This blog hasn't seen any activity of late, but it's still here and I have a couple of reasons to revive it, although I don't expect there will be many readers. The first is my new or renewed interest in very short stories, many of which I've stumbled on through my feed on X, and I thought I could maybe do my own small part by giving them a mention here.
The second thing is more timely. I am the book review editor at Escape Into Life, a lovely arts and lit website started by Chris al-Aswad. Chris died as a young man just as he was getting the website going and the family asked a friend of his, Kathleen Kirk, if she could possibly keep it going in his memory. She in turn asked me to come aboard and I was happy to do so.
Kathleen among many other contributions has often featured a poet's work, accompanied by beautiful and aptly selected art. We had talked at different points about my doing that for fiction or prose. It was only a few weeks ago that I realized that I had a suitable candidate. Tom Maderos, who is a longtime friend of mine had been sending me what he calls 'squibs'--little daily life reflections, and I realized that they would suit the format perfectly. When I started thinking about how to find suitable work to illustrate, Tom reminded me that he actually has many paintings of his own, and I saw that would be the best accompaniment of all.
Anyway, here's the link. Enjoy.
Be back soon, I hope.
