Quiet Lightning has been so kind to pick up a piece of quick fiction I wrote for their May issue of Sparkle and Blink. If you are in San Francisco on the night of Monday May 4th I highly suggest you come out to this event. It is being held in one of the last great bastions of the San Francisco artist community.
I for one am very excited to read at  San Francisco Institute of Possibility.
Facebook Event Info and Invite here
The accepted piece I will be reading is about singing in your sleep.

While I lunchtime burritoed today I received an email that read the following.

"Hi Sean, 

I hope you are well since we last spoke. I'm following up to let you know that your review for “Your Smallest Bones" was selected by our Indie Editors to be featured in Kirkus Reviews 4/15 Issue. Congratulations! Your review appeared as one of the 20 reviews in the Indie section of the 4/15 Kirkus Reviews magazine which is sent out to over 5,000 industry professionals (librarians, publishers, agents, etc.) Less than 10% of our Indie reviews are chosen for this, so it's a great honor. I’ve attached the 4/15 issue to this email for your convenience."


If you click the email you'll get to the review they ran that is to be featured in their magazine.
Now I just need to find out where I can buy a print copy of the thing.

I guess back to writing jokes for my brief stand up career!

Can Mates of State cure the common cold? Will their upbeat and excitable vocals save Sean from the inevitable brain dead fatigue that such a illness bestows?

I am building, no procuring, I am curating and editing, I am co birthing a collection of poetry and prose with a good friend of mine.
 The Book/Project is called Sweet Wolverine.
We are looking to make a book of nonstop brilliance, the magma in the mountain, the bones in the body, the core of ourselves. I've had fun writing some promos as follows...


“We are accepting poetry and prose from the broken scratch in your throat that wants you better by coughing, don’t stop coughing, this record sounds better skipping."


"Sweet Wolverine is an anthology with breakneck words too bright to stare for too long, if your eyes hurt from your writing, submit to sweetwolverinelit@gmail.com"


"Most people get into car crashes, get into Sweet Wolverine, it feels just as good and costs much less. "


"If it’s not worth writing in your mothers blood we will not publish it. Submit to SweetWolverinelit@gmail.com we’re worth our weight in our mothers blood. "


"SweetWolverineLit; we only shared the recipes that gave us these burns."

Click this paragraph for the website I've thrown together for the project. I highly encourage anyone reading this to submit. We are not interested in who you are, or where you have been published, all we care about is the quality of the work. All Submissions to SweetWolverineLit@gmail.com. All formats accepted. 3,000 word limit. Deadline June 1st!

Also other project. On May 12th I will be taking the stage at Viracocha for a robust 5 minutes of stand up comedy. I know, I know. Will I bomb? Perhaps. So I have been and will continue to write hopefully funny jokes all month.

“What is that song, you sing for the dead?”

If we handled grief with simple exchanges, we would approach funeral parlors with delicate flutters, we would trade them in for truth. When made tangible those flutters may replicate the heart of a hummingbird. Then, when tangible, we would be given stones, for that truth.

This is what Sufjan Stevens does in his album Carrie & Lowell. He trades in flutters for truth, hummingbird hearts for stones. He does it with the softest hands. We can hear it, the finger picking kept busy like tears down the throat of those in mourning. Sufjan, however, seems to insist, instead, that our throats are made of rain sticks.

And that this crying, it is a beautiful sound.

  Departing from the brightly colored extravaganza of 2010’s Age of Adz, Sufjan returns to the white robes of his 2004 album Seven Swans. Though he would probably just tell you this is what he needed.
I think it is also what a lot of people need.

It is easily, also, so much more.

Towards the end of “Should have known better” the second track, Sufjan sings,

“My brother had a daughter
The beauty that she brings, illumination”

And I swear, this is when we trade in the stones- for live hummingbirds.
I would hate to hear these songs in a venue with standing room only.
Because they take you down.
They pelt you with the softest, heaviest, most brilliant feathers. 

I would play them at a funeral, with the greatest respect for the dead. And some at a birth, in hopes they welcomed this new heart with a gentle soundtrack to sleep, to live, to love, to exchange flutters for stones and vice-versa to.

These lines from Track 6, titled Fourth of July, they transcend poetry.

“…Sitting at the bed with the halo at your head
Was it all a disguise, like Junior High
Where everything was fiction, future, and prediction
Now where am I? My fading supply 

“Did you get enough love, my little dove
Why do you cry?
And I’m sorry I left, but it was for the best 
Though it never felt right 
My little Versailles.” 

The hospital asked should the body be cast
Before I say goodbye, my star in the sky
Such a funny thought to wrap you up in cloth
Do you find it all right, my dragonfly? 

“Shall we look at the moon, my little loon
Why do you cry?
Make the most of your life, while it is rife
While it is light” 



I highly urge you to give this priceless album a listen.
Especially if you are dealing with a loss, or a gift.