My copy of Too Much: Tales of Excess finally arrived, and it’s gorgeous! This collection of poems, short stories, and confessionals explore the various tales of excess by such writers as Puma Perl, Jeremiah Walton, John Saunders, Meg Tuite, Ryder Collins, Ron Kolm, and a couple dozen others. The collection (published by Unknown Press and edited by Chuck Howe) also includes my own semi-autobiographical short story, “The Rube,” about a drunken misadventure in a third-world nation. You can find copies at Amazon.com.

But the tales of excess don’t stop there. There will be a reading by many of the contributors on Saturday, October 4 in New York City. The reading takes place at Jimmy’s No. 23 at 6 pm, and I’ll be reading a short piece that night as well. Definitely come by!

In other news, I have been writing up a storm since leaving my position at Writer’s Digest. In the last two weeks I’ve written two new short stories and revised four more for an upcoming collection of short fiction due out next year. I also revised my children’s novel for ages 8-12 called The Little Blue Knight Vs. The End of the World, about a kid crazy about soccer and mac & cheese who also believes he’s a knight but ends up in all kinds of humorous trouble while trying to solve some very serious real-world problems in his life.

Finally, I am 80% through a revision of my hardboiled-crime novel titled Reaper City, and by the end of the week that will be out circulating with literary agents again too. All good things, but I don’t aim to slow down. There’s so much more I want to accomplish. I have two older novels I wrote just after college that need a full (and I mean FULL) revision, and I am only halfway through the first draft of a mystery novel based on an actual missing person case from 1945. The rest of the year is going to be BUSY, and I’m looking forward to diving in.

I want to thank you all for all of the support, especially recently as I try to reignite my freelance writing career. All of you who sent contacts and leads are amazing and I can’t thank you enough! I’ll keep you posted about how things go.