Good news. When I last visited the local Barnes & Noble, I learned that two out of three of the autographed copies of Hungry Thing had already been sold, and the manager had ordered three more!

Because I put something different in each copy, I opened up the remaining in-store copy to see which bonus autograph variant had not yet been nabbed. It was this one. (see image below). I hope that's not a reflection on the poem!

 

"On His Deathbed, Uncle Mort" was actually composed as a companion piece to a longer, humorous story poem, "On Her Death Bed, Aunty Rose", first published in the now defunct Dastaan Magazine, Chapter 6: "Fantasy Lands" (Once free online, archive issues of the e-zine are now only available behind a paywall, here).

 In other poetry news, I printed a ream of my poetry already published online (much is available as free reads, see side bar) and mailed it to my parents. My father, who is also a poet, phoned me to say, "I bow to the master!" My mom reported that he cried with joy reading some of it. Now, that's good parenting.

Finally, I wrote a new humorous poem, "Angels Congregate on Wings", which I'm considering reserving unpublished for a chapbook of my poetry. I have a few about angels, which might allow for a themed chapter. So far, reactions to the poem have been overwhelmingly positive.