks to Laurie Hollinger and Anita Skeen at the RCAH Center for Poetry at Michigan State University for making the effort to provide me this information.

Michele Lesko, editor of IthacaLit, accepted a poem based on the archaeological discovery of an ancient leather shoe in a pile of desiccated sheep dung in Armenia. Dating tests revealed the shoe to be over 6,000 years old. I pondered this shoe, and the woman who wore it, and took the resulting poem to a workshop conducted by Thomas Centollela at Mary Morris’ house this past summer, and subsequently submitted it to IthacaLit. I expect it will appear in the online journal in its Spring 2017 edition.

Coltrane’s God has been honored again, this time by the New England Book Festival, which announced it was this year’s Runner-Up (sole) in poetry.

An incident on a bus between a man and a woman that coulda shoulda turned into a life-long relationship is the subject of “Sorry” posted in the November 2016 IthacaLit.

I’m glad to have my workshop on pantoums hosted by Jules’ Poetry Playhouse in Albuquerque on Saturday, November 5th from 11-2. I see it as an opportunity to share some wonderful pantoums and look at how they are made to do their magic. After the workshop, we’ll do an pantoum open-mic.

Innisfree Poetry Bookstore & Café in Boulder, Colorado will host my reading on October 27th at 7 PM. I love that “poetry” is in the name of the business, and the use of “Innisfree,” which recalls the famous W. B. Yeats poem that begins:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

Ginosko Literary Review posted five of my poems in its 18th issue.  I am pleased to have poems in this respected journal.

I received my contributor’s copy of the Summer/Fall 2016 issue of I-70 Review. Edited by the esteemed Maryfrances Wagner and others, contributed to by the likes of Michelle Boisseau, H. L. Hix, Al Ortolani, Kevin Rabas, William Sheldon, Alarie Tennille, and Diane Wakoski, I am honored to have two poems included inspired by traveling with a working plein air painter, Jane Shoenfeld.

Congratulations to Deborah Bogen who won this year’s New Letters Award in Poetry.  My friend Leslie Ullman was in the running as a finalist, as was yours truly, but no cigar this time. Here’s the link to the announcement.