Hi, everyone, welcome to Poetry Night. I’ve got an interesting couple of poems to share with you, about both the digital world and the analog world. Hope you enjoy them.
I’ve been writing poetry with more regularity in recent months. For the year 2025 I have written six of them. At least two of them were not for publication in the short term or maybe even in the long term. It’s been therapeutic to express myself like that and not worry about other people’s opinions.
Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I’ve set up something here at Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.
As I might have mentioned, I’ve become a bit wary of people acting like friends online but eventually seeing me as an opportunity to make some money. That likely prompted the following poem.
To hear a trusted voice say, “I’d like you to meet…”
And words dance through the air
As you find out more about them
Their lives
Their hobbies and interests
How you watched the same movies
Knew about the same types of sports
And you remember how you used to meet and greet
In the days before The Screen and The WiFi.
You take in the panorama of your scene
As the food and drink and laughs flow
And what strikes you is how biological the meeting is
Rather than digital.
That’s it for tonight. I thought I was running out of topics for poetry, but new themes keep popping up in my work. We’ll see what March brings.
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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Welcome to everyone wandering over to this part of the Internet.
Been working on at least a couple projects in various stages of production. I’ll talk about those things and some updated information about where I’ll be during the next few months. I’ll either keep it interesting or to the point – whichever one works lol.
The Home Front
The Home Front
We are done with January, which seemed to last forever last year. Then again, last year was when I was between homes, driving around between homes and hotel rooms and apartments in between the move to Fort Madison and looking out for my kid in Des Moines. In short, January 2024 dragged for me and my family, and I prefer this alternative.
We haven’t had much in the way of massive snow storms around Iowa this year. My own school district has had only one snow day this year (technically a weather day, since it was severe cold rather than snow shutting us down). Many of my co-workers are hoping for sun and warmth, but honestly I am glad it still can get as cold as it has. I thought there was no way Iowa was going to cool down around last October. I will take 28 degree weather rather than 98 degree weather. I’m the freak who prefers the Azores, Shetland, and Faeroe Islands to someplace in the Caribbean.
So far, kids and my wife Laura are doing all right. Not much else to say otherwise.
What I’ve Been Writing
The Yank Striker 2: the sequel to my book The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning. The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of a prospective American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. Book two starts examining what my main character, Daniel John “DJ” Ryan has to face now he is trying to establish himself as a footballer in England. I am looking at Saturday of next week as the continuation of the writing process. I wanted to make sure I let the rough draft of the new book sit for at least a few weeks. I set 8 February 2025 as the time to restart my work on the book. As of this moment, this will be the schedule for The Yank Striker 2:
Second draft – begun by 8 February and completed by the end of the month at the latest.
Beta reads – begun at the start of March and completed by the end of March.
Two more rounds of revisions in April.
Final editing and proofreading in May and concluding by the end of May.
This might be the most ambitious release date for any book I’ve ever done. I’m confident in making this work, however, and I’m starting to put things into motion for all of this to happen. I’ll keep you updated on how it’s going, and I think I’ll have to have some big announcement regarding what the official title of the story will be.
This is the thing, however. Even though I will be reaching out to friends and family about this issue, I am looking for beta readers for The Yank Striker 2. If anyone out there on the Internets or in Substack land will be interested in becoming beta readers for this project and completing your work in a timely fashion, I would be willing to reward you for your hard work.
Anyone interested in serving as beta readers for the project will get a complimentary paid subscription for this site lasting at least one year. I will sort it out for you. If you are interested, chirp back to me in the comments of this post or in DMs. Thank you for your service ahead of time.
The Untitled Pro Wrestling Fiction Project: While waiting for my plans on The Yank Striker 2, this has been dominating my thoughts more and more. Over the past year and a half, this story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a young man’s determination to understand what it all means has been dominating my thoughts for a while. My poor students have had to endure my using wrestling terminology with them regardless of whether they understand it our not. (For example, for those who keep on joking or not taking anything seriously, I occasionally say “I can’t tell if everything you do is a shoot or not.” For just screwing around with a rough draft with no set schedule, building up a rough draft to more than 26,000 words is a bit of an accomplishment. It’s going to be the first of a trilogy, though. I’ll keep you up to date on what is going on.
Poetry: I managed to self-publish my own chapbook of poetry at the end of 2024. I had a lot of fun with the process, and I can finally call myself a published poet. I don’t have any plans to do a second collection, but I’m not opposed to going forward with it either. Based on the feedback from my poets’ group, I might not even have to choose a theme for it. Or, maybe I will.
I have another idea for a book – one aimed at the strangeness and uncertainty we see in this country now. Call it part sci-fi, part fantasy. It might be classified as either, for sure. It has not evolved into more than an abstract idea for now, but I want it to be more. It will not cover the present players and unpleasantness. In all honesty, they are not interesting subjects for fiction, for they are not unique in history. In short, the unfairness and oppression many face in my country have tempted me to write something. I have the idea of compassion and empathy spreading among the population. (Enough spoilers there). We’ll see if I make progress with it.
I have more than a few plans for book fair appearances in the coming months. Recently, I have managed to confirm these, so I will list them here.
I will be appearing from 1-4 p.m. Saturday, 22 February at the Johnstown Public Library, 6700 Merle Hay Rd, Johnston, IA. I had a great time at this event two years ago and I am honored to be returning there.
