chronicled & illustrated

I’m leaping into the publishing world!

Since last June, my friends and colleagues, Julie Serroul and Sherry Ramsey, and I have been planning and working toward starting our own publishing house. A tiny, fledgling venture.

Our debut publication is to be an anthology of short stories and poetry all in the speculative fiction genre and all on the theme, Undercurrents. Speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, horror, magic realism—you know: speculation.

This anthology is conceived as showing the alternate side of writing and writers on Cape Breton Island. As such, submissions will only be accepted from those who live, have lived or have a significant connection to Cape Breton.

For complete guidelines and information go to ThirdPersonPress.com.

Deadline for submissions is March 15, 2008.

birthday present!,
originally uploaded by nuanc.

Today is my birthday. This is a wonderful surprise gift from my husband. I’m thrilled to bits and pieces and would be out taking photos except that the battery has to charge first.
I should be reading the manual but I can only absorb so much at a time. Especially before I’ve even had a chance to take one shot!

Here’s a poem written on my birthday in 1995, revised for today

Birth Day

Sunday,
glistening glinting
but growing grayer
Yesterday,
not as showy
but with morning rolling into
an afternoon of full summer
changing to cool deep night
full of fire flies and intimacy
dissolving into the first thunderstorm
of a dry season

Today
is no memory
yet
present moment
elusive fleeting
already gone
capture impossible
unlike those fire flies
who let themselves
be caught
Let me catch
this moment more fully
these summery sights
this singular smell
symphonious overlapping sounds

As I write,
the sun comes
through clustering clouds
for the third time
I know
because I am witness
that today is no better
than the last two days
I know
because it is now
if there were but one
in all of creation
this would be
the day