Dowsing and Science Now Available

Good things take time, but they do happen.


With that in mind I am pleased to announce the publication of my essay collection Dowsing and Science by Texas Review Press, which the Huffington Post has called one of the United States' "top fifteen feisty small presses." Individual essays in the book have appeared in publications including Amarillo Bay, American Arts Quarterly, Barcelona Review, Boulevard, Chelsea, Connecticut Review, In These Times, Laurel Review, Pleiades and Texas Review.



The author's work, though, makes up only part of a book.

The striking cover, shown above, features a photograph of a work by James Reynolds, incorporated into a larger cover design by Nancy Parsons of Graphic Design Group.


I am also grateful that three distinguished writers, Richard Burgin, Wayne Miller and Eric Miles Williamson, offered generous comments for the cover. Future posts will include what they have to say, as well as some background on Texas Review Press.


While Dowsing and Science will soon be available from online sellers across North America, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia, it can now be purchased from one particularly well-known merchant based in the United States.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

I should have known. Tom Petty had this figured out a long time ago.


Today is February 18, and Dowsing and Science will be released on March 1. In any long view, that is the blink of an eye, an instant. Right now, though, that period of anticipation seems like an eternity.


My author's copies will arrive any day now, and then the reality will start to sink in. My publisher is graciously sending out review copies, a great weight off my shoulders, and I can move on to the business of hoping and fearing what reviewers might say.


Publicity arrangements so far include a blog tour with four stops scheduled in the next couple of months. Anyone who would like to extend that tour is welcome to get in touch.


Barring anything disastrous, there will be a Washington, DC launch event at some point in the spring. One venue that seemed promising for that purpose is closing at the end of this month, so event planning begins all over again.


Now there are readings and talks to schedule, and invitations are more than welcome. Fortunate are the writers who have agents and speakers' bureaus, and it would delight me to become one of them.


But for now there is the waiting. So close, and so far away, is the publication of Dowsing and Science.

Off to the Fair, or AWP and Me

To paraphrase Emily Dickinson, and do so badly, because I would not come to AWP, AWP kindly came to me.

AWP, generally pronounced by its letters rather than as rhyming with Walt Whitman's "barbaric yawp", is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. The initials also serve as shorthand for the annual conference, which begins today in Washington, DC, where I live.

Avoiding travel in a snowstorm of historic proportions is a stroke of good luck, and there are others. Without the burdens of representing an academic institution or speaking on a panel, I can take in readings and other events, as well as check out the Bookfair without any great pressure.

Of course, I will have a few goals and one scheduled event. Tomorrow, February 3, I will be joining edtor Jessie Lendennie and other contributing poets in a signing of Dogs Singing: A Tribute Anthology at the Salmon Press table.

Other projects will involve freestyle hawking of my wares. Newest among them is my sonnet "Botanical Garden," which is the February selection of Broadsided. I will be handing out copies myself, and others are encouraged to print out and post the poem, illustrated by Ira Joel Haber.

Also debuting at AWP is Issue 9 of Los Angeles Review, which includes my unusually long free verse poem "Labor Day at Venice Beach"--inspired, as they say, by actual events.

I am also in the pleasantly odd position of promoting a book I don't yet have in hand. My essay collection Dowsing and Science, described on page 49 of the Spring/Summer Catalog of the Texas A&M University Press consortium, will be published on March 1. It will be a challenge to make people remember the title of a book they haven't seen. Still, the collection contains essays of varying lengths, tones, and subjects, including a few personal essays as well as a preponderance of intellectual and cultural criticism, and that variety makes Dowsing and Science a compact and reasonably priced choice for classroom use as well as personal reading. (Yes, I am selling my book here.) It is presently available for pre-order from the publisher and online sellers in the United States and nine other countries.

Finally, I will be reminding people that they can still obtain my collection Settling for Beauty, which recently received a favorable review from poet and fiction writer Eric Hendrixson.

In the midst of all this I will have the opportunity to see friends and pass out my card, which includes the URL for this blog. Comfortable shoes will be crucial.

And now it's off to the fair or, in the word of British novelist David Lodge, "Whee!"

Late Fall Harvest: Dowsing and Science

As noted in a previous post, the harvest is coming in.

There will be a list of other items later this week, but for now I am pleased to report that my first essay collection, Dowsing and Science, appears on page 49 of the Spring/Summer Catalog of the Texas A&M University Press Consortium.

Published by consortium member Texas Review Press, whose authors include Richard Burgin, George Williams and Eric Miles Williamson, Dowsing and Science consists of essays appearing in publications such as Boulevard, Chelsea, and Pleiades. The topics range from the title essay to a discussion of Romanian history as symbolic condition and the survival value of esthetics. A few personal accounts appear in the collection as well, discussing my first experiences with salt water (a rude shock for a Midwesterner) and how in some circles I came to be known as a king. The bulk of the collection, though, is made up of what could be called the "Impersonal Essay" in a tradition practiced by Montesquieu, eighteenth-century English writers such as Addison, Johnson and Steele, and nineteenth-century American writers like Emerson and Thoreau.

I have been going over page proofs in the last several days and plan to make this collection the best possible experience for a wide range of readers.

Watch this space for a few more announcements in the days ahead.