From 1-2:30 p.m. Saturday, 22 March, I will be attending the DSM Book Festival at the Franklin Event Center, 4801 Franklin Ave, Des Moines. This will be the first year of this festival co-sponsored by one of my favorite independent bookstores in Des Moines, Beaverdale Books. Can’t wait to be part of this.
Finally, I will be at the the Badger Public Library book fair (Time TBD) on Saturday, 17 May, at the Badger Public Library, 211 1st Ave SE, Badger, Iowa. They were one of the first places ever to participate in a book fair and I absolutely enjoyed the experience.
If there are other events coming up, I’ll let you know. Hopefully, I’ll have one or a few launch parties for my new book to come.
Writing Quote(s) of the Week:
Some things can be both true and not quite true all at once. This statement is one of them.
You can’t blame a writer for what the characters say.
Truman Capote
I think Miles Davis said something similar when it comes to music. And I agree with both of them.
A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.
Mark Twain
How to support me😊.
Go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile. There’s where you can find out about my first book, the journalism thriller The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt, as well as the first book in my The Yank Striker series, The Yank Striker: a Footballer’s Beginning.
If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. Honestly, if you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll probably find them on the first page of search results.
If you happen to visit these fine independent book stores in Iowa, you can find my books there:
Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
Green Point Mercantile, 214 Chestnut St., Muscatine.
Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.
My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Green Point and Burlington By the Book, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.
The Flow and the Journey
The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.
On the subject of Substack, it’s fantastic if you are signed up for my free subscription, but I would love it if you signed up for a paid one. The monthly rate is the lowest I can put it ($5 per month) but my yearly rate of $35 is a steal at less than three/fifths the monthly rate.
Now, if you want to support me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. You can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.
Hope your week went well, and for you writers, I hope you got something down on paper or on screen. And for everyone else – keep safe out there, things are getting weird.
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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I’ve set up something here at Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.
So, the first poem for today is another winter-themed one. This one’s about a river and what it’s like this time of the year.
Burlington, Iowa, 18 January 2025.
First Freeze
Fort Madison, Iowa, 25 January 2025
Breathing in frost
Air constricting your nostrils
Swaddling in parkas is the only option
To avoid freezing in place
And the last sign the true cold is here
Is when you look across The River
And see its sparkling surface
Due to the sun on the horizon
Has turned dull white and its flow continues
Hidden by the snow-capped ice.
This week I wrote a poem I’m not sure I will share on this page, likely not even later. But I’m beginning to realize poetry is becoming more of an emotional outlet and a way to work out things in my head. So this poem’s about all that.
20 January 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa.
Emergence
25 January 2025, Fort Madison, Iowa
I started playing with words and verse
Just because my fellow writers did
And I wanted a new experience.
But then I discovered
As I faced big events and hard times
I could manage them when I
Entrapped them in words and verse.
Now I’m compelled
To let the words and verses loose
And scatter them on the page
Even if I’m the only one who sees it.
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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to my writing nook, so to speak.
There’s some big news having to do with a project I’ve been calling The Yank Striker 2. How about we talk about it? Also, I might discuss a few other things.
The Home Front
Fort Madison, Iowa, Dusk, 17 January 2024. Photo by Laura Liegois.
I got started on the second semester of the school year this week. It’s still amazing to me how fast the second half of last year sped along considering how long the first half of the year dragged along because of all the time spent on the road, out of my old home but not yet in my new one, just waiting for the school year to be over and to finish with all contractual obligations to my old district. It inspired some good poetry, but it was a bit of a slog especially at the end.
When we were having dinner together this past Sunday, my wife pointed out to me by the end of the current school year, I will have worked for five different school districts during the past ten years – an average of two years per district. I hadn’t thought it had been so many in such a short period of time, but the math worked out.
My wife has lived in five different residences in this time (one more than myself because she moved early to Chariton when she got the job of city manager there and I was wrapping up another teaching contract). Then there’s the fact my kids have moved a combined ten times during this time, counting moving them out of or into our homes, dorms in the case of our daughter, and apartments.
That’s a lot of moving in an out, a lot of time on the road. To be honest, both Laura and I would be happy not to be going anywhere different for a while. In another decade, she and even I will be within sight of retirement from our respective professions. Our house is nice, and work is going well. Even with all the uncertainty in the world, I try to appreciate what I do have. All things considered, my life is going well.
What I’ve Been Writing
Hey, remember that book I put out a year and a half ago? You might have heard of it if you’ve been hanging around my blog for a while?
Remember how I’ve kept saying it was going to be the first in a series? Well, this theoretical series is now coming closer to becoming a reality.
Ta-Daah.aah
Subscribers, passers-by, and humans alike, I am delighted to announce I have completed the rough draft to the second book in The Yank Striker series, which I have referred to as The Yank Striker 2. I have an idea for the final title of this book, but I am not revealing it until later when the time is right.
I had hoped I would have finished the rough draft before the end of 2024, but I only overshot my target by a mere half month. I now have a 80,345-word first draft on my hands. Oopsy.
It is now in my cloud and various hard drives for future use, safe and sound, and ready for what I consider to be the true work of writing, the revising process.
