Rough Drafts

Personally I don’t mind the gratuitous boobage in Game of Thrones. Any shape or size: I am a fan. But if those boobs are accompanied by a complete absence of relevance or character, it starts to feel a bit empty. Throw in loads of violence — especially when that violence seems to have no point […]

I went to Austin, and I came back with an excellent orange beanie. I also spent a lot of time talking to interesting people and — when I wasn’t busy producing content for VentureBeat — drinking a bit too much. (And I made a brief appearance on NPR, which made my mom really proud.) I’m […]

“If you’re bored, you’re not paying attention” has been the motto on my blog for at least a couple of years. I’m not sure where the phrase came from, but to me it’s a statement that there is always something interesting going on, if you are simply willing to take an interest, open your eyes, […]

Silicon Valley has a race problem. You don’t need a Twitter fight to tell you that. And, while it’s great that CNN has made waves with previews of its upcoming show on the subject, you don’t need cable TV to tell you that, either. (For two smart views on the controversy, read Hank Williams and […]

Poet and publisher Dave Bonta spoke to me on the phone awhile back for his “Woodrat” podcast. He got me to talk about everything from how I handle submissions to tinywords, what my publishing philosophy is, why haiku is important, and what I learned from studying poetry with Louise Glück. We also ta

This essay is forthcoming as a broadsheet from Cross+Roads Press, and is based on an interview published on Basho’s Road in December, 2009. For me, poetry is language under compression. And there’s no more compressed form than the very short poem. Skillfully done, a tiny poem can speak volumes — it

one petalfrom the princess treeclings to the windshield—I drive awaylooking in the mirror un pétalede l’arbre impérials’accroche au pare-briseje démarreen regardant dans le rétroviseur published in 25 Canadian Tanka Poets in French and English : Atlas Poetica, May, 2010. French translation by Mike M

The haiku and micropoetry journal I edit, tinywords, got 875 submissions in the course of 2 weeks for our upcoming summer issue. Since I expect I’ll be able to publish about 50 or 60 poems in this issue, that means the acceptance rate is going to be significantly less than 10%. It also means I […]

Apple announced the iPad Wednesday, and with it added e-books to the menu of content it’s selling via iTunes. But I can’t believe that Steve Jobs is going to stop there. Brian X. Chen and I predicted on Tuesday evening that Apple’s big announcement would go beyond the iPad, and include the announcem

Ten years ago today, I was in the middle of trying to get a content syndication startup off the ground. I’d just left InfoWorld, where I had a cushy gig as a columnist and content development editor. In six months, the startup would be dead and I’d be back to journalism, this time as a […]

From my own experience, and the experience of friends who had spent months to years to a lifetime devoted to little magazines and small presses, I knew in my bones that tinywords had become overwhelming. This stuff eats you alive. But I also knew, it’s damn hard to let go once you made your mark. […