I'm steppin' out with my baby

[Picture had to come down.... I think M's beautiful; she's less sure.]


Nine long months later and it's finally time. The docs are going to induce M on Monday morning at 8am. By the end of Labor Day (haha... irony) Baby McDowell will be in the world. We're excited and nervous... but mostly just ready for Monday to be here. Going to be a long day tomorrow. Family will start arriving (having divorced and remarried parents presents plenty of travel conundrums, but things are looking okay so far) tomorrow afternoon, so it'll be nice having them around, though I'm sure M will be bouncing off the walls with nerves and excitement.

Wish us luck. I'll post pictures when possible. Love to all of you who stop by here from time to time... all three of you.

NER, baby

So one of my poems from the latest issue of New England Review is on the web. Sweet. Thanks, NER staff. Rock on.

spead the word, peeps

This must be read and must be forwarded as much as possible. I feel for Stacey. I was a finalist at the CPR contest last year... if it had been me they messed with, things would have been handled much less stoically, must less professionally. Kudos to you, Stacey, for handling this absolute mess with class and dignity. When your book does land, does hit shelves, you'll have hundreds of new readers supporting you... and it'll be deserved and hard-earned. We are all looking forward to your book. Best of luck!

maturity in her take-offs

So I'm only taking 2 courses this fall... with baby coming, I felt it best to take it easy. Of course, I'm also Poetry Editor at Third Coast and I'll be reading for New Issues again this year (where I'm Assistant to the Editor, whatever that means), so all of that combined with learning French for the language exam, studying for comps, and other responsibilities, 2 classes seemed enough. It sucks because I'll then be behind, but I'm hoping to take two lit classes (or a lit and a theory) in the spring and a lit course over the summer. Then I can take some classes next fall and spring and do comps the next summer... I'll be too old and poor when I finally get out of here! Gosh, this PhD is exhausting to think about!

At any rate, here's the books I'll be reading for class this fall. I'm taking a Dante class and a workshop/contemporary poetry course with Bill Olsen (who's a great fucking poet if you haven't read him yet).

Back to writing... actually got a couple drafts down today. Had too many notes and post-its laying around.

been a long while

My nearly five-month-old nephew with his new shades. How flippin' cute is he? Haha. He's a crazy lil man... can't believe I'll have my own soon... unreal.

I took Rilke for an extra long run yesterday and when we got home she was exhausted. Here she is cooling off in front of the living room fan! So cute! Haha. She stayed like that for 20 minutes, her ears flapping and tongue hanging out.

~

New issues of Colorado Review ('my' issue isn't on website yet), Salt Hill, and New England Review ('my' issue will be posted on Aug 26th) are out and about. I have some work in each of them. I'm honored to be in each of them. Honored and thrilled.

Baby McDowell is on the way. M's in 'early' labor now. Could be tomorrow, could be a month from now. Pins and needles, people. Pins and needles. I'm gonna be a dad. Shit. Let's hope I don't mess this kid up too badly!

I've been away from this blog for a long time... well, that's not entirely true. I check all my links daily, read everyone's blogs, etc. Just haven't been writing here very often. Maybe I won't continue? I don't know. I used to write everyday; I used to write about poetics. Now I just write about non-writing related stuff 90% of the time. Oh well.

So many other things going on: new version of manuscript is ready to make the rounds this fall (I'm praying that this is my year), Baby McDowell's room is all done and ready to rock, my Gothic Novel class has ended (thank god), I'm ready to teach this fall, the first draft of the anthology is now with the publishers who will get back to us in a couple months, traded in M's car for 2008 Saturn Outlook XR (room for baby and two dogs and suitcases and everything else we take when we travel), etc, etc. Too much, too little time.