Exhibit 16.12

AWP Recap

I'm too tired to do an AWP Recap, really, but as I've been making awful decisions since the Midway Dunkin' Donuts on Wednesday, it's clear that I'm not going to be able to stop myself from doing anything until tomorrow at the earliest. Now is definitely the time to ask me to loan you money or collaborate on a series of villanelles. One way or the other, you will leave the conversation with a handful of cash and tercets. At this point, I'm nothing but a series of impulses and refrains and apologies.


What I Came Home With

* The new Black Warrior Review (which is incredible from front to back and has a great DIY feature section)

* The last two Keyhole magazines (including the awesome handwritten one)

* Some Hobart (which I definitely should already be subscribing to)

* A Saltgrass (you should send them your best fiction right now)

* Only 10-15 total Cupboards (everyone was very nice and generous - thank you)

* A desire to pony up the $250 for The Jungle from Rope-A-Dope (words can't describe)

* Shane Jones's Light Boxes (which might be what I read first)

* Bryan Coffelt's In a City with Neighbors and the first Barnaby Jones both from Pinch Pinch Press (one of these is Dave's and both were to make up for our absent HTML Giant Secret Santas from someone who totally didn't have to - thank you again)

* El Greed by David Nesmith from Publishing Genius (which made me laugh a lot on the first page I read yet also fearful I might go to monkey heaven)

* Less Shiny by Mary Miller from Magic Helicopter Press (which has a great cover and is presumably as good inside)

* One Neither One by Shane McCrae from Octopus (something I read at the table and loved so much I had to buy it. That Shane came around and was a great guy only made it easier)

* A t-shirt from Octopus (we all agreed I get to be the only person in Lincoln who wears one, right?)

* That's all from one bag I unpacked with one left to go and there was a lot more I left behind for space reasons but intend to pick up online in the next week. Look for me to fawn all over this work as I read through it.


Information You Need

* Rope-A-Dope Press makes beautiful things and you need to submit to their chapbook series by the end of March. Perhaps we could go in on a series of villanelles?

* You should be aware that everything I know about villanelles I learned in the last ten minutes. Tercets? Tercets.

* Octopus Books is reading full-length poetry manuscripts in April. They are such a great press that I'm considering writing my name on the copy of The Dream Songs I borrowed from Mathias last year and submitting that.

* The Cupboard is going to officially stop reading submissions on March 1st. (Although if you're reading this, you can [and should] submit whenever).

* Everything I just wrote I said hundred and hundreds of times this week. It might not be until March that I am able to say anything else.


Uninteresting Personal Revelations

* I no longer trust myself to do anything, especially order correctly when faced with sprinkles and an employee's disinterested upselling. Somehow the more half-hearted the offer is, the more likely I am to add a second donut for a nominal fee. I like knowing this about me.

* I'm trying to remember what it is I do in Lincoln. I think I got back last night and stared at my apartment for twenty minutes before drinking some coffee. That seems about right.

* Between the first AWP post and the Mac post, this blog has become distressingly confessional in the last week or so and I look forward to quitting it soon. But I won't. But I may post less. Or more. I feel like I'm not posting exactly the right amount or precisely the right stuff. In any case, I'm probably going to remove myself from it a bit which is good as I don't feel like how I portray myself on this blog is particularly representative. And if it is, you definitely shouldn't tell me that I'm this neurotic, desperate, and navel-gazing. I hope I'm one, maybe two, of those things at most.

* I realize everything about what I'm typing right now contradicts that last paragraph. I know it's tedious when I complain about the blog. But know that I'm sincere in my desire to never write or say the word blog again.


Misc.

* If I met you this week I had a great time and liked you a lot. There were a lot of people I was really excited to meet and without exception everyone was friendly and smart and funny. I was just happy to be there and tried to keep up. I now want to collaborate with you. Did I mention our collaboration is going to be about vampires? It is.

* I also want to collaborate with all of the old friends I ran into, but they know better.

* I'm leaving to visit Tyrone's college in Arkansas on Wednesday. If what happened to me in Chicago is any indication, I will not sleep, my face will continue to go all guy-who-chose-the-wrong-cup-in-that-Indiana-Jones-movie, and my new found fondness for late night text messaging will continue to wake you up with ring tones and inanity. So, good?

* Yes, very good. I'm excited for the trip. I'm going to read two things from the old anonymous Cupboards that never get to see the daylight.



So I think that covers it. Thank you to everyone who gave me things or who took things I was giving them. You were polite not to say no.

Any questions?