Although I’m not an expert on the poetry of Keith Montesano, I’m sure I’ll be reading his first book soon. I’m told it’s a killer manuscript that’s won all sorts of finalist spots in contests and such. And most of the poems from that manuscript have been published by now in some nice journals. So, it’s just a matter of time.

Unfortunately, that time has been filled with lots of rejection, revising, contest fees, increased postage rates, more revising, querying, and research. Also, I imagine lots of alcohol in there somewhere. I don’t know all the specifics – you’d have to click his blog to see how long he’s been working on this manuscript and to read some funny, if you could call it that, rejection situations. I only know that this whole thing has sort of inspired Keith to seek out other authors with first books, other authors who have gone through the whole process themselves. What follows, then, is First Book Interviews, an interview blog that continues the tradition of Kate Greenstreet. He’s just posted interview #1 with Matthew Guenette, and he soon plans to post interviews with the following people: Paul Guest, Jason Bredle, Mark Wunderlich, Sandra Beasley, James Allen Hall, Jennifer Chang, Alison Pelegrin, Brian Barker, Jericho Brown, and Dan Albergotti.