Since I officially finished it mid-week this week, my plan is to let the manuscript sit and simmer in the computer and in my head for three and a half weeks. This would mean I’m going to start tackling the second draft of the book by 8 February 2025.
My ultimate goal would be to release the book with my publisher by 1 June of this year. This would mean:
Second draft – begun by 8 February and completed by the end of the month at the latest.
Beta reads – begun at the start of March and completed by the end of March.
Two more rounds of revisions in April.
Final editing and proofreading in May and concluding by the end of May.
Since I officially finished it mid-week this week, my plan is to let the manuscript sit and simmer in the computer and in my head for three and a half weeks. This would mean I’m going to start tackling the second draft of the book by 8 February 2025.
My ultimate goal would be to release the book with my publisher by 1 June of this year. This would mean:
Second draft – begun by 8 February and completed by the end of the month at the latest.
Beta reads – begun at the start of March and completed by the end of March.
Two more rounds of revisions in April.
Final editing and proofreading in May and concluding by the end of May.
Starting this week, I’m planning on kickstarting my other preparations for getting The Yank Striker 2 to market. This is going to be more of an effort than just the revising and editing process.
Unlike my first two novels, I’m interested in going to an outside source to design the cover art for The Yank Striker 2. I’m also hoping to find some beta readers for my book once I finish the first revision.
And no offense to all of my great readers online, but I’m not soliciting such help here.
After some time online and having to deal with a massive amount of scammers and grifters trying to separate me from my money for different reasons, I am about done with working with any online book business operations, or at least done with people I don’t have recommendations for from my IRL friends, such as my fellow writers in places like Des Moines, Muscatine, Burlington, and points beyond. Online life might be cool, but it’s no replacement for human connection1.
Also, I’m going to spend this weekend trying to email organizers of Iowa book fairs. I want to get some updates about upcoming dates and whether I can get on the road to be part of those events. When I confirm some of those dates, you’ll be the first to hear from me.
Writing Quote(s) of the Week:
Not sure if I’ve featured T.S. Eliot in this space, so I decided to go with this one. Seems he had a sense of humor for sure.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
T.S. Eliot
Here’s another statement I would cosign, although I often get distracted during my writing. 😅
Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.
Gloria Steinem
Finally, here’s the great Margaret Atwood with the wolves theory of storytelling.
All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.
All of them?
Sure, he says. Think about it. There’s escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist2.
How to support me😊.
Go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile to check out some of my other links. For example, in those places, you can find out about my first book, the journalism thriller The Holy Fool: A Journalist’s Revolt, as well as the first book in my The Yank Striker series, The Yank Striker: a Footballer’s Beginning.
If you go follow the links above, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. Again, if you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google you’ll probably find them on the first page of search results.
If you happen to visit these fine independent book stores in Iowa, you can find my books there:
[NEWEST LOCATION] Green Point Mercantile, 214 Chestnut St., Muscatine.
Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St., in my new hometown of Fort Madison.
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.
My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at the first two bookstores above (and hopefully more down the road), but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.
The Flow and the Journey
The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.
On the subject of Substack, it’s fantastic if you are signed up for my free subscription, but I would love it if you signed up for a paid one. The monthly rate is the lowest I can put it ($5 per month) but my yearly rate of $35 is a steal at less than three/fifths the monthly rate.
Now, if you want to support me but can’t quite afford a full subscription, I am now on Venmo. You can just send whatever you can afford. Just click the button below; anything you can provide helps me keep things going.
Wow, a lot happening this week. Hope your week went well, and for you writers, I hope you got something down on paper or on screen.
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Advertisements
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
I am very much tempted to spend the next Prose Night post detailing one of the most elaborate grifts someone tried to pull on me. It’s a cool story, trust me. Might be more interesting than some of my fiction excerpts. 😅 ↩︎
The Yank Striker 2, I believe, would best fit being thrown to the wolves and also running with the wolf pack. ↩︎
As I’ve mentioned previously in this space, I came into writing poetry more or less under protest.
My mother reminded me recently that she had encouraged me to try and write poetry as a young kid, but I had never taken to it. I always pictured myself as a fiction writer rather than a poet. My evolution into considering myself a poet took place over an extended a period of time and I was well into adulthood when it started in earnest.
At the risk of repeating previous stories, the process towards writing poetry began during the late aughts. It was then I moved back to my hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, and rejoined a local group of writers calling themselves Writers on the Avenue (WOTA). It was a solid group of writers who were like me – writers who wanted to improve themselves and to grow in their craft. Everyone needs a similar group or two or three or more if they want to see growth.
I did get this from WOTA. Without them, I’m not sure I would have moved forward on the projects which became my first two books, The Holy Fool and The Yank Striker.
However, there was a lot of reading and a lot of critiques between people interested in my work. In all honesty, a good portion of my contributions to our group was listening to and critiquing poetry.
Many of the WOTA members wrote tons of poetry – poetry about the natural world, their feelings, their history, their faith – things attracting strong emotions and imagery, which are natural fodder for poems. I would sit in these workshopping/critique sessions, attempting to provide feedback, while not having something for them to read. What parental pressure failed to accomplish, adult peer pressure did.
I started off slower than a soccer-playing turtle goalkeeper trying to waste time at the end of a match. Fiction was (and is) my priority, so it was something I just played around with.
