Here is the good news. Everyone who has contributed has at least one piece accepted.

Here is the not so bad. Half of you have not yet given me your bio page stuff, and I need it asap.

I may be at fault for not letting everyone know, (I know I am in a few cases) but I need from every contributor 3 things.

(1) A pic of yourself, or of whatever icon you want to use, just as you do on Xanga.

(2) Tell me what real name - or name you pretend is real – you want on your bio page, or tell me you want no name at all other than your username.

(3) Write a short bio. Something about yourself; this is me, I do this, I like that etc. Or tell me you don’t want a bio.

If you want to publicise yourself at all – and most writers do, even if they haven’t written much yet- thie bio is important. The main object of The Xangans is publicity for Xanga and Xangans.

If you want to construct your own, do it like this.

For any version of word earlier than 2007, farmat a page as follows. In “file,” select “page setup,” and under ”paper size,” select p inches tall by 6 inches wide. Under “margins,” select 1 inch for top and bottom, and 0.75 inches left and right. Do not use a gutter margin.

Insert the pic at the top of the page, using centre, not left. Highlight the pic, and under “formet,” click “object. Adjust it’s size.

Below the pic leave a 12-point space. Below that put your username in 14-point Georgia. Below that, another 12-point space. Below that, your “real name,” if any, in 14-point Georgia.

Below that, one or to spaces of 12-point.

Below that, your bio, in 12 point Georgia. Doe not exceed the page and go onto a second page. You have one page only.

Send it to me as an attachment at grahamworth@hotmail.com

If you can’t do this, or if you are running on Word 2007, send me the three parts, and I will assemble them. Do not send me any Word 2007 attachments.

Oh I nearly forgot; on any email, start by stating your username and (real name, if you’re using one.) Their are about 30 of you out there, and it’s easy to become confused when juggling username, real name and email address.

My first published                                                 My first published 

In the past few months, starting in fact before Christmas, two close members of my family here in Toronto have gone through the harrowing, destructive experience of being severely ill. I’ve been closely involved with giving what help I can, which has amounted to one hell of a task. During these four months I’ve seen much of the inside of several Toronto hospitals, and I’m enraged at the experience; engraged, stressed, frustrated, and chewing at the bit to do something.

Rather than rant on about my feelings, let me just hit you with a few of the words and that spring to my mind in relation to health care and hospitals in Toronto: dirty, indifferent, dangerous; places so insanitary and badly run that going in with one illness can lead you to spend a month there with a worse one. Wards so dirty that you can write your name in the grime on the walls (you think I exaggerate? I did it. Try ward B4 at Sunnybrook Hospital. I didn’t get past the first stroke as there was no way I was putting the finger in my mouth again after the wall.)

Ther is a great deal of debate in the USA on the proposed health care reforms, and I understand that Canada is held up as a shining example. I’ve no fixed opinion as to what should happen in the USA – I don’t live there – but what part exactly of our crumbling system do they want to copy? The difficulty that the elderly face if needing to find a new doctor, when doctors don’t want to take them? The need for family members to practically act as bodyguards for their relatives, checking on every action of the hospitals to see what their latest goof-up is? (Am I making this up? Try spending some time at the Scarborough Grace.)

I have to end this blog. I’m busy. I could sit here a week listing the stuff I’ve seen.

Soon I shall blog my review of Real Nurses and Others, the paperback version of Dr. Tania Das Gupta’s survey into racism in hospitals in Toronto and other parts of the province of Ontario. The survey was commissioned by the Ontario Nurses Association, and deals with another cancer eating at Canada’s health care system: racism, ageism, classism, sexism, and all the rest of the bunch of isms that the managers of our hospitals allow to run rampant, to no good purpose, in addition to their inability to meet basic nursing standards.

To those who’ve contributed to The Xangans, and are wondering whats going on, I have a cheerful word. Everyone who has sent material has at least one piece accepted. I hope for a publication date in early May, but I still need pics and bios of about 80 to 100 words from some of you, and also to be advise if you want to use a name in addition to your screen name.

 My first historical novel                                My first speculative fiction novel 

The Arena of Knowing

I’d like to talk about something very beautiful: you are alive. That’s incredibly beautiful. And when we talk about the self, we are talking about recognizing, understanding who you are. When you think, “I am an Australian; I’m a New Zealander; I am English, Scottish, Irish,” you are forgetting who you are. You are a human being.

We hear about superheroes who have reached the ultimate state of being. What if I said that you have reached the ultimate state of being? You are alive. That’s the ultimate state of being. There isn’t a higher state than being alive. This is it.

