A positive cancels a negative, right?

Some of the Dublin poems were given the no-no, thumb-down, you-suck by an Irish lit mag. Oh well, they say this is normal for people like me: writers, I mean--that this is something we gotta get used to-- rejection.

I'm so much more than used to it. I expect it. I welcome it. It makes me feel just dandy. Dunno what my life would be without it. Empty and meaningless, very likely.

On another arty-farty note: in April, I will be giving a reading along with Julia, a fiction writer and a colleague of mine. Our reading is part of the Great Lakes Faculty Forum, where people present works in progress. As far as I know, our reading breaks precedent in two ways: 1) we're both temp faculty, and 2) we're both presenting creative works-in-progress, and in the past the GLFF's emphasis has been more on non-fiction works, like memoir or academic papers.

The best news of all is that since the reading is in April, I have a long time to add to my manuscript and revise it; and obsess over whether or not people will care about anything I've written.

But the bestest news is that Aunt Becky has given me an early Xmas gift since she will be in AZ over the holiday. It is a bottle of mental lube (read: gin) to begin the painful process of self-reflection and revision... one bottle won't see me through till April, but, it's always grand to have a head start.