I’ll participate in a panel at Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Literary Festival called “Becoming a Writer,” in which I should talk about my experience with self-publishing and all the steps of the seemingly infinite ladder towards making one’s name emerge in a very crowded and noisy market. Of course, I’ll talk about having the book on lulu.com, more as something anyone should do if they’re not going through getting their work torn apart at an MFA program to shake them out of their bad habits. We always question that, we, the beginners. We don’t like to have our egos deflated as an exercise. Perhaps that distinguishes the hobbyists from the wannabe professionals. All the same, I feel that with the Internet and people’s changing habits, an Internet presence is necessary if you want to be an author and it doesn’t seem you’re in line any time soon for major recognition. Anyone can start a blog like this one on any free service currently available (if you don’t like google, try wordpress). The harder part is to …

OK, I’m probably not reporting anything new by telling you about newpages.com because if you just google “literary magazines” or “online literary magazines” it shows up at the top of the results. I may even have heard about newpages.com, and it may even be in my browser’s bookmarks for what I know. Except that today, faced with another rejection letter and faithful to my promise to just keep submitting the same story to other magazines, I felt overwhelmed by the number of literary magazines out there. It became even more overwhelming once I found the lists at newpages.com A few days ago, I thought: I’ll start my own! I know how to make websites, and since I even own the web site, litbazaar.com, I might as well use it. That will take a long time. And there are so many out there! How many writers can there be? Some of the most obscure (to me until now) online magazines already post “no more submissions for now, please,” and it feels like arriving in a town …

Wow, I keep forgetting that the rest of the U.S. out there is really strange. They keep thinking whoever isn’t like them, i.e. ignorant, is dangerous. It reminds me of what we learn about the Middle Ages, and frankly the U.S. has been plunging into something like its own version of the Middle Ages for a while now. It’s amazing that today, with technology that would allow anyone to get a proper education, we can hear them. There’s the case of Sally Kern, a State Rep from Oklahoma spreading her message of hate and bigotryhttp://www.victoryfund.org/files/listening.html And then, much more to worry about the loss of civil liberties that is now an institution, a University professor in Florida was arrested and jailed because he’s Palestinian, lost his job, has been in prison for no reason for five years… http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/21/al_arian_enters_19th_day_of This is so much bigger than it seems. We see the tip of the iceberg, and we do nothing because we think Obama or Hillary will fix it. But I’m pessimistic.

93106you know? That place the Associated Press calls “gitmo” so it sounds friendlier? While you’re at it, check out another place they need to close: http://www.soaw.org