People go to the movies to be entertained, for some action, some drama. They have a whole ritual of getting their popcorn, their candy, their soft drinks. Talk about planning! The army could learn a thing or two about discipline from these people. They know exactly what and how much to get. Then they sit down in their chosen seat. The movie starts, and the line between reality and the artificial blurs. Some people even start crying. If they could see the real shoot, they’d be laughing, because what they’re looking at is maybe the fifteenth take of the same scene.

We believe. Let’s believe for a minute that there is a cow in front of you, and the cow moos. Maybe there’s no harm in believing in it, but when you need milk, remember one thing: If this cow does give milk, it’s only make-believe milk. It’s not real. You won’t be able to drink it. You can imagine it, you can pretend you’re drinking milk, but it won’t satisfy your thirst. Everything about it has to be make-believe, because it’s all a fantasy.

In the arena of knowing, there’s no make-believe. You experience. This is what I talk about. It’s not a fantasyland. There is a longing within a human being so deep that it leaves you dry and, in the same moment, fills you up. It’s a magical dance of quenching the thirst within.

Have you ever had water when you were really, really thirsty? Water becomes sweet. The focus is on nothing else but to take that water and drink, drink, drink. After you finish drinking, you say, “Ah!” You’re satisfied.

What is water? It’s something that has no identity. It isn’t square and it isn’t round. It takes the shape of whatever contains it. It has no color. It flows out of the ground, sometimes out of rocks—unbelievable places. If you were to try to describe water for its physical appearance, you could not do a good job, because it would always sound insignificant. Yet its power is so incredible that nothing can stand in its way—no mountain, no rock. Over time, water will carve what we think could never be carved. Yet water has tenderness, gentleness, softness. It’s the softest feeling, and it can destroy mountains.

The lack of water has wiped out civilizations. Yet water has a clear understanding and sense of purpose. It comes from the ocean, it travels through the land, but water clearly knows its destination. It knows it has an appointment, a love affair with the ocean. When it merges with the ocean, its identity is gone. It’s stripped of all that it was. It’s home again.

Why am I telling you all this? How is this going to help you? Because you can learn from it—about the passion, the desire, the want in your life. You have a thirst in you. You have a thirst to be fulfilled, but many people don’t acknowledge it because they’re afraid. Why? Because they don’t know what will happen to them. They have some concept that if they really acknowledged this thirst in their lives, they might become a vegetable, they might become irresponsible, or they might not be able to hold down a job.

What you do in this world, you do. It has nothing to do with your inner passion, because it will never satisfy that inner passion. They are two different things.

I’m here to tell you to listen to that sweet thirst. How could you not desire true peace in your life? Understand the passion for peace and satisfaction in your life. You have been thirsty. Throw your bucket in the well. And when that bucket is full, reel it in, and you will have a reward. Your reward will be satisfaction.

Prem Rawat

Again, this top bit is new. I have all the ingredients, and there will now be a lengthy pause as I boil the pot and stir it.

I have my computer. I have my coffee. I have my coloured pens and little bits of paper.

Around it all I shall dance, occasionally chanting, “hubble bubble, toil and trouble….”

Again, this top bit is new.

Many centuries ago - centuries? No, millenia – the priests of Ancient Egypt completed the mummification of the boy Pharoah Tutankhamun. Reverently, they laid him in his carved sarcophagus, and placed it amid the piled treasures that would accompany him into the afterlife.

Then they took a breather, a coffee break, a few minutes to scratch their priestly asses and consider if any holy ritual had been ommitted.

Then they sealed the tomb.

Hopefully, all that should have been inside was inside, and all who should have been outside were outside.

If anyone had forgotten to place the Pharoah’s socks with him, tough for the Pharoah’s feet.

If anyone was snoozing in a side passage, thinking it wasn’t yet sealing time, tough for him.

They sealed the sucker.

I am close to sealing the tomb of Xangankhamun. Before the sun god Ra has circled this globe one more time, I shall commence to heave closed the might doors.

If you haven’t sent your stuff, tough.

Read what’s written below, and act.

I am one weary chief priest. My shaven head is quite glistening with sweat.

This top bit is new. You need to read it and act now

Contributions now number approaching 60 pieces. Take a look at anything you’ve sent. If it is a poem without a title, or several poems, each with a number, which is common, please re-send with a title for each piece. The same with short stories and blogs.

This is getting very complex at my end. I am bogging down with putting all this stuff into a sequence. I have already killed six people in frustration, and if it gets worse I will kick the dog. I want to close this all out in a few days. If you have something to send, now is the time.

