A Twelfth of Carrabis (June 2025 Newsletter

• Musings
  

• RoundTable 360° Action-Reaction
• Clarabelle Miray Fields’ Live Poetry Reading
• That Think You Do Volume 2 needs First Readers
• June Writers’ Workshop
• Talk with the Editors
• Greg Hickey’s Season Ticket Authors
• Zen Citizen
• A Little Game
  

It is two days away from Summer as I type this. Someone somewhere’s already thrown the switch because we’re expecting temps in the mid-80s to high-90s for the next week. The raccoons will be panting, the coyote will be drinking, woodchucks and opossum will be venturing out more at night than during the day.
Such are the seasons here.
We purchased a new telescope and haven’t had a chance to exercise it yet. Quite cloudy nights. Figures considering all the heavenly wonders happening – brilliant north and south aurora, celestial alignments, galaxies and nebula sharing their glory to the naked eye.
And writing. Lots and lots of writing.
I’ve been taking literary analysis classes because I feel my prose lacks something. The challenge is I’m not sure what’s lacking and quite sure something is.
Feel free to let me know what’s lacking. Happy to be educated.
I’m also taking marketing classes because I’m convinced I could market better.
As with my writing, feel free to make suggestions for improving my marketing and sales. Ditto happy to be educated.
To that point, two questions for you, my lovelies…

• Which of my books are your top two favorites? – Get back to me with your favorites before 1 July 2025 to receive a signed ebook of my next release, That Th!nk You Do Volume 2: 60 More Ways to Stay Happy, Healthy, and Hold Off Harm.
• My blog has (I believe) a new look and feel. First, many thanks to Mark O’Brien, Dan Linton, Jen Day, and of course, Susan, for their help and suggestions. Second, it would be kittens-nice if you took a peek and let me know what you think, what’s broken, what could be done better, …
  Folks getting back to me will get a personally signed ebook (one of mine, and you get to choose which one) for their help.

RoundTable 360° – Our 26 June 2025 RoundTable 360° session is Action-Reaction – Creativity happens at the intersection of observation, imagination, and experience (paraphrasing Faulkner), and creatives navigate a world far different from non-creatives. Something ignored by 99% of the population is a precipice waiting for the creative 1% to explore, a trigger causing a gunblast in the creative’s psyche. Such triggers can lead to masterpieces as varied as Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Proust’s A la Rechearche du Temps Perdu. Exploring such precipices often requires a courage non-creatives lack — a willingness to self-explore. Action-Reaction is led by little old me, Joseph (scary, isn’t it?). Reserve your place at the RoundTable for Thursday, 26 June 2025, 1:30pmET (please check local times).

Clarabelle Miray Fields’ Live Poetry Reading – Author, award-winning poet, and Carmina Magazine publisher/editor Clarabelle Miray Fields will be reading a recently published poem as part of SpecPoVerse’s Inaugural Issue Poetry Reading on Sunday, 22 June 2025, 12pm EST. I know Clarabelle’s work and it is both powerful and amazing. Strongly recommend attending.

That Think You Do Volume 2 needs First Readers – 2025 is a year of many projects and many works-in-progress for me. One such project is getting That Think You Do Volume 2 ready for a July 2025 release, and we could use some help. Specifically, we could use some first readers willing to read it through, offer comments, suggestions, edits, let us know their thoughts, write reviews, perhaps a Foreword, perhaps some backcover copy, … Email me if you’d like to be a first reader, and thanks.

Writers’ Month Long Workshop – July Writers’ Workshop – July 2025’s writers’ workshop covers many if not all phases of craft and storytelling. The July workshop is on Wednesdays, 2-30 July 2025, morning and evening openings available. Sign up here. You can an idea of what craziness (and learning!) will ensue on my Experiments in Writing posts.

Brother Greg Hickey’s Season Ticket Authors – Over the past few years, Greg’s worked his way through every novel written by two of his favorite contemporary authors: Emily St. John Mandel and Kazuo Ishiguro. Greg calls these two authors his “current season ticket authors.” Any time they publish a new book, he reads it without knowing anything else about it (what author doesn’t love that kind of fan, huh?). And since he finished his last remaining Ishiguro novel earlier this year, he’s eagerly awaiting new works from these brilliant writers. You can learn more about Greg, his work, and what his season ticket authors are up to on his site.

Talk with the Editors – Wilderness House Literary Review EIC Steve Glines and I (Senior Fiction Editor) are holding monthly open chats with authors interested in a) writing for us, b) improving their craft in general, and/or c) increasing their chances of being accepted by other markets. Meetings are held via Zoom on the last Friday of each month from 9-10amET. So, want to know how to write for us? Want to know what gets our attention? Want to know how to write better for whatever market you’re interested in? Join us for our next “Meet the Editors” Zoom session on 27 June 2025, 9-10amET. Seats limited! Sign up and talk with us. We’re relatively easy going and fun to be with.

Zen Citizen – Sister Vineeta Kommineni shares Zen Citizen reached a crucial juncture last month with the launch of Spashta, their Gen AI chatbot. Their focus shifted from content creation and government services accessibility tools to actively driving awareness and user adoption. Spashta, which means ‘clarity’ in multiple Indian languages, lives up to its name by capturing context and processing complex queries with empathy and accuracy. This tool also offers voice integration, supporting communication in both Kannada and English. Crucially, Spashta takes the pressure off Zen Citizen’s volunteers, allowing them to focus on tasks beyond responding to citizen questions that come in through their website and forums like Reddit and Twitter. They’re currently piloting this for marriage registration services in Karnataka and are in the process of extending it to other government services they cover. Spashta appears as a browser extension, as a native chatbot on the Zen Citizen website, and on WhatsApp. Take a look at Spashta. Way to go, Veets!

A Little Game – The results were about to be announced at a song festival when the judging got delayed. There were four finalists. Each was asked to evaluate the other three finalists as best, 2nd best, 3rd best (nobody could vote for themselves). They were award points as follows: Give three marks to the best singer Give two marks to the 2nd best singer Give one mark to the 3rd best singer One finalist reversed how he gave marks as follows: Give three marks to the 3rd best Give two marks to the 2nd best Give one mark to the best This finalist thought doing so would improve their chances. Things got worse when it was learned two of the other three singers had done the same thing for the same reason. All the singers were tied at six points before this scheme came to light. Once corrections were made, how did the one honest singer do in the song festival? The first five people to get back to me with a solution get a free Binky ebook. The first person to get back to me with a solution which makes me laugh gets a signed copy of That Th!nk You Do Volume I (and no looking it up on the internet, folks!).

That’s it for June. See you next month!

Enjoy!
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