we have always lived in the castle

11/17/2017

Oh, hi guys. Remember me? It’s been a while. A bit has happened, but maybe most importantly: I got married!

We were surrounded by 28 of our friends and family, and it was a really lovely day. So that was something, anyway.

Today was a pretty banner week for Ole Kolleen. I had THREE poetry acceptances: “Everyone is a Predator” will appear in Moonchild Magazine; “A Correspondence Between Laura and Dale, 1989” will appear in Occulum; and “Convenience Store Cigar, Four Times” will appear in my dream journal, Glass. Obviously all of these acceptances have be over the moon so I did what any reasonable writer would do and cried a bit in the tub and then bought an overly expensive brunch (avocado and burrata toast with heirloom tomatoes).

Zoetic Press is now open for submissions for NonBinary Review #16: The Little Prince. I am very very excited for this one. #15: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, will be available 12/1. We’ve also updated our Patreon recently, including a level to receive our chapbook series, Viable.

Meanwhile, Drunk Monkeys has an all-Trump issue out, which includes this knockout poem by Bonnie Rae Walker. We’re closed for poetry and fiction at the moment, but I am hoping that we can catch up and open those categories again soon.

I suggest everyone purchase “The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surving My Mother’s Suicide” by Gayle Brandeis. I just got my copy today and I am excited to dive into it, even though I am in the midst of reading six other books.

I am back to doing my advice column at Five 2 One Magazine, so if you need advice from a friendly mess of a girl, write to me at sincereadvice521@gmail.com.

Let’s see, what else? I picked up a small side gig tutoring, which is cool. It’s nice to be on a campus but also not saddled with the burden that a lot of my teacher friends seem to be facing. I’m just here, living my little life, waiting to push through the holidays.

I think that’s it for now. Later days, buddies!

9/8/17- What a day.

Wow, today was a real whirlwind of a day, and not just because I took the wrong dose of Wellbutrin.

First, my article regarding the sewer sex scene in IT went live on Birth.Movies.Death. I was very nervous about writing this, because I did not want what I meant to be misconstrued, but I also wanted to be as delicate as possible given the nature of the content. I suppose it went pretty well; there are some errant negative comments but overall it is a positive experience, and even people who disagree with me are being polite. I couldn’t ask for more, really.

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Then, the reprint of my blog post from a few weeks ago went live on VIDA: Women In Literary Arts. As much as I would like to move past this subject, it’s still on my mind, because wow who would think that women would be afraid of men who are scary, regardless of distance or if it’s just on the ole internet? Mind boggling! So I am still sort of talking about it, and am glad VIDA took interest in it.

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Then I got paid for some of my writing, which is good because I always need money, but is bad because what if I get used to it and never go back to being a broke poet again?!

THEN I opened Instagram to realize I won an IT bundle from @wu_stitch and @crooked_hooker!

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Essentially, I am on cloud 9 today, and I don’t care who knows it.

As for work round-ups:

–Drunk Monkeys has two calls for submissions right now. We are looking for one piece of a scary nature- any category- for our 10/31 post. You can submit anything you’d like to drunkmonkeyseditorial@gmail.com. Do not use Submittable for this, just email with the subject line: HALLOWEEN SUBMISSION.

We’re also looking for political submissions for our November issue, which is dedicated to how awful Trump is. WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR 100% OF OUR SUBMISSIONS TO BE FROM WHITE MEN. Honestly, we need diverse voices, so feel free to send your stuff to drunkmonkeys79@gmail.com. Again, do not use our Submittable for this. You can read all the guidelines here. We will be donating all of our Patreon donations for the month of November to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group which is dedicated to tracking the spread of hate groups across the country.

We are otherwise open for submissions in every category. Please read guidelines before submitting.

–Zoetic Press is seeking submissions for the next two issues of NonBinary Review: We Have Always Lived In the Castle and The Little Prince. We are a paying market so check out our guidelines and send us your best.

Also, NonBinary Review has a new issue out: The Complete Works of Hans Christian Andersen. It is our biggest issue yet! And it’s only $1.99.

Finally: I wasn’t posting much when this happened, so allow me to post an older interview by Alex Schumacher for his column Breadcrumbs From The Void on Five:2:One. Alex rules.

That’s it; I can’t possibly write any more than that.

8/7/17

I wrote about obsession and the movie Chuck and Buck for Birth.Movies.Death. I had a lot of fun revisiting this movie; I don’t think I’ve seen it in about 15 years, but having watched it three times since I purchased it for the article, I can say with great honesty that I do not want to watch it again for another 15 years.

On August 25th we’re hosting a chapbook release party/ reading at the Book Show in Los Angeles. I am donating 50% of sales to Book Show’s fundraiser, and I am reading with some really great people: Ashley Perez, Rachael Warecki, and Joseph Iraggi. Drunk Monkeys founder Matthew Guerruckey is hosting, and it should be a fairly lovely summer evening. I would love to see you there.

Over at Drunk Monkeys we’ve wrapped up our themed issue, Vice and Virtue, for September. We received a LOT of intriguing submissions, but man alive, there are other vices besides sex! This was a fun one to build and I’m excited to show it to you all. Regular submissions for poetry and fiction are still closed right now, but I am hoping we can open them back up in September.

Zoetic Press is reading for NonBinary Review #15: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and we just announced #16: The Little Prince. I am so happy!

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Finally, I just finished We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samatha Irby and I highly recommend it. I’ll be writing a review for Drunk Monkeys, but until then…just trust me.