Ian checking out his copy of my new micro-chapbook, “Who’s the Skirt?”

You know how if you do an online image search for “summer” you’ll come up with all these images of people lounging on wide verandas sipping mint juleps, or floating on an inflatable raft in some tropical-blue pool with some juicy book in hand, looking as if they’re just too lazy to raise their hand to turn another page?

Is that your summer? Nope–it’s not mine, either. But here are a few of the things I have been up to.

While I’m no longer publishing Newport Review, the magazine has been given a safe haven by the online journal Literary Orphans, and they will continue to host the archives. Future special projects are still a possibility.

I’m still editing, though. I’ve taken on the position of Flash Fiction Editor at one of my favorite new journals, Cleaver magazine.

And I’m still (always) writing. My short story “What Daisy Knew” was just chosen for the Great Gatsby Anthology to be published by Silver Birch Press in 2015. Another story, “Lost in Supermarkets,” was accepted by NANO Fiction and will be published in an upcoming issue.

A micro-chapbook of six of my tiniest stories, Who’s the Skirt? Mini Stories has just been published by Rhode Island’s own Origami Poems Project. It’s now available wherever OPP poems are distributed, in libraries, bookstores, and cafes throughout the region, or from the OPP web site.

I’m still teaching and sharing my love of flash fiction. I taught a one-day teen writing workshop at Newport Public Library this week, and I’m also leading an ongoing six-week workshop at the Essex Public Library in Tiverton, meeting Wednesday evenings from 6-7:30.

And tonight, I’ll be one of the featured readers in the Wickford Art Association’s second annual Poetry & Art Exhibit. I’m looking forward to meeting the artists whose work I responded to and to hearing some incredible poets read their work. Last year’s event was an amazing gathering; here’s a news article about this unique pairing of visual art and literature.

Art, Poetry Merge in Wickford Art Association Exhibit