More info

Marty Mattingly has gotten a hold of me, fortunately (I guess she was indisposed by sickness) and the info I'm getting is very interesting. Apparently there are plans to revive Waterpod and all that lovely junk, so that's going well. I'll probably email back and forth with her a couple more times to solidify the information and then post it to the web. It's refreshing to find an interview subject who's so excited and approachable, though at this point I shouldn't really be surprised by either of those things as I think they're more or less essential to a career in the arts.

Also, it looks like Bonnie Jo Campbell is having a reading in Portland (might have already mentioned this) on the sixteenth of this fine month and I'm going to try and get a hold of her while she's in town and meet up for a beer and quick chat. This will mean I will have to transcribe the interview, which is one of the most obnoxious things in the known world, but that will be okay because she is bound to have some interesting info and it will be a good excuse to do some quality drinking. I hear that just before she was nominated for the National Book Critic's Circle Award she was more or less set on quitting writing so I'm definitely going to ask her about that one (I've long held that the one essential trait of a writer is stubborness).

And speaking of writers and stubborness...Rough Copy has just launched it's first annual fiction competition. The prize is a modest $100 but hopefully this will pull more submissions to the magazine, so I'm helping spread the word on that one. Inform the interested parties.

Anyhow, that's the update. As usual, further bulletins as events warrant.