Update on Many Things

I have completed Men of Honor , the sequel to Pirates of the Narrow Seas , and posted it online at fictionpress.com. A few enthusiastic readers have read the first one, and I hope they will enjoy the second one, which I personally think is even better. Both novels can be read free online at: http://www.fictionpress.com/~mkei

Having been spending my creative energies on the novels (I think there is one more story in me about Lt. Peter Thorton and his adventures), I haven't written much poetry. Tanka requires relaxation to enter the contemplative state of mind necessary to write it, and there hasn't been much of that in the past year. My young adult children have come to live with me full time, my promotion at work has been full of stress thanks to a bad boss, and the crazy schedule I work at Wal-mart means I have rarely been able to take the solace of working the skipjack.

On the positive side, my health is the best its been in decades as I roll the cancer dice and beat the odds once again. My son, who is autistic, is working for his GED. And being able to write a novel is a signal achievement, since the ability to process language was a casualty of developing narcolepsy long ago. I cannot say I have overcome narcolepsy, but I have rebuilt my skills to the level that I can function in spite of it.

Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka is also consuming a great deal of my time. The nomination process is in its final days, after which we will need to make our final selections and I will need to contact the poets to request permission to reprint. A final date for the appearance of the anthology has not yet been selected, but it will be in the spring of 2009. I and my editorial team has read approximately fourteen thousand poems and has achieved our goal of reading all tanka published in English in 2008. We are grateful for those poets and editors who provided us with copies of their works.