A hearty bonjour and aloha to all you lovers of arts & letters,
I may be old-fashioned, but I prefer not to keep a day job when the winsome muse of words calls to me, so I will be seeking a patron for the next 6 months to 10 years, depending on how long it takes to birth this literary love child.
YOU:
are a wealthy man, over the age of 29, with many connections in the literary and arts community–ideally publishing. You should be comfortable with late night parties that stretch into morning, which are full of charming artsy types like me who talk engagingly and for hours about themselves and their tropes and who are prone to stubbing their cigarettes out on the carpet. You should be drug and disease free, though I am neither.
Your work should be engrossing and keep you out of our home for long stretches of time as I need space and solitude to write. A long life full of education and travel and the willingness to have it plundered for use in side-plots is essential. If your wealth came late in life, then stories of grit and giving a comeuppance to those who said you’d never make it will be considered. Above all, your life stories should be engaging but not more interesting than mine. If you have a large library full of indigenous artifacts, taxidermy, and globes, let’s talk.
I:
am indescribable. But many have tried with “5’4’’, sandy blond hair and [piercing] hazel eyes.” While it is not often noted, I am as lithe as the branches of a willow, and could have danced, if I had not been given this impetuous gift of wordsmithery.
My writing has been published in a handful of collegiate handouts and on Goodreads. Additionally, several poems have been under consideration by The Parisian Review, Granta, and Crab Orchard Press. I am on the brink of beginning my semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman story told through a series of sonnets; all in my native West Coast dialect. This work will balance issues of womanhood, urban sprawl, ecology, and macrobiotics. You should plan on contributing to many discussions of these themes over red wine, of which I will also need a regular and quality supply.
I have lived a very long and complicated life full of many lovers and hometowns. I am the eternal seeker, and have found and been found by love countless times. A conversation with me or about me is wonderful to hear.
My work is organic, like my diet, and I don’t like to be interrupted by pedestrian tasks like vacuuming, so I have a street-legal housekeeper to recommend if you don’t already have one.
While I will receive room and board and your devotion, you will be the true winner in this arrangement: you will have helped me to make art. Plus, my book will contain a brief and most likely vague thank you to you in the acknowledgements—but to protect the feelings of some of the more sensitive souls from my past, you will be referred to with a pseudonym (for example, “Carolyn Mangrove”).
WE:
will not be a business arrangement. You will become a part of my life. You will comfort me in my art-fueled rages and during the regular crying jags brought on by the rawness of my process. We will celebrate unpaid bylines with lavish dinners at fancy restaurants, accompanied by many of my other writerly friends. When my work is complete, we may part ways tearfully, but content in the knowledge that there is a season and reason for everything. (This paragraph is a small sample of my ability to weave in and out of poetry, prose, and prose-poetry.)
My work is sensual and confessional. You can plan on reliving our lovemaking again and again in the pages of my book. Like all artists, I am a fantastic lover—adventurous and energetic―but note that I will usually not want to be touched, as any rejection from publishers puts me into consuming and spiraling depressions lasting between 6-8 weeks. If you need to keep a lover, or better yet, a wife, we can work out those details pending an addendum that I’m entitled to write a Gothic revenge trilogy based on your actions.
If you are the man for whom my heart has been searching, please email me at [email protected]. Namaste.
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