Gratitude for 2020 reprinted in The 2020 Newsletter as an essay

 
Read it HERE--

but here's the dope:

According to their very cool site: The goal of The 2020 Newsletter project, created by Kristen Tsetsi and Alan Davis, is to gather a cross-section of experiences from as wide a variety of people as possible and to publish them here. Many of those experiences will be compiled in the print and e-anthology The 2020 Newsletter, 100 percent of whose proceeds will be donated to the United Way Covid-19 Community Response And Recovery Fund, helping “communities around the world respond, recover and rebuild to be more equitable and resilient.”

All of this is pretty cool. When I was asked to contribute I thought the introduction to my book 2020 Poems (you can buy it if you want) would be a good addition. The essay has already appeared on my blog, so it's been around---just as I have. 

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Which brings me to, I've been around so long that I was in a band on the regional Billboard Magazine Top 100 list alongside Prince, Elvis Costello, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Stevie Nicks

Now with 2020 Poems, I'm on a list with Mary Oliver, Rupi Kaur, Emily Dickenson, Margaret Atwood, Robert Frost and Edgar Allen Poe.

Now that has to be some sort of Trivia question what will never be asked, or if asked, would be only answered correctly by the readers of this blog. Then again, a lot of people HATE trivia.

2020 Poems is a #1 Best Seller on Day One of it's pre-release!

 

I have a Number 1 best-seller on Amazon! So grateful!

My book was released in Kindle form to my Advanced Reader Team and pre-orders put it The Number 1 best-seller on Amazon in five categories for

New releases,

1) Poems About Death,

2) Poems About Nature..

2) Aging Parents/Elder Care,

4) Death,Grief/loss and

5) Alcoholism

Thank you for your purchase!! Awesome to be on lists with Mary Oliver, Rupi Kaur, Emily Dickenson, Margaret Atwood, and Edgar Allen Poe

Paperback is out next week, and Kindle will go up to regular price then too, but I'm super excited.

For two days you can still get it at 99 cents!

#1 New Releases in

Podcast Appearance: The Writers Voice with Linda McHenry

 Fun times being on Linda McHenry's podcast The Writer's Word today, recorded last week. I talk about writing in different genres, and disciplines. Also, my new, soon to be released any second book, Poems of 2020

To listen click this link. Don't click the play arrow in the picture as it won't do diddly.

Questionnaire for Dry January

If you are doing this, congratulations! Dry January made me reflect on my use before recovery, so here are some questions which I use to be able to answer yes to nearly all of them--well, yes, I wrote this..

1. Did you STOP reading this post because you saw the image, you don’t want to deal with questions about alcohol and how they relate to you? SKIP TO THE BOTTOM THEN

2. Did you resolve to give up drinking or using for Dry January or as a New Year’s Resolution and already feel you have blown it?

3. Are you juggling or not paying bills/eating less/using fewer utilities (turning heat barely on)/ having worrisome debt, but your spending on alcohol remains untouched?

4. Is alcohol or drugs your coping mechanism, but somehow it’s still hard to cope?

5. Are you really, really, really looking forward to February 1 or have you considered dry January to be an impossible task?

6. Are you relieved when you drive past a police officer, who doesn’t pull you over, after a typical day/night of use?

7. Are you tired every morning or have a hangover because of your typical usage?

8. Are your best plans of productivity diminished after your first drink?

9. Do you have a medical condition which would be better if you didn’t drink or use but still drink and use?

10. Do you wait all day for work to end so you can drink asap?

11. Do you wait until the kids are in bed or your spouse/significant other/family is in bed or occupied with something to drink how you want?

12. Are you choosing new friends with one of the variables being whether they drink or not?

13. Are you choosing new romantic relationships with one of the variables being whether they drink or not?

14. Does your use make you dislike yourself?

15. Are you ending up in situations solely because your judgment has been changed?

16. Do you feel any strong emotion about running out or not having alcohol in your home?

17. Do you think people in recovery or either “under the bridge” type low-lifes or “just too damn happy”? aka-You are not “like” them?

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There is no “if you answered yes to a number (usually 1 or more) of these in this you might be…..” It’s meant for folks to take a look at if what they do represents normal drinking. Thirty days of dryness can start any time, not just January 1, and if you want to and can’t there is help to get you there. If you go 30 days and you are finding it was difficult most days to do so, there is help as well. If you don’t feel better after 30 days, no problem…I’m not telling you what to do. If you’ve read this and think you can do better with your use, you deserve that----nearly everyone I know in recovery now has a better life---even if life is still difficult, the handling of it is not as much so. They are the best people I know, and they are or were just like you.

New book, "2020 Poems" to be released by Big Table Publishing, in 2021--blurbs by Nick Flynn, Jennifer Martelli, Yuyutsu Sharma

 

“Tell me where to go,” one poem plaintively asks, in this collection written in the midst of a pandemic. Timothy Gager manages to capture the chaos, the confusion, the despair, and the existential strangeness of those (of these) days. By the time this book reaches you, I pray we will be on the other side. If not, then these poems will bring you comfort. If so, then these poems will be a document from a time that will not be believed.

--Nick Flynn, American Poet, Memoirist and Playwright

Timothy Gager’s 2020 is a harsh ride through the dark tunnels of our turbulent times when even the leaves are threatening and the poet stands alone witnessing the tree of his life… an exquisite 2021 New Year treat one can treasure to master misery in more difficult years of the Pandemic ahead.

--Yuyutsu Sharma, Himalayan Poet, Author of Annapurna Poems and A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems

I love that Timothy Gager opens 2020 with a gratitude list. This time-proven Alcoholics Anonymous tool for when “life is difficult” begins a collection of poems that navigates a world damaged by pandemic, cruel politics, ailing and dying parents. Isolation can be lethal for the alcoholic and loneliness is “the handcuff.” As a person in recovery and poet, I was struck by the explosive truths in these poems that confront all of us. 2020 is a collection I’ll return to again and again to be reminded of the strength of words, of love, and to “kiss the ground I once fell on.”

--Jennifer Martelli, author of The Uncanny Valley and My Tarantella

This will be out on Big Table Publishing (Robin Stratton). The cover was created by Matt Siditsky.

Winter 2021 Issue of Wilderness House Literary Review, and here's the fiction

 

The fiction in the Wilderness House Literary Review were difficult to make decisions about. We had so many of them. Check them out, and congratulate Steve Glines for their 60th issue.  As always the full issue can be found HERE. 

Happy Winter

For all our fiction 2016 to present, check THIS out

• A.M. Gwynn - Shelter
• Annmarie McQueen - Cleansing flames
• Claire Massey - A Formula for Entropy
• Dominique Pierce - THEOLOGY
• Emma Deimling - “London 3AM”
• Jennifer Lorene Ritenour - Under the Friendship Bell
• Mara Fein - Dreaming
• Nicholas C. King - The Old Man
• Phillip Temples - What Goes Around, Floats Around
• Tom Sheehan - The Old Man Who Walked with a Broken Crutch
• Tyrel Kessinger - My Friend, The Demon
• King Weatherspoon - Before I Go