Canon Fodder is now available — Dear Medium readers, I’d like to announce that my new poetry collection, Canon Fodder: Poems Inspired by Classic Literature, is now available for purchase on Amazon in hardcover and paperback. To say I am proud of this work would be a grievous understatement. These poems, and one piece of short…

It did not meet Distribution Standards — Yesterday Medium finally announced the winners of their crazy contest, The Medium Writer’s Challenge. Let’s be honest, the whole circus was a shit show. It was poorly organized, they pushed back deadlines on judging, no one knew what was going on with it behind the scenes, how it was being…

And how you can too with your writing — Making money on Medium is easy. It’s so easy in fact, everyone is doing it. How do I know everyone is doing it? Because every time I log into Medium I am told about it by a multitude of articles bragging about how easy it is to do. I’m told…

The writer your mother warned you about — Hello, fellow Medium addicts. My name is Jay Sizemore. You may recognize me from such films as “The Poet With Borderline Personality Disorder” or “How to Alienate an Entire Genre of Writers in Five Easy Moves.” I actually have an undiagnosed case of mild Tourette’s Syndrome, which I believe was…

a poem — Small talk So it’s nearly October, and you’ve just turned 44. Suddenly, your dog is allergic to everything, his skin flashing bright pink after every trip outdoors, and you understand fear and empathy in surprisingly new ways. Last summer, your wife spent nine thousand dollars on landscaping. This summer, the moles…

Should artists claim ownership of work they themselves do not create? — What do you think of the artwork accompanying this post? Looks pretty cool, eh? But…is it art? The picture included here is the product of an Artificial Intelligence program called starryai. There are more and more of these type programs popping up online, among them DALL-E and Midjourney, which require…

a Poem — The guinea pig generation One of the solutions for acid reflux disease is to sleep on a wedge pillow, but this comes with its own share of discomfort. Sure, it helps keep the acid safely inside your stomach, but some mornings you wake unable to turn your head due to the crick in your…

Poem for Dean Young — The Magic of Words ~for Dean Young They’ll give you a new lease on life, they’ll replace your old diseased heart with one they plucked from the sea, saying, It’s fine to feel like a whale now, capable of holding your breath for hours. But you should always read the smaller…