Thagu. Thagu verra much.

As your pieces come in, things are getting busier at my end, so if I haven’t contacted you for a few days, don’t worry about it. I am tentatively ordering the order of pieces as they come in. 

It’s coming up to month end, and -much as I predicted – I have about half the contributions to The Xangans in that I need in order to make it of reasonable page count, and the mix of fictional stories to more factual blogs is about right.

If you have anything to send that you’d like to see as part of this collection – or anthology, to give it its proper name – of works by Xangans, send as a Word attachment to grahamworth@hotmail.com

Fame or lack of it. This isn’t a collection of pieces by well know xangans, it’s a collection by xangans. Don’t hesitate to send anything you consider good because you have zero commentators, friends or subscribers. In my experience, fame on Xanga may have little to do with how good your stuff is.

Also, do not hesitate because you think your viewpoint may be unacceptable according to someone’s viewpoint, due to being left-wing, right-wing, gay, nerdy, emo, scene, young, old, Christian, Muslim, atheist, feminist, sexist etc. This anthology is representative of what Xanga is, not of what someone thinks Xanga should be.

Censorship, of “bad language,” nude art, opinions or stories that some people think ought to be censored, etc. Other than refusing to include any thing that’s obviously illegal, or defamatory of a living person – which could lead to legal action against me – I won’t be doing any censoring. I think that’s the end of that point.

Acknowledgements. The early part of the book will contain an index of contributors, probably in addition to the usual index of pieces. For this part I need the following stuff from you. This will be an important and major part, not usually seen in book format.

Your screen name, as in >>>>> xanga.com/screenname or screenname.xanga.com

Your real name. Here you have a choice of three things. (1) use your real name. (2) use the name you used to open your Xanga account, whether it’s real or a fiction, I don’t need to know which it is. (3) tell me you don’t want to use any name, which is also okay.

A picture of you, or of an icon that you use to represent your site. Use the pic or icon that you are already using, or send a different one if you prefer. But in either case SEND ME THE ORIGINAL in jpg, gif or bitmap form. This is because the original, at its real size, will probably reproduce better on paper than the pic that appears on your site, which has already been reduced by Xanga.

My first published                                            My second published

This is the provisional cover for a collection of short stories, poems, blogs etc. by Xangans

Not a collection on Xanga of course – that already exists, and is called Xanga – but something that exists in the real world, that is called….

a paperback!

Yes, real paper, with a glossy cover, such as can be found on shelves in bookstores, and read through sunglasses as you lie on beaches, and pages that you can turn and get coffee stains on!

(This also includes a Kindle edition.)

I’ve had this idea in mind for a year or more, since I published Wake of the Raven, but I put it on hold until I’d had the practice of handling all of the publishing of Zorn

So I’m looking for contributors, typically people who are interested in seeing their work in print, but haven’t yet written enough to try for publication, or don’t want to pay for self -publication

Short stories, poems, articles, drawings, comic strips…. whatever you think you’re good at

If you’re interested, comment. Or message me, or email at grahamworth@hotmail.com

Frequently asked Questions starts here

Preferred format for submission is by word document

Preferred method of submission is by email attachment, to my address as above. This also gives me your email address, which I will need eventually.

Any non-public real names, street addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, or other personal details that I learn during this production will automatically be kept confidential, as is usual professional practice.

Consider: while you may have made a thousand blogs, publishing in paper format is not the same as Blogging.

1. You can’t edit it later.

2. You rarely get the chance to do this.

3. Publication in paper gives a credibility that blogging doesn’t.

All this adds up to >>>>>>>> writing carelessly and making a mess has more lasting consequences, so think and edit before you send.

Question: what am I looking for, short stories or blogs? Answer: a mixture of things, even as Xangan blog posts are on a mixture of things. However, the proportions will certainly be different.

Question: how will the proportions be different? Answer: in fiction, whether based on fact or fantasy, the work (novel, short story, poem or play) must have a self contained life that is independently of the author or reader. Once it has left the author’s hands, he can do no more to it, and once it reaches the readers hands, he will receive no more of it. It’s skill alone is the means by which the author entertains, fascinates or informs the reader, or fails to do so, and it has a “one shot” nature.

Obviously I’m looking for a high proportion if this.

A lot of blogging is more like a conversation, in that it may be added to as comments come in, or further blogs may carry on the discussion, arguement, quarrel, or Xanga drama. This won’t work in paperback publication.

I’m looking for zero of this. It can’t live in paperback format.

