CAN ONE EVER BE A VIRGIN MORE THAN ONCE?

This last week, I did a few things I haven't done in about a decade. First, I completed a story I started years ago. I'm much more anal than I used to be, so the editing process has been frustrating, but I'm done. This story, "The Houses Where George Died," is ready to ship. Its first destination is Francis Coppola's Zoetrope: All-Story magazine. I know the former editor (now on the editorial board) from my experience at the All-Story writers' workshop in Belize back in the summer of 2000. Time to work that angle.

The other thing I did was actually submit stories to magazines I admire. I polished four stories from my prose poetry series, A Flower Fell, which was originally inspired by Baudelaire's extraordinary Paris Spleen. One story, "Kudzu, a Blur, or the Opulent Osiris," I sent to the west coast's Zyzzyva, a widely respected lit rag and a tough nut to crack. Three other stories -- "Sif in Chlorine," "Tantalus Running," and "Glowing Swans" -- I submitted to the quasi-surrealist Brooklyn lit/poetry rag Lungfull!, which has to be seen to be believed.

In the meantime, when I'm not working on my new short movie (nearing completion), I'm polishing "The Peripheral Man" for publication with a big rag.

I have a strong hunger to be published again. We'll see how it all pans out. I'm far more patient than I used to be.