I kept finding myself return to the theme of the Mississippi River, the body of water I’d lived next to for about 40 years of my life. The imagry of living next to this watery highway, the source of life for everyone around it, attracted me like nearly nothing else.
This theme continued to attract me as I spent four years away from the Mississippi while living in Chariton, Iowa, in the middle of south central Iowa and well far away from any significant nearby body of water. It was a nice little town, but mentally and emotionally I was missing something.
I was further inspired by living on an actual highway (Iowa 14) for the first time in my life and only a block and a half away from railroad tracks. The theme of travel, the road and rails, also started to creep in to my verse.
Eventually, I decided if I wanted to call myself a poet, I needed to start publishing those poems, even if it was only on my own platform. That’s when Poetry Night was born.
Forcing myself to publish my poetry every month ended up being a good thing for me. Eventually, I started to run out of my old work, so it forced me to start creating new poems and new verse. I started to get out of the old prose writer habits of adding in more words when fewer, more descriptive words would do.
Early in 2024, I ended up spending a lot of time driving, traveling, and staying in unfamiliar places due to personal circumstances. I spent more than a bit of time in unfamiliar hotels and apartments due to this, and poems about being on the road started to spring from my laptop.
It was around this time I wanted to try and put together a physical collection of my work. I didn’t want it to be something just half-hearted and scattered. The poets I knew in real life (including those from the now-disbanded Iowa Writers’ Corner, of Des Moines, Iowa, and the Society of Great River Poets of Burlington, Iowa) said it made sense to base the collection around a particular theme.
It was then I took a look at the topics which had been dominating my verse for at least the past couple years and perhaps longer: River life and traveling life. Rivers and traveling became The Flow and the Journey.
This is a chapbook I put together with the assistance of Dodd Printing in my current home of Fort Madison, Iowa. It contains 19 poems touching on the Mississippi River and river life in general, as well as what you experience and encounter in life on the road. They run the gamut of the first poem I like to say I wrote with intent all the way back in 2010 to poems from 2024. All of them speak of either what river life has meant to me or what a traveling life is like.
If You’re Interested…
…in poetry, especially river and travel poetry, this might be the book for you.
Other than running into me at book fairs and events around Iowa, I’m trying to put together ways for you to purchase my first self-published work out to people. I’m hoping to make them available at independent bookstores here in Iowa, depending on their interest.
Until then, I’ve set up a new online bookstore for The Flow and the Journey here at Liegois Media. Currently, it’s just $6 for a copy, and I’m limiting it to one purchase at a time due to limited supplies. But go ahead and click on the button below. I’d love you to take a chance on my poetry.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
We’ll get to the actual poetry in a little bit. Before then… I typically don’t do much “business” or “promotion” when it comes to to these Poetry Nights (or Prose Nights, either), but I’m going to make a quick exception to this rule because it is attached to my interest in poetry. I’ll keep it short, however.
I announced in my last newsletter I had finally put together my first chapbook, The Flow and the Journey, a collection of 19 of my poems. One of them dates all the way back from 2010, five of them from 2019, and the remainder from 2023-2024, when I finally decided to take my poetry seriously by writing these Poetry Night entries1.
Since this was all a self-published thing2 (where I decided to just put it together and do it because there wasn’t a massive push for someone to publish my poetry just yet), I had to start thinking of a way for people to buy this chapbook other than trying to hunt me down either in my hometown or at my personal appearances. So, I decided to get something set up.
Since Substack doesn’t quite have the setup for this, I decided to put something together at my WordPress sister site, Liegois Media. I set up my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. This is the link, as is the one below.
In all seriousness, I have to admit this is a beta rollout of this service. Pay the amount and make sure to include your address in the purchase, and I will do my darnedest to get the product to you. If for some reason, you haven’t gotten a delivery to me, email me at jasonliegois@liegois.media. Make sure to put in the subject line “You got my chapbook, boy?” I’m more likely to see it3.
All right, blatant capitalistic pitch over. Let’s talk new poetry.
I think I’m built a bit different from many of my fellow humans, especially my fellow Iowans. Most Iowans I run into can’t wait to get outdoors into the summer heat. The Iowa State Fair is our secular pilgrimage, even though I’ve lived here for longer than 40 years and never attended myself. Most of my fellow friends, neighbors, and co-workers love the sun and warmth of spring and summer.
When it gets around this time of the year, however… many of them get down. They wonder where the sun had gone, hidden behind the clouds bringing along rain, snow, a mix of the two, or maybe an ice storm. They wonder why everything is so gray, why it’s so cold, even though it’s nothing compared to those living at 45° North (say, Ottowa, Canada, or Maine) or even 50° North (The Maritimes in Canada)4. It seems to bring them down emotionally, drain them of their physical and mental energy. “I haven’t seen the sun in so long,” I hear sometimes.
I believe I am of different stock.
Both of my parents grew up in Wisconsin. I have German and Norwegian heritage from them, and neither of those countries are known to be tropical paradises. The last time I went to Florida was somewhere around a decade ago. It was at the invitation of my parents and it was a chance for my kids to experience Disney World, the Atlantic Ocean, and for me to to reunite with my aunt I hadn’t seen in maybe 20 years. And it was in December. Without this confluence of coincidences, I’m not sure I’m visiting Florida ever again.
