Alea iacta est!

I've just submitted my application for the MFA program at UCI. Switching story submissions at the last minute is never a good idea; still, that's what I did, losing trust in one of my first pieces and placing it in one of my latest. I now have three to four months to stew over my decision.

Frankly, my chance of getting into the UCI program, given its 1.3 % admission rate, is markedly worse than my odds at winning the "50-50" raffle prize at the Orange County Paralegal Association on a good night. I'm going to beat the hell out of myself in April when I get the rejection letter. A week later, after I dig myself out from under the resulting pile of used Kleenexes, I'll start writing again. There will be other windmills at which to tilt -- Ploughshares, The New Yorker, ZYZZYVA -- and tilt I shall.

More book price rant

I am snarling because the little 5x7 200-page paperback volumes in the Clarendon Aristotle series are $45.00 a shot, discounted nowhere. These aren't library editions, the prices of which are themselves grossly overinflated. These are paperback books for the student of Aristotle -- and I emphasize, student. They should cost $14.50 apiece.

Publishing companies used to take revenue from their bestsellers and use it to keep books read by smaller audiences around and affordable. WTF are they doing now?