In August, I did a last update of this site, and posted a last blog entry (under the “News” heading) and figured to leave it so.
My self-pub outfit, Lulu.com, is updating, in the course of which they obliterated all of my titles with them. Supposedly they are working to restore customers’ lost pages (so goes the blanket statement) but for me it means that all of my links here at this site to Lulu, whether my “Author’s Spotlight” page which showcased the multiple books or individual publications referred to here and there, have broken. Maybe Lulu will restore it all, but, given how shoddy their mechanics have proven to be in the past, I won’t cross my fingers nor hold my breath. Above all, I won’t sweat it.
Earlier this month I published a book titled Quarantine Boutique pertaining to the present pandemic and “shelter in place” response which we are experiencing. Because of its newness, that title survived. It is all that is left of me at Lulu. (I had desired to retire the “X” anyhow, but lacked the energy to fuss with the books on Lulu’s stone age process. This saves me the trouble.)
A limited number of my previous, Non Fit Press titles, can still be captured via online vendors or through Amazon. It appears that the Lulu titles will fade. Some few—genuinely not a high number—copies of those titles exist wherever they may be (I have a complete set, natch). No other publishers have been banging on my door to license them, which might be your only chance to get access to the works. A similar situation obtains with my plays. I did at least 20 plays, none of which found a production, with unstaged readings having been fewer than “a couple.” It’s fine.
The Covid-19 disease has upended the world—the human world to be sure but with repercussions felt in nature. Our lives suddenly seem more precarious. The precarity always existed, but now our noses are being shoved into it like a pungent smell. I will try to do what I can to survive, maybe even “live to write another day” as the saying (almost) goes. But neither reading nor writing feel vital to me—you need more of a stable society for that. Whatever happens with Covid-19 or the present coronavirus pandemic situation in general, climate catastrophe appears unstoppable. My previous post alluded to that.