Maybe you couldn’t tell from all those posts in October and November whining about how I was tired of seeing summer weather in Iowa around then, but I’m not a fan of tropical or desert climates. I don’t like to have to dodge the sun and humidity when it gets to be 100℉. Those places like Florida, Texas, and Arizona aren’t my idea of vacation getaways or retirement forever homes. When I think of places that feel like a relaxing place to be, my dream places, they look more like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Upper Michigan, Norway, the Scottish Highlands, the Faeroe and Shetland Islands, and Iceland. Like these places:
Well, those might be adventures for another day. For now, the next two poems are the result of some seasonal inspiration. Hope you enjoy them.
Fort Madison, Iowa, December 2023
Misty Stroll
28 December 2024, Fort Madison, Iowa
The wet weight draping all over me and here
Would be a draining burden in Iowa July
With sweating corn, sweating animals, and
Sweating people wading through the wet air.
But now in the chill of December
Shielded from the sun by the mist and the low veils above
I can let it surround me, I can absorb it, let it refresh me
And my home is more like home.
Fort Madison, Iowa, 27 December 2024
Cozy Winter’s Eve Nook
Fort Madison, Iowa, 28 December 2024
Winter eve charcoal, parchment, gray, midnight,
Medium cool atmosphere, comfortable enough to lounge in without a coat
Until you lounge for more than a few minutes.
The winds persistent on level plains with not enough wood sentinels
Fortune for mariners but disaster for the unsheltered.
My nook is sealed from the worst of The Hibernal
Good wood, stone, metal, concrete, and sealant
The hearth providing the extra needed few calories of warmth
A crow’s nest view of my lovely winter abode
But as a submariner among the fathom-length depths
So am I among The Hibernal.
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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
As I write all of this, I realize I need to make a post discussing this project specifically like I made specific posts about both of my books, The Holy Fooland The Yank Striker. Watch this space for the post coming soon. ↩︎
Shoutout to my hometown biz Dodd Printing for their help in putting this together, by the way. ↩︎
I get a lot of emails from the blogs I subscribe to. ↩︎
I currently live just above 40°30’ North. For me, I have sworn to my wife Laura that 40° North is the farthest South I will ever live in my life. Anywhere between 45° or 60° degrees North would suit me just fine – in fact, I’d be good with 45° or 60° degrees South, as well. I’ve heard decent things about southern Argentina and New Zealand. ↩︎
We are officially into the start of autumn since the equinox happened, but despite a cruel tease of such weather, we here in eastern Iowa have not been getting consistent fall weather. I am going to insist on decorating my blogs with autumn imagery until it actually looks and feels like these pictures in the outside. That’s just the way it has to be for a while, folks.
But we’ve got writing and new events to talk about, so let’s get into it.
The Home Front
The transition between old residence and new residence for Laura (my wife) and myself continues.
Painting in our home had been completed, and the removal of our carpet is all but done. We also did some trimming up on the tree in our front yard that was a bit overdue. Now will come the process of treating the hardwood floors, moving all the items now in storage into the storage of our new house, installing new lighting and ceiling fans, and carting away some of the resulting detritus. Soon enough, our modest apartment will have to be packed up and ready for shipping, either by us or the movers.
Thankfully, unlike our last move, this is a move within our current city and will not need to be finished immediately. I am somewhat selfishly looking forward to my new writing space and how I will eventually get it set up.
Of course, not even this move will be the end of moving and changes for us. My son is moving closer to buying his own home, and we will be happy to provide any assistance for his own move in Des Moines. Thankfully, he does not have as much possessions as we do and his is also a move within a city.
What I’m Writing
I’ve been quite busy this week and last with my ongoing projects.
The Yank Striker 2, the sequel for The Yank Striker: I am now at 52,000 words for the first draft of the book. I am currently shooting for 75,000 words as a new target for the end of the year. If I average about 250 words on it for the remainder of the year, I should be able to get to 75,000 by 31 December 2024. At this point, I think it is doable. I will concentrate on this for my short-term goal, and then work toward getting it publication-ready for summer 2025.
The Untitled Pro Wrestling Family Drama project: Made a big jump in progress on this project. As of this writing, I’m beginning to wrap up the critical scene where my main character makes the fateful decision to look into his family’s history of professional wrestling although he has been at least on a surface level avoiding this world for all his life. I’m going to write just what I consider to be the essential scenes until I get to something approaching a full rough draft. This will be interesting because the story will eventually bounce between the late 2010’s and 1954-1974. It’s the first time I’ve dealt with different time periods in one of my stories, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.
The Untitled Liegois Poetry Chapbook: I have actually made more progress on this project this week. I’ve finished revisions on the poems, and finished arranging them in order in the chapbook. Again, I think my revisions have significantly tightened up those poems and given them more impact.I am not sure when I will have this ready for sale when I’m out and about, so to speak. I have to add in some author’s notes and acknowledgements, consider whether some more photos might be called for, and some other design issues. Plus, I have to start figuring out how to print the thing. However, I’m inching closer to being a self-published poet.
What I’m Doing Having to Do With Writing
(AKA personal appearances)
I (also sometimes known as The Dude In Purple) still have a few events coming up for this fall and some others I’m tentatively adding to the schedule. All these events will be me appearing live and with my books, The Holy Fool and The Yank Striker.
