6 months ago
Lemony Snicket, source of inspiration (and childhood nightmares)

Mr. Snicket rarely appears in public, but when he does, it is best to avoid him.

Lemony Snicket is brilliant. And I don’t just mean his quirky writing. I mean he himself is brilliant, a mysterious and morbid genius in the guise of a man. So for your viewing pleasure, I have included a link to Snicket’s pep talk for a previous National Novel Writers Month. If this doesn’t cause you to pick up your pen and dash off a few inspired pages of that autobiography you’ve been wanting to start, then nothing will. 

Also, for the morbidly curious, I’ve included a link to the information page on the author’s own website.

The Lemony Snicket Pep Talk

Lemony Snicket, “The Afflicted Author”

7 months ago
Publishing woes

As a follow up to the post about the writers Anthony Carelli and Maaza Mengiste, I thought it would be interesting to post about book publishing. Both writers had odd starts in their literary careers since neither of them were published in the ordinary way. During the discussion portion after their readings, Carelli and Mengiste both mentioned that although both of them did send their writing out to many different sources that isn’t how they got published. Carelli sent his poems to an editor of the New Yorker, who not only published a few of his poems in that prestigious literary source but also asked for a manuscript of Carelli’s poems, which were published for him. Mengiste approached an agent of a fellow writer during a book talk, offered over her manuscript and voila.

These may be rare occurrences, but it may give us some hope for the future.  

Signed,

Jenna, editor - the Mill the blog.

7 months ago
The Mill The Change

So the Mill as a collective body has decided that the blog, this blog, needs work. Major work. So a few dedicated Mill members, and hopefully this number will continue to grow, have decided to put time and effort into this blog to make it something worth reading and worth dedicating time too.

The posts will be on a range of topics, from art to literature to music and everything in between. Hopefully we can create a place that is dynamic and interesting and inspiring.

Let’s see where this takes us.

Signed,

Jenna, editor - the Mill the blog.

1 year ago 2 years ago
Calico Grounds is a small press from Houston, TX that has released stuff from Jaimie Stewart (of Xiu Xiu) along with a number of Houston writers and artists.  They asked me last autumn if I’d like to release something, and that promise has finally come to fruition.  It’s eighteen new poems/prose pieces from this past fall and I’m pretty psyched on it. It’s available here and only $5 plus S&H.  I’ll only have a few copies to sell, so grab them from their site if you’re interested. Peace.

Calico Grounds is a small press from Houston, TX that has released stuff from Jaimie Stewart (of Xiu Xiu) along with a number of Houston writers and artists.  They asked me last autumn if I’d like to release something, and that promise has finally come to fruition.  It’s eighteen new poems/prose pieces from this past fall and I’m pretty psyched on it.

It’s available here and only $5 plus S&H.  I’ll only have a few copies to sell, so grab them from their site if you’re interested.

Peace.