I finished reading 121 books in 2025

Many of them short. Many more yet in progress.

View the whole list at https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2025/7975528.

Lit Youngstown's free Winter Writing Camp is February 28th

I look forward to participating in Lit Youngstown's FREE Winter Writing Camp on February 28th, where I will present a generative workshop, "Beat Writer's Block," about using inspiration from Beat authors to jumpstart your stalled writing.

Register at lityoungstown.org/winter-writing-camp.

November 15th: Get Sharp! 2025 Ohio Poetry Publishing Conference

Join the Ohio Poetry Association on November 15th from 10 to 4:30 at the Cuyahoga County Public Library's South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch for an absolutely free Ohio Poetry Publishing Conference. Registration and more details at https://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/13881294.

Get Sharp! will include an Ohio small press book fair and fab workshop presentations by Dianne Borsenik, Geoff Anderson, Michael Salinger, and Susan Grimm.

Two poems in Main Street Rag's North Coast Voices 2025: Poems of the Great Lakes

I'm pleased that two of my poems, "Add My Tears to the Bodies of Water" and "So Much for Saving," will appear in North Coast Voices 2025: Poems of the Great Lakes, edited by Chuck Joy and M Scott Douglass for Main Street Rag Publishing. So many good poets are between these covers. And if you order now, the advance sale discount price is only $10. 

https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/north-coast-voices-2025-poetry-anthology/

Video: BeatLife's Belinda Subraman interviews John Burroughs

Thanks so much to BeatLife magazine and managing editor Belinda Subraman for the conversation! ♥️

At the end of the video, I read three father/dad-adjacent poems: "17 September 1966," "Matter Waves," and "Aim High."

Permalink: https://youtu.be/mKBKyZdnHgg 

October 26 on Zoom: Watching the Potomac Burn book launch

Next up - October 26th on Zoom - my friend Carolyn Srygley-Moore (a.k.a. C Leigh Srygley) is celebrating the launch of her new book, Watching the Potomac Burn, hosted by Dane Ince, and I'm happy to be one of the poets sharing work in support. We hope you'll join us!

Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1527480008379180.

[27 October update: I ended up reading four poems at this event: “When the Bat Signal Goes Dark,” “With Breath and Without,” “A Kiss for David Johansen,” and “Add My Tears to the Bodies of Water.”]

2025 Anthology of the River Roots Poets Published

So many thanks to Ohio Poetry Association President, Holly Brians Ragusa, for her hard work on this excellent project in collaboration with the OPA and America's River Roots. I'm thrilled to have a poem ("After Kao Ch'an") included alongside the work of so many fantastic writers! View the whole digital flipbook anthology at https://midd.me/aspt.

My Updated DNA Results

AncestryDNA just updated my results with more specifics.

Interestingly, however, a different DNA company, 23andMe, gave me slightly different results in 2021:

November 5th at the Center for Inquiry Libraries in Amherst, New York

Buffalo friends, I look forward to returning to your area on 5 November 2025 to read with Susan Nusbaum for the Literary Café at CFI (Center for Inquiry) in Amherst, New York. My final in-person reading of 2025!

Many thanks to Ryki Zuckerman for the invitation!

Center for Inquiry Libraries
1310 Sweet Home Road
Amherst, New York 14228

My poem appears in Stormwash: Environmental Poems, Volume 2 (released this week!)

Good to receive my contributor's copy of Stormwash: Environmental Poems, Volume 2 (Seaker Press). My poem "Potential Energy" appears in it. Thank you to editor Hiromi Yoshida for doing this important work. The book release happens this Thursday, October 9th, at Backspace Gallery in Bloomington, Indiana.

Info: Stormwash: Environmental Poems Showcase

Contributors also include Susan Kay Anderson, J.I.B., Jonathan S. Baker, Tony Brewer, Mary M. Brown, Chris Dean, John Epic, Jessica Reed, April Ridge, Kerry Trautman, Nick Wentzel, and many more.