I’m headed back to the Des Moines area from 12-6 p.m. Sunday, 6 October [THAT’S TOMORROW], for the Windsor Heights Book Fair. This will take place at the Agora Events Center, 7692 Hickman Road, Des Moines. This will be the second year I’ll have participated in this event, and I’m eager to return.
I’ll be participating in the Local Writers’ Book Fair, which will be part of the 2024 Iowa City Book Festival. It will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City. This is again my second year of participating, and I am looking forward to being back in Iowa City.
I’m planning to attend the Fort Madison Area Art Association’s Meet the Author Book Signing event from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, November 30, at the FMAAA’s center at 825 Avenue G, Fort Madison. This would be my first author’s event in my new home of Fort Madison, and I am overjoyed to be part of this gathering.
I’m hoping to be part of the DSM Book Festival at the at Franklin Junior High Event Center, 4801 Franklin Ave., Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, 22 March 2025. This is being sponsored by one of my favorite independent book stores in Des Moines, Beaverdale Books. I’ll provide more information, hopefully, as the event approaches.
I’ll be looking to add some more dates on the appearance calendar as time goes on. Hope to see you at one of those places.
Writing Quote of the Week:
I agree with Eudora’s words here, although I’m more certain of the sentiments.
Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.
Eudora Welty,On Writing
A Few Links About My Books and Where to Find Them
(Feel free to ignore this bit if you’ve read it before)
Currently, I have the mighty total of TWO novels which make up my official backlist2.
My first book is a journalism thriller set in Chicago during the turbulent days of the 2008 election and the start of the Great Recession. Check out more about it here.
You can get the paperback version of this book on Amazon here and the ebook version of it here.
A fellow Iowa writer and organizer of the Windsor Heights Book Fair, Tyler Granger, recently did a review of my book: you can find it here3.
My second book, the first in the The Yank Striker series, is a soccer drama telling the story of the beginning of a young American’s career as a player. There’s more about it here.
The paperback version of this book can be found on Amazon and the site of my publisher, Biblio Publishing. It is also available in ebook format on Amazon here.
John Buzbee of The Culture Buzz radio show in Des Moines (KFMG FM) interviewed me about the Yank Striker: You can catch it here.
For full links to these and other helpful places having to do with me and my writing, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.
You can also get my books in person at these fine Iowa bookstores:
NEW: Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.
Final Thoughts
All the writers keep writing and everyone keep safe, especially those who are continuing to deal with the effects of Hurricane Helene passing through the southeastern US over the past week. Best wishes.
-30-
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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
We are getting deeper into fall in Iowa, but sadly not yet not deep into proper autumn weather. It is more like the weather at the beginning of a school year where you walk to school wearing a proper fall coat in the morning and yet it gets so hot by mid-afternoon you’re forced to walk home with the coat tied around your waist. Such is life in Iowa, but at least it’s not Kansas, which is flatter, doesn’t have as many good rivers as Iowa, and is at least ten degrees hotter1.
The Home Front
Not much here in recent weeks.
It’s part of a slow process, but we are starting to get things sorted out with our new home in Fort Madison. Most of it involves removing carpet, which both my wife and I always thought seemed strange to put over perfectly good hardwood floors, and cleaning things up.
Once the move gets done, we’ll be hopeful not to move again anytime soon. Seems like the past few years has been a constant move for both my wife and I and now our kids, who are in their own apartments or in the process of hunting for their own homes. Besides, Fort Madison is a nice little river town to get settled in.
I am hoping beyond hope this Friday will be the very last 80-degree-plus day in the state of Iowa for 2024. The stinking heat we have to deal with every afternoon after I get out of work can’t go away soon enough. Bring on actual fall weather and even winter at this point.
What I’m Writing
Time for an update on what I’m writing.
The Yank Striker 22, the sequel for The Yank Striker: I am now at the 50,000-word mark for the first draft of the book, which is a bit amazing thinking back to how blocked I was on the project in late spring and early summer of this year. I’ve got around nine chapters I’m thinking about adding onto the story, but not all of those are going to be of any considerable length. There’s at least 5,000 of the words in my first draft I know are going onto the discard pile whenever I start revisions. 80,000 words is going to be my absolute limit on the word count for the first draft, and I would prefer to have a final draft of somewhere around 70,000 words, especially since this will be a series and I’ve got a lot more story to tell down the road. With the regular progress I’ve been making on the first draft over the course of last month, I’m now feeling quietly confident I might have the first draft wrapped up by the end of the year. That’s going to require considerable focus on my part. From some back of the envelope calculations I just made this week, if I manage to get maybe 300 words on the project written every day, I should have my first draft done and ready to revise by the end of 2024. I would love to try and produce a book every year if possible. Getting a book done in two years (as The Yank Striker 2 looks to be at this point) is still the fastest I’ve ever written anything up to this point. If I’m writing this much, I want to be producing books and releasing them. The larger backlist I have, the better in my opinion, and I want to have whatever time I have left to write and produce as much as I can. Also since I am actively working on one series (and have a second in mind), I don’t have the feeling I am going to run out of things to write anytime soon.
The Untitled Pro Wrestling Family Drama project: I’ve had some time to work on this project last week, not so much this week. I’m getting close to the point in a typical story, if you are using a Hero’s Journey or a Steal the Cat-type outline, where the main character gets a challenge to go on a quest or a challenge.