Some blogging has good ”shelf life.” For example, a blog on creationism versus evolution would address an issue that will still arouse passion a decade from now, or one on whether Michael Jackson was a tragic hero or someone we are better of without. But it, like a short story, must be self contained, carrying not only an opinion, but the arguments that support that opinion.

The proper term for this type of blog is an essay, or article, and we need some, but not so much as to choke the entertainment side. 

My first published                      My second published

“How are your thighs,” asked Gudrun, an amorous woman in DH Lawrence’s Women in Love.

“My thighs?” replied the puzzled coal miner.

“How are they?” Gudrun continued, “are they strong? Because I want to drown in flesh. Hot, physical, naked flesh.”

I too would like to drown. I would like to drown in emails, emails heavy with attachments of stories, poems, blogs, profile pic and bios, heavy as the ponderous, swinging testicles of the rampaging bull elephant, heavy with the stuff that I need to reach a page count nearly within my grasp, heavy with the bios and pics I need to format the pages, which I want to complete before this April ends.

Here is my my email addy. grahamworth@hotmail.com Guard it cunningly. Do not on any account recommend this blog, as it may cause people to read it.

My first  My second                           Our first 

……… when we get our act together.

I do not judge a man by his race.

I do not judge a man by his religion, or beliefs.

I do not judge a man by the colour of his skin, or by what good job he has. or by how well he is educated, or how cool a person he is, how handsome or beautiful, how smoothly or convincingly he speaks, by what cars or houses he owns, by the size of his swimming pool.

Most especially I do not judge he or she by the degree of his wealth.

No, by none of these things.

I judge him solely by his ability to do Richard The Third impressions.

Give me another horse! Bind up my wounds! 

I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
  And if I die, no should will pity me.
    And, wherefore should they, since that I myself
      Find in myself no pity to myself?

Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

Thou art a traitor.
  Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear
    I will not dine until I see the same.

O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low’r'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them,—

 Yes, that wretched man, that sluttish woman, who cannot do a passable Richard III impression, I judge, and count as not fit to crawl upon the face of this earth.

My first published                                            My second published

 “Master,” I said to him, “some xangans have sent pieces for ‘The Xangans,’ and some say they’ll try.” And he told me….

“There is no ‘try.’ One does, or one does not.”

My first published                                                My latest published

Connected with the upcoming publication of The Xangans, I’m looking for people who can give me real life accounts of incidents of racism in the medical profession, most especially in the profession of nursing, and most especially still in Canadian hospitals.

In fact let’s expand it to a more useful level. Not just incidents of racism, but any type of those nasty isms: racism, sexism, gender-preference ism, ageism, or just plain medical incompetence and cover ups.  

You don’t have to have written it up as a dramatised story, or even blogged about it. Just let me have it briefly as a comment, or – if you wish to remain anonymous – message me, or email me at grahamworth@hotmail.com

It’s generally agreed – or at least, generally agreed amongst the kind of people I agree with – that racism and the other isms are social evils. Possibly we can use the upcoming publication of The Xangans to achieve some good.

Nostradamus made his predictions in quatrains, meaning pieces of verse with a length of four lines.

These were composed so as not to be easily read, in convoluted French, with distortions and anagrams of names, and insertions of words in Greek, Latin and other languages

For many months I have strived to discern the meaning of one of these quatrains, written in Nostradamus’s enigmatic style

Caligula having made four-thousand and twenty strides

Both sheep and kingless state bereft of the lusty churchman

Who falls before a chariot from which the conqueror stirs not

This foreign son brought through snow by the new sun

Finally I remembered that the the name of the roman emperor Caligula was not in fact Caligula. That was only his nickname, and means “boots.” As four-thousand and twenty strides of boots required only two-thousand and ten pairs of feet, the meaning was obviously an encrypted measure of time, “when time has marched to 2010.”

Once I understood this, it all became clear with amazing speed.

“Kingless state” means republic, and “flock” is a widespread term used by Christians to refer to themselves.

“Foreign son….brought by the new sun,” is a complex word play, intended to maker the fourth line give spatial directions, in opposition to the first, which gave the date .

“….brought by the new sun” means coming from the east, but “through snow,” means by a route through the far north. As “foreign” in Greek is “Xena,” which closely resembles the name of the ancient chinese land of Xanadu, ”foreign son” means “chinese xangan.”

Enough of this tedious explaining. Here is the full and obvious explanation, in modern English and style.

By the time 2010 arrives

Dan will have chucked aside both the Republican party and his christian flock to go chasing boobs instead

And Ricky, the chinese guy from Toronto, will kick his ass without leaving his wheelchair

my first published novel….                                ….my second published novel