Southern poet, rogue, and Pulitzer nominee Charles Clifford Brooks III interviewed me for the third issue of The Blue Mountain Review, and we discuss my thoughts on the literary community, where quality writing comes from, and of course, fight clubs...which don't exist, I promise, so please stop asking...ahem, anyway. The issue also includes three of my poems, "dawn and the empty bottle of wine," "Having Come Down the Mountain," and "How to Read the Braille of Your Heartstrings." You can read the entire issue online (I'm on page 89), and it includes a ton of other spectacular writers and poets, including Dr. John Ratledge, Regina Walker, Rowan Johnson, and others. Thank you for taking a look!

The bad apples are out there in every field and occupation, and the publishing world has plenty of those wormy, half-trodden, utility apples lying about the orchard. The vast majority of editors and writers have amazing, productive, inspiring relationships, or at least working acquaintanceships, or at the VERY least they don’t hate one another, but sometimes those wormy bad apples come calling from both sides of the publishing lines.

I don’t intend for this to be a gripe session, not at all, but I do want to hold up some apples to the light and examine them with the hope that it makes the writing world a happier place to be. And it’s important to remember that these are cautionary tales, not the norm—so with that in mind, here are some things that bad-apple editors and writers should both stop doing immediately to make this publishing life a little easier on the rest of us.

Interviewed by The Blue Mountain Review

Dear Editor, Dear Writer, Please Stop!