Get ready for few changes around here.

I’ve been running The Writing Expedition for almost two decades in one form or another. It began as a Blogger travel blog when I was living in Bujumbura, Burundi, and grew into kind of nexus for all my publications and writing projects. This, my Pressfolios site, and my Substack newsletter have been really professionally useful, way more than the various Facebook pages I’ve started over the years. If you follow me here, especially if you’re a long-term reader of my posts, I’m grateful. It’s been a long road out of Africa to the UK, Austria, Ireland, Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic, France, Thailand, Japan, and back to the States. Thanks for traveling with me.

Sometime in the next two weeks, you’ll notice some changes to this site that have been pending for a long time. Bluehost will be its new home (though the domain will stay the same—there’s nothing you have to do). The obnoxious advertisements will (thankfully) be going away. There will be discussion forums for asynchronous writing workshops. I’ll also be offering some Zoom courses and private tutorials, covering beginning through advanced fiction writing, the magazine publishing process, how to win writing contests (I’ve won a few), increased editing opportunities (books, and short pieces, fiction and nonfiction), and story doctoring (which means you’ve written something but you’re stuck—we work on unsticking you). My newsletter will be picking up again and my podcast will finally be getting underway.

I’ve been a bit dormant (for me) over the past two months, publishing one magazine short story, two columns in Splice Today, and a small collection of blog posts. Mostly, this is because I moved to a rural area on the big island of Hawaii and just needed to rest, meditate, and take a semi-working vacation for the first time in 10 years. It’s been glorious, but now it’s time to get busy.

Things I’m not going to do: spam you with advertisements or engage in aggravating e-marketing foolishness. Most of what I’m offering will be through this site. But I want to make this announcement, say thanks, and remind you that I’m still here, still inflicting my ideas and opinions on an unsuspecting world . . .

FYI: New Story Forthcoming in Visitant Magazine

A recent short short of mine, “You Are Somewhere Else,” is forthcoming in Visitant and should be available online. As usual, I will post the links when the story comes out. – M

New story–magazine publication forthcoming.

Good times. My story, “Ghetto Fabulous” is forthcoming in the Atticus Review. I will post more information when I know the particular issue. Whee!

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Turn Pro…

Taking a short break this afternoon to post on my blog. I know the scene I have to write today. I know what has to happen in it. I can even see it playing out in my mind. So what’s the problem? Maybe caffeine will help. 37°F and misty on the mountain today. I won’t be up here for much longer. Possibilities for the next move include England, Estonia, Indonesia. In the States: Boston, NYC, D.C. We’ll see what comes back over the water . . .

The novel is just about done. That means book manuscripts 2 and 3 will be going in the mail to small presses and contests sometime this year. Then I ramp up work on the book dealing with gender performance and transhumanism.

Book 4, which will be my second novel, is already 80 pages into its first draft. And so 2013 begins . . .

State of the Union

Sitting in a big empty house in the foothills of Yosemite has certain advantages, not the least of which is the profoundly encompassing silence. Here you can think of, speak, or listen to anything and it will fill up the room like a new reality. Sure, during the day, I can sometimes hear a donkey braying in the distance. But he shuts up at night. Smart donkey. The coyotes are always lurking.

After a writing gig in East Africa; wandering around the lake district of Brussels in a bacterial stupor; teaching English in a graduate school for interpreters; publishing two more stories; teaching multiple writing workshops online; acting in an Estonian commercial; finishing my second book; and spending a fascinating, intense week in England, I’m back in California to regroup. I’m assessing the state of my union while getting the next set of trips, projects, and writings lined up. In terms of fiction, I’m working almost exclusively on the novel.

Yes, that novel, the novel that’s too mean to die. I’m determined to get this one finished and in the mail before this time next year. And NanoWriMo has nothing to do with it.

Where will I go next? There are a number of possibilities—back to Europe, out to Asia, even to various locations in the States. Maybe all of the above. The good news—at least for me (maybe for you, too?)—is that I will be getting back to regular blogging here. I also hope to add video to these posts as soon as my Handycam replacement cables come in the mail. So get ready.

In the near future, I will be writing about the horror that obtains at a regional writer’s conference and The Human Simulacra Project. I’ll also be talking, at some point. about the 3-student intensive writing workshops I’ve been teaching for the past two years since I plan to start offering these through this blog.

More to come.

Michael