This is one of those songs that’s definitely a bop of a tune despite its unboppish subject matter. And in other news, I love it.

Here you go. Have a mellow Monday night.

I have not been shy about telling people how much I like working with my current publisher, Memento Vivere Press. They’ve been really good for a variety of reasons, which I will go into if yo…

Hello! Around this time of year, for several years, I taught a Gothic Elements Fundamentals class for fiction writers through Writespace. That organization is no longer with us, I’m sorry to …

This might be my favorite Guster song, although I admit I haven’t heard their entire catalogue. I do love it, though.

Make/Create Poetry and Art Zines Led by multi-award winning author and poet, Angélique Jamail  Zines (or self-produced miniature magazines) are one of the best-kept secrets of the literary world and c...

If you don’t know Stevie Ray Vaughan, you probably need to. He was a legend, an absolute g.o.a.t. of American blues. He tragically died in a helicopter crash, but at least we still have his e…

So unfortunately the jazz I posted yesterday was in fact made with AI, and I apologize for not realizing it sooner. So I’ve taken that down and will instead give you this earworm by Cake. thi…

We’re doing something a little different for this week’s earworm. Today’s a day when I need to complete my whole to-do list, because tomorrow I will be going back into the classro…

We’ve been watching The Bear recently; we’re in the middle of the second season. It is, hands-down, profoundly excellent television. It sharply, authentically captures the intensity of …

So as I wrote about here recently, last month I had the very great pleasure of attending my first American Library Association Annual Conference, in Chicago. Since my own participation in the confe…

This past weekend my family and I were in Austin for my brother’s wedding! It was so much fun! And I got to be an officiant. (Which meant, of course, that I had to become ordained — whi…

A couple of weeks ago I had the very great pleasure of attending my first American Library Association Annual Conference, for their sesquicentennial year (the 150th anniversary). It was in Chicago.…

So this devastating news recently came out: the San Antonio Book Festival is in danger of losing all their funding. This is such bad news. Not only is this festival a famous — and famously go…

I’m back home and have much to report about my recent visit to Chicago and ALA, but for now I’m kind of exhausted and hungry after such a road trip (more on that later), so please enjoy…

Hello, Chicago! I have arrived. Your city is delightful so far. I’ll be at the American Library Association Annual Conference here in Chicago this weekend. You can find me tonight (Friday) at…

One of my Pandora stations has been playing a lot of acts that I loved in the 90s and reminding me of some really great music from then that I haven’t heard in a while. I’ll be sharing …

Why does it seem like summer is always so much busier than the school year? Maybe it’s the mutable (lack of) “routine,” maybe it’s catching up with the 287,268,237 doctors&#…

Welcome back to Ordinary Time on the blog, when on Mondays we usually have earworms. This weekend a song I hadn’t heard before was all over the radio. I listen to Houston radio pretty often, …

Earlier in this year’s series I’ve featured ekphrastic poems by Tamara Nicholl-Smith, Kimberly Hall, Kelly Ann Ellis, and Margo Stutts Toombs — the last three of which were publis…

This ekphrastic springboard poem by Kimberly Hall was inspired by the painting Landscape Between Storms by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The poem appears in the anthology How to Tend a Wall. It also comes…

David Fahl is a singer-songwriter and a regular reader at the 1st Friday open mic poetry readings, and last time I hosted (in April) he read this poem, which I really enjoyed, and graciously allowe…

If you ever get a chance to hear Chris Wise read his poetry live, definitely go do it. His delivery is everything. Chances are the reading will be NSFW for at least one or two or nine moments, but …

Fun fact: if you do a Google search for Shakespeare’s poetry on the subject of having trouble finding a job, you will be informed that The Bard was not familiar with 21st-Century unemployment…

As today is my own dear and loving husband’s birthday, I’m featuring this delightful poem by Anne Bradstreet. She immigrated to the colonies in the 1600s from her beloved England and wa…

Tonight’s poem comes from my friend Courtney O’Banion Smith, whose book In Fidelity is really wonderful. Parts of it are a series of ekphrastic poems based on surrealistic paintings; it…

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Here’s another ekphrastic poem, this time by Tamara Nicholl-Smith. I love the way this one uses the visual artwork as a springboard inspiration for something else entirely. This poem was firs…

Join us as we celebrate the launch of Stray by Angélique Jamail! Featuring special guest David Jón Fuller, author of Venue 13.

Friends, I cannot tell you how absolutely gobsmacked I was this weekend at my book launch. It was fabulous in every way! The audience was marvelous, and Blue Willow Bookshop did their usual excelle…

I ran across Harry Baker, a spoken word poet, on Instagram and really like what I’ve seen of his work. In particular is this one poem, which is apparently highly requested for weddings. I can…

I’m jumping in here with some interesting news and a request. On Wednesday, April 29th, I’ll be interviewed on the radio program Living Art for their full hour-long episode, in advance …

Between school (which is very busy right now), marketing ahead of my book launch (on May 2nd), and the book tour which has already begun (appearances started April 11th), I have decided to give mys…

Ekphrastic poetry is one of my favorite forms, and I’m sharing more from How to Tend a Wall this month. Next up is Kelly Ann Ellis’s poem “You can go to hell and I will go to Texa…

One of my first projects when I became the Director of my school’s Creative Writing Program was to institute a Poet Laureate. Two of them, actually: one from among the high school Creative Wr…

This poem, “Healing” by Mary Wemple, resonates soundly with me at this time in my life, when I can feel health concerns that were previously irrelevant making themselves less so. It rem…

This is a lovely poem by Rebecca Danelly, chosen while my mind is still in the cosmos. This is a revised version of a poem published in Whale Road Review, Issue 37, Winter 2024. Elegiacwith a nod t…

I recently came across this poem and really enjoyed it, and it hits a little differently now — but still in a good way — after seeing Project Hail Mary last night, which was at times bo…

Today’s feature is a poem by the excellent Saba Husain, a dear friend of mine who also serves with me on the board of Mutabilis Press. I encourage you to read her collection, Elegy for My Ton…