I’ll be off writing for awhile…

For next few weeks, I’ll be on the family farm in northern Kansas, finishing a screenplay project. This means I’ll probably only be blogging about once a week until sometime in May. In the interest of reducing spam, I’m disabling the comments here — so if you have any questions or comments just send me an email (which I will check every few days or so).

In the meantime, here’s a random sampling what I’ve been up to, and what I have upcoming:

• I am still taking applications for my Creative Writing Workshop at the Paris American Academy this July. Application deadline is April 30th, or whenever the class is full (and I’ll post here if the class fills up before the 30th).
• I am having a Vagabonding book signing at Watermark Books in Wichita on Monday, May 2nd at 7 p.m. If you’re in Kansas around then, come and see me!
• Before my recent return to the prairie, I spent the first two months of 2005 living in the French Quarter of New Orleans. This led to many interesting experiences, not the least of which was getting hired as an extra in the upcoming Lindsey Lohan movie, Just My Luck. This marks the third time in 12 years that I’ve been a movie extra, though I doubt the Rolf Potts Background-Talent Box Set (which would include Dr. Giggles and The Beach in addition to Just My Luck) would do much business at Blockbuster.
• The current issue of Harper’s has a Bill McKibben story called “The Cuba Diet”. Upon reading the article, I discovered that this exploration of organic agriculture in Cuba is thematically identical to a story proposal I sent to the International Reporting Project in 2003. In mentioning this, I don’t mean to imply that McKibben stole my idea (he is actually much more qualified to write on matters of health and the environment than I am) — I just wonder why a topic good enough for Harper’s was turned down (as it was in 2003) by the IRP. [Indeed, for all the variety of writing and travel experience I’ve accumulated over the years, I have yet to crack the code of getting grants and fellowships (though I suspect my lack of elite schooling has something to do with it: 70% of the IRP Fellows in the session I applied to were Ivy League grads).]
• I recently re-read a couple of my favorite books — Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, and John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. It’s probably the sixth time I’ve read each book since I was a teenager, but it was still a pleasure to re-immerse myself in the stories and characters. Kind of like re-visiting old friends.
• Speaking of which, some old college/Korea-expat friends recently visited me in Kansas, where I caught this fish.