With the demise of Twitter, I feel the hauntingly empty reception hall. The mic has been dropped and I don’t want to pick it up.
We had a great (although sometimes annoying, troubling, distracting) venue for artists to share and converse about their work. And then Musk just shit on it. Trump got one of his megaphones taken away but artists lost something actually genuine.
My journey continues as strong as ever but it feels more like a private one if it ever was public. Still, I like this quiet place at alkratz.com as a record of the ride. Even if it is mostly written for myself, it’s fun for me to see the track record. I’ve been on this journey of full on dedication to my writing passions since the end of 2012 now.
I wrote and read a lot in 2023.
I completed another draft/revision of my novel Monkey See Monkey Do.
The Yale Writers’ Workshop this June was awesome. Met a great group of writers and friends and loved every minute of Sergio Troncoso’s teaching. Highly recommend it if anyone is on the fence of giving it a go. Here is a picture on their promotional site for the workshop that happens to be me and my group last summer:
I wrote a couple reviews this year that are both on my site here and a third that will be on Heavy Feather soon.
I published 3 stories. A CNF about seing my late father in dreams, an absurd story about cheeseburgers falling from the sky in Bull, and a story called Sweat about watching my best friend’s son play the bass guitar with his band this summer, written as a hybrid of CNF and Fiction. The concert was real, but the voice/narrator is fictional, exaggerative etc, written for a Bending Genres weekend workshop prompt.
Sweat- South Florida Poetry Journal
I’m working on what “might” be a new novel. I’m using the same approach I did with my other novel as far as trying to get in at least 1000 words every weekend, sometimes 2 or 3. So taking notes and thinking about throughout the week and then at minimum getting in the chair on sat and sun mornings. Of course there are times I do more, but that pace is the base. I can get a first draft done in a year at that pace. Still have to get over the hill on making this one work. I love what Gordon Mennenga taught us a few years back: Keep writing and when you get 100 pages in you will have a good feeling if you “have” a novel. I’m only 25 pages in on this one so we will see. I’m calling it Project Yet for now.
As for Monkey, I’ve got it off to an agent I met with at Yale. I’m also building a short list of Independent Presses and will begin querying them in 2024. I’m really happy with the work. I’m a little nervous about the next steps with it as selling a book to a press is a whole new game for me.
Art Council
Kristy has been on quite the art journey herself for a few years now and I joined in on it in some small ways this year. One was joining the North River Arts Council. (NRAC) That has been inspiring to join a group of local artists. I’m the only writer in the group. The rest are painters, photographers, and pottery makers. I also helped Kristy display and sell art at 6 shows this summer! Those took a lot out of us physically but it was fun engaging the public and presenting art for sale. Definitely a different social experience than writing or selling writing.
I’ve also been writing Artist Profiles for everyone in NRAC, one at a time. They have been appearing in local community newspapers. It’s been a fun little project. I write them as a journalist mostly, but look for ways to add in my own creativity.
Early goals for 2024:
Find a press for the book. Write another one. Keep reading and learning. Publish more flash fiction/short stories again this year too. For the summer retreat this year, I think I’m rolling my own and just getting in a bus or train and traveling across the country reading and writing.
I’m also working on a pretty fun collaborative project with our NRAC President. More to come on that next year!
Al Kratz 