This past February was one of the coldest on record, and even now, the first week in March, the world remains covered with ice and snow that hasn’t had the chance to melt. Yes, the newspapers are right, snow is general all over Ohio. And the freeze is working its way into all of us huddled alone watching the Travel Channel to see sunny places we’ll never visit. Until the weather turns for the better, that cold growing slowness will stall us all.

Last month I started my new novel and got around 35,000 words into the first draft before I had set it aside to focus on revising an earlier work. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s good to see how my book was received and to hear so many encouraging comments. It’s also beneficial to learn what needs to be done for the book to work for a larger audience, and to have the resources to revise it. With that in mind, my attention is now focused on making it the best in can be to meet the expectation of publishers. My new novel will be there when I’m done.

The only reprieve from the cold I got came during my whirlwind trip to Seattle for the AWP. For whatever reason, the closer I got to the Canadian border the brighter the sky and the higher the sun. After months of sub-zero temperatures walking along Puget Sound in the 50s felt like pacing barefoot along the equator. Even though I had to fly fourteen hours each way to spend a day with my writer kin it was worth it. My only regret is that I didn’t get to meet more of them in real life due to my need to escape yet another winter storm barreling through the Midwest.

My short story collection Romance for Delinquents has some more press coming up, and I’ll keep you posted. Pre-orders for my novella Roller Girls Love Bobby Knight will open soon, and when they do I’ll mention that as well. I have some interviews and readings coming up, but for now I can only hope that the sun comes back soon and that days without a coat follow. I’m not built to huddle and sit still. I need to move.

The cold weather is getting to me. I dream of moving to Indonesia, Bali, California, or Florida. The idea of a steaming sun-soaked place where I can pass my time in a t-shirt and ratty jeans, where I never have to bother with shoes much less a coat, feels like a dream. This winter has made it impossible to keep the cold out. Grade schools and universities have canceled their classes due to polar temperatures that barely lift above zero. In my office there are no air vents so even when the rest of the house is as warm as a blanket yanked from the dryer I work in a meat locker. I’ve done my best. Last week I cut the fingers out of a pair of wool gloves so that I could type without stopping to shove my hands back into my pockets long enough to get the sensation back in my fingers. As I write this now an ice storm pelts the ground outside in between snow showers. I’m Bob Crachit with no furnace, but I’m moving ahead.

Despite the cold, January started my year off on a high note. My short story collection Romance for Delinquents came out in addition to a great video trailer for it. I appreciate Foxhead Books for believing in my work, and all kindness of my fellow authors who took the time to offer blurbs. My book was the focus of Episode 52 of the Book Fight! podcast, and I also got word that it will be the May selection for The Next Best Book Club on Goodreads. I’m excited to discussing my work with readers when the sun comes back again.

This month I was interviewed by the Speaking of Marvels about my chapbook Bad Kids from Good Schools, and had a great time sharing my thoughts on composing a chapbook as well as my experience judging last year’s fiction and CNF/mixed-media contest for Winged City Press.

Lastly I was deeply honored to be nominated for an Individual Excellence Award by the Ohio Arts Council. While I won’t find out if my nomination goes through until April things look good, and I’m humbled to have my work chosen by the judges: Kristen Gentry, Michael Martone, and Anne Sanow. My entry for the grant was the second chapter to my YA novel The Dream Academy which is currently being shopped around. Keep your fingers crossed, frozen or otherwise, that it finds a home soon.

Now that February is here the majority of my time outside of family and teaching will be devoted to completing my new novel. If there’s a benefit to bad weather it’s that it narrows your options by cutting away any chance to be distracted by a warm summer day.

Other than working on the new novel I’ve got more interviews coming to support my story collection, a novella out this May from Artistically Declined Press, and readings to set up. I’m chilled in my basement room, but I can still hustle. Summer will come again.

My new collection is featured this week on the Book Fight! podcast. You can listen to it here.

Roller Girls Love Bobby Knight is still a dot on the horizon, but it’s coming your way by May. You can enter this year’s Deerbird Novella Prize and get a copy of it for 20$.

Today I received an email that let me know I’ve been nominated for an Individual Excellence Award by the Ohio Arts Council! While I won’t know whether or not I’ll receive the award until April things look good, and I’m completely stoked.

Time to get back to the page.

I’ll have the media kit for Romance for Delinquents soon. This is one of the photos for it that I received today.

I was recently interview by Speaking of Marvels about my chapbook Bad Kids from Good Schools, and my work as an editor. You can read the interview here.

The trailer for my new collection Romance for Delinquents is now up. You can watch it here, and you can order your copy from Foxhead Books by clicking on this link.

2013 was one of the best, and hardest, years of my life. In 2013 I experienced successes that I had no right to believe I’d achieve, and dark times which nearly broke me apart. It was a year of extremes, but I’ve never been good with moderation. In the end though I made it through, and have a lot to look forward to in the days and months to come.

Professionally, after seven years of serving as a part-time and visiting faculty member at UC Clermont I was blessed to have my hard work pay off and gain a full-time tenure track teaching position that allows me to not only have more security in my life, but also share my love or writing and literature with my students. I’m proud to have the chance.

Creatively, I had an amazing year.

In January, my short story collection Romance for Delinquents was accepted for publication by Foxhead Books. At this time it’s available for purchase here, and I have a lot of fun things related to it coming down the road.

I was touched by how giving my fellow writers were when asked to read the collection for blurbs, and received more kind words and support than I could’ve ever hoped for. It was humbling to see how caring authors I hardly knew were, and I’m in their debt.

In February my chapbook Bad Kids from Good Schools was published by Winged City Press and was honored to later serve as the judge for both their summer fiction and mixed media chapbook contests.

In March my novella Roller Girls Love Bobby Knight won The Deerbird Novella Prize from Artistically Declined Press. It’s set to be released in May of this year, but if you enter this year’s contest you can score a copy of it with your entry fee for twenty dollars. Artistically Declined Press has published authors such as Ben Tanzer and Roxane Gay, and was named “One of the 25 Independent Presses That Prove This is The Golden Age of Indie Publishing” by Flavorwire.

In was honored to be a featured author at the Ink Tank Reading Series in Cincinnati in July, and again at the Writer’s Block Festival in Louisville in October.

I also published book reviews in Necessary Fiction and Atticus Review, and became a staff book reviewer for Fjords Review where my first review is forthcoming.

My biggest creative achievement last year was achieving representation from The Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency which represents authors such as Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston among many other talented writers. My agent Roz Foster is in the process of selling my the YA novel The Dream Academy which I wrote during the fall of last year, and I’m hopeful it will get taken on by a great publisher.

Lastly, toward the end of the year I published two short essays: one an essay in tweet form about the way violence is viewed in schools then and now in Creative Non-fiction’s feed and November newsletter, and another about what it means to be a writer in the web journal The Manifestation Station.

I committed to my work last year and it paid off, but unfortunately it did so at a cost to my family and my physical and mental well-being. My only resolution for 2014 is to find more balance in my life. I’m not going to waste time dreaming up a more perfect imagined self, but will try to do more of the things that matter beyond my work.

Moving forward I’m waiting for word on The Dream Academy, revising a novel that was accepted for publication back in 2012 before I pulled it since it’s gotten interests from publishers, and getting ready to start a new school year and dive into my next novel which is due by April 8th. Regardless of all this, I’m going to make sure everyday to be a person, and not simply the man behind the keyboard. I’m going to spend more time with my family. They deserve it after last year.

I wish you all the best, and stay tuned.

-Michael Wayne