Well in the almost 2 and a half months since I blogged things have been busy so let’s play catch up.
ON THE POETRY FRONT
-Got a great response from teachers and poetry lovers for my poem I LOVE BEING ME which was featured on Greg Pincus’ 30 Poets/30 Days blog.
-While on the Greg Pincus thread I had the pleasure of picking him up at the airport when he came here to Orlando for the SCBWI Conference. I took his marketing seminar and learned lots of neat stuff including the fact that I need to start learning by heart more of my poems, perform them on video and post them to my website. I plan on tackling that by the end of the summer as I have other matter to attend to like:
- Putting together a poetry manuscript for the LEE AND LOW book contest. LEE AND LOW is a publishing house that specializes in works about or written by people of color. They’re having a contest at the end of the summer where minority writers submit their work and if selected get a book contract!
-Got an invitation from Georgia Heard one of most respected children’s poets in the country to be part of her upcoming anthology on found poems. Found poems (according to Wikipedia) are a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and/or lines (and consequently meaning), or by altering the text by additions and/or deletions.
The book will be published by the New York publishing house Roaring Book. What an amazing opportunity this is for me! Once again my poetry mentor Rebecca Kai Dotlich put in a good word for me. Georgia told me to send her as many found poems as I want so I’ve sent her at least 25 poems so far (and still counting). She won’t use them all but the more I send the better I feel my chances are of getting in her book.
ON THE ACTING FRONT
-Booked another commercial, this one for Verizon, where I play a Bright House cable service consumer who is complaining about my cable service provider. This was my 2nd SAG (Screen Actors Guild) commercial is 3 months so things are starting to pay of that field. Soon as I get a DVD copy of it I will finally put together my reel (various clips of me acting) that is a MUST in the acting field especially if you (like me) wants to branch out into film, TV, industrials and commercials.
-Continue working at IDOL, INDY, ESPN and SLEUTHS. Those jobs have been good to me and I continue to be thankful for the money I make, most of which I save because in this economy saving your money should be everyone’s middle name.
There is some potential good news on both acting and poetry fronts that I can’t reveal now but will once I hear word. In the meantime be well, work hard and make every day and good one. Peace.