I decided the impetus for such a call to action was a mini-family reunion in the scenic location of northeastern Minnesota, and it involves a glance into a family past my main character has avoided for years. But when he gets a glimpse of his past from an entirely unexpected source, that past comes rushing back, prompting him to find out the truth about it. Pro wrestling is also involved.
[END OF SPOILERS]
The Untitled Liegois Poetry Chapbook: Not much work on this one this week. I think I’ve sorted out which poems I want in the book and have taken a shot at revising them. I’m quite satisfied with the results of the revisions, making what I’ve created more compact, more impactful. Whether I get them done or not in time for some of my more recent outings is a totally different story, but it still seems closer to being done than it was when I was just talking about the idea a year or so ago.
What I’m Doing Having to Do With Writing
(AKA where I might be appearing soon, among other things)
I (also sometimes known as The Dude In Purple) still have a few events coming up for this fall and some others I’m tentatively adding to the schedule. All these events will be me appearing live and with my books, The Holy Fool and The Yank Striker.
I’m headed back to the Des Moines area from 12-6 p.m. Sunday, 6 October, for the Windsor Heights Book Fair. This will take place at the Agora Events Center, 7692 Hickman Road, Des Moines. This will be the second year I’ll have participated in this event, and I’m eager to return.
I’ll be participating in the Local Writers’ Book Fair, which will be part of the 2024 Iowa City Book Festival. It will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City. This is again my second year of participating, and I am looking forward to being back in Iowa City.
I’m tentatively planning to attend the Fort Madison Area Art Association’s Meet the Author Book Signing event from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, November 30, at the FMAAA’s center at 825 Avenue G, Fort Madison. This would be my first author’s event in my new home of Fort Madison, and I am overjoyed to be part of this gathering.
I’m hoping to be part of the DSM Book Festival at the at Franklin Junior High Event Center, 4801 Franklin Ave., Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, 22 March 2025. This is being sponsored by one of my favorite independent book stores in Des Moines, Beaverdale Books. I’ll provide more information, hopefully, as the event approaches.
I’ll be looking to add some more dates on the appearance calendar as time goes on. Hope to see you at one of those places.
Writing Quote of the Week:
Good words from the King about one important requirement for a writer.
You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
A Few Links About My Books and Where to Find Them
(Feel free to ignore this bit if you’ve read it before)
Currently, I have the mighty total of TWO novels which make up my official backlist.
My first book is a journalism thriller set in Chicago during the turbulent days of the 2008 election and the start of the Great Recession. Check out more about it here.
You can get the paperback version of this book on Amazon here and the ebook version of it here.
A fellow Iowa writer and organizer of the Windsor Heights Book Fair, Tyler Granger, recently did a review of my book: you can find it here5.
My second book, the first in the The Yank Striker series, is a soccer drama telling the story of the beginning of a young American’s career as a player. There’s more about it here.
The paperback version of this book can be found on Amazon and the site of my publisher, Biblio Publishing. It is also available in ebook format on Amazon here.
John Buzbee of The Culture Buzz radio show in Des Moines (KFMG FM) interviewed me about the Yank Striker: You can catch it here.
For full links to these and other helpful places having to do with me and my writing, you can go to this page on my WordPress site, Liegois Media.
You can also get my books in person at these fine Iowa bookstores:
NEW: Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.
Final Thoughts
That’s about it for now. All the writers keep writing and everyone keep safe.
-30-
I do not mean to insult any Kansas residents or those who like living there. It’s just my taste to live somewhere near a big river and have it be relatively cool for most of the year if I can help it. ↩︎
All of the following titles are working titles. I’m going to wait to release what I think should be the real titles when these projects are closer to publication. ↩︎
Then again, isn’t this the point of this whole newsletter in part, to let you know what I’m working on? ↩︎
All promotional images courtesy of their respective organizations. ↩︎
If anyone does any reviews of my work, I’d love to post some links to them. Send it to me in the DM’s or comments. ↩︎
I knew I said I was going to take a weekend off due to today being my birthday (yea for making it to another one), but I decided to update everyone regarding where I’ll be appearing at some local book events over the next several months. This will likely change and hopefully grow over time as I continue to promote my current works, The Yank Strikerand The Holy Fool, when I’m not at work writing my new projects.
That said, let’s get to the appearances.
Current Schedule for 2024:
I am now confirmed to be at the Ankeny Book Fair at the Ankeny public library from 1-4 p.m. April 20. Several of my writer friends in Iowa have appeared at the event in years past, but this will be my first time appearing here. I’m really looking forward to it.
Pella Books is going to be part of the Pella Tulip Festival, and I’m looking forward to being part of its 4th Local Author/Illustrator Book Tent event. I’ll be at Pella Books, 824 Franklin St., Pella, at the following dates and times:
12-2 p.m., April 27 (Saturday)
6-8 p.m., May 2-3
12-2 p.m., May 4
It will be my second time attending the Authors on the Riverwalk event, which will be from 12-4 p.m. May 25 at the Des Moines Marriot Downtown, 700 Grand Ave., Des Moines. It was a fantastic event last year, and I’m hoping for an even better experience this year.
I’ll be at the Valley West Mall, 1551 Valley West Drive, West Des Moines, for the 9th Annual Indie Author Book Expo. I’ll be there with many other area and regional authors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, June 7, and at the same time Saturday, June 8.
