Throwback Thursday: my (TERRIFYING) awkward phase!

⚠  WARNING — THIS POST MAY CONTAIN GRAPHIC OR DISTURBING IMAGERY.  ⚠  Is it any wonder that I am happier as an adult?  The first picture below was taken in the early 1980’s.  The latter was taken a couple of days ago.

Granted, I’m not exactly Chris Hemsworth now, but ya gotta admit that 53-year-old me is a damn sight better looking than 13-year-old me.  Adolescent Eric looks like a cross between an anemic Oscar Wilde and an accursed species of upright, hairless goat.

“Thanks for the trauma!” I told my sister after she texted it to me.

“It’s what I’m here for,” she told me.



Happy New Year!!!

Wishing all of you Happiness, Health and Prosperity in 2026!



French New Year’s greeting card, 1910

“Pop,” Franz von Stuck, 1895

The Inland Printer, Volume 16.

“Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

Poetry and commentary, 2025

The past year was the best ever for poetry and commentary, with publications in the United States, Britain, Ireland, Germany, India and Bangladesh — along with a short story publication in Chile.

You can find all the links to my 2025 poetry and commentary at the link below. Thanks for coming along for the ride.  🙂

Poetry and Commentary, 2025



Cover to “Grendel Omnibus Volume 1: Hunter Rose” (Second Edition), Matt Wagner, 2022

Dark Horse Comics.

“That’s where you live. In an explosion.”

“Athletics,” Bulletin of the Normal School for Women, Fredericksburg, Virginia, April, 1920

What would later become Mary Washington College.

Three of my poems were included in Issue 30 of the Poetry Hall bilingual journal.

I’m so happy to share here tonight that the Poetry Hall quarterly bilingual journal again published three of my poems today in Issue 30.  The poems selected were “Milky Way Haiku” (“银河俳句”), “Demurring Haiku” (“谦拒俳句”) and “Blood-Moon Haiku” (“血月俳句”).   As always, they appear in the journal in both English and Chinese.

You can find Issue 30 right here at Amazon.

Thank you, once again, to Editor-in-Chief Xu Yingcai and translator Zhang Ning for allowing me to see my writing appear in this distinguished international literary journal!



The Picture of Dorian Going Gray.

Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers