Change is in the air! The book of Miss Experience White, my surrealistic political poem cycle is now in layout phase and due in late November. John Seabury’s illustrations look fantastic.

On a personal note, I just turned 64 and have been thinking a lot about getting old. Besides noticing and adjusting to physical changes, there’s a profound awareness that most of my life has passed. I’m not freaking out about it—I did that back in my fifties—because the math is undeniable. Being 64 means I have about 20 good years left. That’s actually a long time, I accomplished a lot in the last 20 years, but it’s still something to think about. And so the Miss Experience White project, begun in 2018, will be one of my last big projects. I sense I have one, maybe two more big projects left to do, in addition to many small ones.

Miss Experience White is something I felt destined to create, meaning a set of life experiences compelled me to tell a story that only I could tell and which I felt needed to be told for the greater good. I hope that doesn’t sound too grandiose. Creatively, I’ve always worked from the place of asking myself what story do I need to tell versus what would be the most fun. And most of the time the answer is the same. Although a series of personal setbacks made for a slow transition from podcast to print, the poetry is better for it—well polished and looking pretty on the page. Of course, the podcast is still going strong, streaming on all the usual platforms. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll take a listen to enjoy the brilliant, cinematic sound design by Jim McKee (Earwax Productions) who also regularly works the same magic for the popular, long-running podcast, the Kitchen Sisters.

Hooray, I’m old enough to be voting for a presidential candidate younger than me! I was born in 1960, and Kamala Harris was born in 1964. I remember watching political conventions on TV as a child—grainy black and white images of old white men yelling and waving skinny signs. I’m feeling so much more positive with Harris as the nominee, but I don’t trust Trump to concede nicely. He isn’t going to gain many new followers now, but the ones he already has are true believers. I’ll be greatly surprised (and relieved) if those people give up quietly. I love how Tim Walz is calling out the Republicans as “weird.” Appropriately enough, Miss Experience White, a surrealistic poem cycle about banishing the demon of white supremacy, will arrive right in the heat of the likely post-election “weirdness.” Miss Experience White is weird in the very best of ways. It kicks ass and wins hands down in any War of Weirdness. Why? Because I wrote it to do exactly that!

Next month I’ll be set up for you to reserve a copy in advance.

Milo