Moderating Cleveland Poetics and an Interview with Cat Russell

Michael Salinger created the Cleveland Poetics blog in 2008 and invited a bunch of local poets to be regular contributors. I was fortunate to be one of them, although life and other pursuits prevented me from contributing as much as I would have liked over the years. At some point a decade or so ago, Michael handed off his role of blog moderator to Geoffrey Landis. Our region owes both of these men an immense debt of gratitude for their generous and indispensable service to the project.

You probably know that Cleveland Poetics is also home to the Northeast Ohio Literary Calendar. Michael created that too. And though I did not contribute as much as I might have liked to the blog, I did early on embrace the role of the primary person responsible for maintaining the online calendar and keeping it as comprehensive as possible. Fortunately, I have had some help from others in the community who have admin rights and can add their own events. Cat Russell, for example, has been particularly helpful in recent months, having agreed to ensure that all of Literary Cleveland's events are included.

But back to the blog. A couple of months ago, Geoffrey Landis decided to hand off his moderator role and offered it to me. Now that I'm no longer as busy with caring for ill family members, publishing, event hosting, and so on, I have a bit more discretionary time and so happily accepted the task. That means I will be sharing more there. I also hope to recruit some more regular contributors.

One of my first posts in my new role there is an interview with the aforementioned Cat Russell about her new book, An Optimist's Journal of the End of Days and Other Stories. [2020, Venetian Spider Press]. I hope you'll check it out. And while you're at the Cleveland Poetics blog, give us your email address (you'll find "Follow by Email" in the right sidebar) so you can stay up to date on future developments, both on the site and around our northeast Ohio literary community. Finally, if you would like to contribute to the blog, feel free to reach out and let me know. 

Cat Russell and the End of Days: An Interview / www.clevelandpoetry.com

Featured on the CCPL's Writers Reading Podcast

In December, the Cuyahoga County Public Library recorded me reading 7 poems for their monthly Writers Reading podcast, and today I learned that my installment is online. Many thanks to Laurie Kincer and the best library system in the United States!

Listen here:

https://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/Services/William-N-Skirball-Writers-Center/Writers-Reading-Podcast/Writer-Authors/Podcasts/John-Burroughs.aspx

Top 50 Crisis Chronicles Cyber Litmag Posts During Its Six-Year History

Before GoDaddy deletes my old blogs, I grabbed a few screen shots of their statistics.  First here's a chart of the Crisis Chronicles cyber litmag's viewership since I started it in mid 2008.

click pics to see larger

And then here is a listing of the fifty most viewed works in the history of the Crisis Chronicles cyber litmag at its old site.

I've recently transferred the litmag's content to a new location.  As a result, some formatting problems have crept in and I hope to have those fixed eventually.  You can check it out, though, at http://cclitmag.wordpress.com.

Thanks for reading!

Top 50 Posts on Previous Tao of Jesus Crisis blog

Thanks to everyone who has responded with kindness to my last blog entry about a woman impersonating NightBallet Press to attack me on Amazon.  <3

As you know, this is my new Tao of Jesus Crisis blog.  The old one will be deleted by GoDaddy this week when they discontinue Quick Blogcast (hence my move).  But before it disappears forever, I wanted to save some of my GoDaddy statistics for nostalgia's sake.  For one thing, I find it interesting to see which blog entries have gotten the most views over the years.

Though I began the old Tao blog in 2007, GoDaddy didn't begin their new statistics format until the summer of 2008.  So these statistics don't include the complete history if the blog, but they come close. 

So finally, here are screen shots that show what the 50 most-viewed entries at the old Tao of Jesus Crisis blog were from June 2008 through June 2014.  Bear in mind that some of the earliest entries were also crossposted on MySpace, and these statistics don't include the number of views there.  (Click the pics to view larger.)

News

This is my new personal blog home. Earlier Tao of Jesus Crisis entries (from April 2007 through May 2014) will remain archived at http://taoofjesuscrisis.wordpress.com/

The new Crisis Chronicles cyber litmag home is at http://cclitmag.wordpress.com/.  We will continue publishing there into June, after which the six-year-old litmag will remain online as a static archive for the near future.

The new Crisis Chronicles Press blog is at http://ccpress.blogspot.com/.

All are works in progress.  More soon....