Columbia University is forcing yet another independent bookstore to close. It's worse than book-burning; rather than burning books one at a time, CU is burning our ability to browse, talk about books and buy books from someone who cares about books.

Today is May 24; if we don't act, Morningside Books will be gone.

There is still time to save the store -- if owner Peter Soter can raise $100K by the end of the month, he can salvage his store. He has already raised more than $50K from customers and neighbors, but CU refuses to give him a stay. The neighborhood needs to get together and force CU to act in a reasonable manner.

My friend Mark Ettinger told me that a running joke among musicians is to say, "I'm making a lot of progress, my biggest project yet just fell through."

In that vein, I had to wait as my novel, The What Do You Know Contest, was put through yet another hair-raising, long-simmering gauntlet of first a pitch letter and a sample chapter to the agency's first reader, then the full manuscript, then the manuscript being passed along to the head of the agency, and then... they're not taking any new clients at the moment.

I've entered The What Do You Know Contest into a couple of first-novel contests, with first prize being publication by the small press running the contest. Yes, I'm aware that there's a certain amount of irony involved in entering a novel called The What Do You Know Contest into a contest, but maybe a little irony is just the thing that's missing from my diet.

Hung out yesterday evening with Michael Geffner at a meeting of Writers Helping Writers, which he hosts once a month or so at Bar B on East 4th street. The guy is a real mensch; he honestly wants to help other writers, particularly younger ones.

Michael gives excellent advice, particularly to freelance writers like me (even though I ain't so young nowadays).

His blog is very interesting.

He also hosts a monthly poetry reading; the next one is May 25th and I'm going, even though it's in Queens.

Poetry. Really. Like I said, this guy is for real.

Gigantic Magazine launched last week, and I attended the party at the invitation of James Yeh, the magazine's moving force.

James just got a story accepted in pen america 10, and he couldn't deserve it more. Gigantic is gigantic in size--it's a broadsheet folded twice--but the premise is really tiny stories.

I've submitted one for the next issue -- Gigantic publishes twice a year. I hope.

Adam Wilson, who is my editor at The Faster Times (more on that some other time) was also there and read his story. I love Adam's writing, and was really flattered that he told everyone in earshot that I'm a great writer. I think he was drunk, but I'm hoping he meant it anyway.

Black Swan Green is a wonderful first effort by British author David Mitchell.

Yes, I know it's supposed to be his most recent work. He's published, in order, Ghostwritten: A Novel, Number 9 Dream, and Cloud Atlas--the latter of which is a real heartbreaking work of staggering genius.