I’ll be there for the Windsor Heights Book Fair in Windsor Heights, Iowa, from 12-6 p.m. Sunday, 6 October. More information when I get it.
Finally, I’ll be part of the local author book fair sponsored by the Iowa City Book Festival. Not sure about the exact day or time, but it should occur sometime during this year’s festival, which will be 14-20 October in Iowa City.
I am very interested in appearing at other events and venues between now and Fall 2024. If you know of some events or are organizing one of those events, I would love to hear about them and show up. You can email me at jasonliegois@liegois.media or mention something in the comments.
Also, if you can’t make it out to one of my events, you can get my books at the links on the sidebar of this page or the “My Work” page. If you want to get some copies of my books in person, you can check out the following independent book stores in Iowa:
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave # S1, Des Moines
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.
I’m always looking for some new places to place my books (especially now in eastern Iowa), so feel free to hit me up in the comments if anyone has a suggestion.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
What would an American soccer superstar look like? Not just someone who was a good player, but an actual legendary, world-class player, someone on the level of a Lionel Messi, a Diego Maradona, a Pele? Where would he come from? What would he be like as a person? And what would his path to soccer superstardom look like?
Those were the questions I started to ask myself about a decade or so ago, as my obsession with the sport grew (which I’ve documented before on this site here and here, for example). As much as I loved the American players I’ve cheered on as they played for the US Men’s National Team, or representing there clubs here or abroad, we’ve never had a world-class player, someone who could be considered among the top 10 players in the world. The more I considered the situation, the more the storytelling possibilities of the situation intrigued me.
I might have mentioned this previously on the page, but for me, my own creative process is a perpetual stew, constantly simmering in my head. For those unaware, the stew, which is also called a hunter’s pot, hunter’s stew, or forever soup, is a concoction you constantly keep cooking in a pot. Ingredients and liquids keep going in to keep the thing going as you continue to serve people from the pot. That’s my creative process – new items keep coming in, I like a mix, and then I ladle it out to serve, so to speak.
In this manner, then, I started to cook up the idea, the concept of this main character. This process would be something entirely differnt to me in this instance. In the fiction I had written before, both published and unpublished, my main characters had shared more than a little resemblance to myself.
However, I knew this main character would be someone very different from myself. Obviously, even though I am a fan of the game, I only played it as a kid and nowhere near at the semi-professional levels, never mind pro levels. The further I went through the process, the further this character drifted away from who I was and toward something unique. And it excited me. First he became a Texas native because it seemed right for a soccer player to be from somwhere that produced so many good players like the legendary Clint Dempsey. Then it made sense for him to have a connection with the college gridiron through his father. And before I knew it, I had the first ever LGBTQ main character I’d ever written.
I stirred all this up with almost a decade’s worth of research into the world of professional soccer (and more since then), and what resulted was The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning – what will be the first in The Yank Striker book series. I feel more assured that the title of this book is a bit more straightforward than my debut novel, at least. I think it’s a great start to my first, very unique, series.
The Story
As he prepares to graduate from high school, Texas native Daniel John (DJ) Ryan thinks he has his life plans in order. A star wide receiver for the Liberty Rock Park High School football team, he won the state title with his older brother and quarterback Trey Ryan. It makes sense for him to commit to attending Hamilton State University (HSU) just outside Dallas, where he’ll join Trey and their father, championship-winning coach Junior Ryan, for college football glory and a shot at the NFL, with a pro career which could help support him as he pursues the life of an artist later.
Yet, the gridiron is not the only part of DJ’s life. He also plays the other sport known as football – soccer. A talented striker for his high school and a local semi-pro team, DJ finds an artistic creativity and freedom in the sport he doesn’t have anywhere else. And he will have to set the sport aside if he plays for his father.
There’s also the secret he is keeping from all but a few of his closest family and friends. DJ is pansexual, sexually attracted to people regardless of their genders. He also is romatically attracted to more than one person at a time, and unlike his serial philanderer of a father, he is open and honest with all involved.
As he joins the HSU Copperheads, however, two circumstances threaten these plans. First, a chance encounter at a soccer tournament with a English scout turns into an offer for a tryout with Donford FC, a mid-level Premier League club from the East End of London. And then, the possibility of DJ’s personal secrets being revealed threaten his football dreams.
Will DJ decide to stay close to home and family, as well as the familiarity of the gridiron? Or, will he attempt to follow his creative heart across the Atlantic Ocean and into the unknown world of professional soccer?
If You’re Interested…
…in the sport of soccer, family intrigue, and/or LGBTQ fiction, The Yank Striker is absolutely for you.
Essentially, you can probably find it just by Googling “Jason Liegois The Yank Striker,” but if you want faster links, you can check out either the links on the sidebar of my desktop version of this site, or go to my profile page on Substack and click on the “Links” section. If you’re interested, you can pick up the paperback version for $14.95 or the Kindle version for $4.99.
Or, if you happen to visit a book fair or author’s event in Iowa, western Illinois or maybe even Northeast Missouri, you might see me there and ask me if I’ve got a copy to sell and autograph. I’ll be the relatively big guy with a gray beard and I’ll almost certainly be wearing something in purple. You won’t miss me.
