URSULA, HEMINGWAY AND ME? FANTASTICAL.

Here we go. It's been awhile, but little to report. I seem to be stuck at 30 stories. I've been working on a story Weighty for some time now. Stuck. Probably because I ventured into unfamiliar territory. I'm a realist. Can't do much but stay there. I know. I know. Realism is a figment of anyone's imagination. One person's reality is another person's fantasy....and so forth and so on and such and such. Yeah!

Ursula

Recently was viewing a documentary on Ursula K. Le Guin. I was enjoying it until her hatred for Hemingway peeked through. She sneered at him as if it were his personal fault that most readers enjoyed his work so much that her own stuff did not make the cut for many years. I have had my years reading science fiction. Was a member of the Science Fiction Book of the Month Club as a youth in the Navy. Had books shipped to me at several duty stations. Nowadays, fantasy and science fiction demand large audiences. If you ask me, reality is taking quite a beating. Pushed to the side. Maybe? Maybe not?

BEATNICKING ALONG THE BEAT ROAD

Thirty stories now completed. Have been working today on my ms You Wake One Morning, Remembering. Rearranging the contents. I want to enter it into contests. Nearly 50 poems based on my dance with prostate cancer—it's discovery, treatment with radiation and hormone therapy and semi-recovery. The cancer's still there. Much reduced. My urologist says I'll die of something other than prostate cancer. Only time will tell. He's the one who likes to say, "Everyone's got to die someday."

Lately my rejections have been accompanied by requests to resubmit. Either editors are becoming kinder with their rejection letters, or I'm getting closer. I'm reading Hemingway's short stories recently, having finished Raymond Carver's. It's been a half year since a poem of mine was included in Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro's project, Washington Poetry Map. It's there near Huckleberry Mountain just north of Interstate 90. My record is pretty consistent—one or two publications a year. Nothing spectacular. Not bad for a writer who is a stranger to most, if not all, editors of literary magazines, internet as well as hard copy.

The recent photo reveals the fact I'm letting my hair grow long on the top. On top that is.