I have had some of this written for a long time, but trying to choose the right poem has been harder than usual. A few weeks ago I read The Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2017 essay collection. As one would expect, much of the writing deals with climate change: glaciers shifting and melting, light…
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my cousin/mirror self sent me this, maybe to let me know how much better this face of mine would be without any pesky human details. I don’t even know when the original photo is from. All I know is that this cousin love lives across the world from me, and is a total jet-setter and…
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I got this framed photo with the most perfect perfect quote beneath it in the mail this weekend. I mean, only someone who knows you (and loves you anyway) would give you a framed photo of your own damn self for your birthday. A few weeks ago my sister told me that she’s been telling…
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I’m still swimming deep against the current of a deadline and trying to tread water through all the ordinary things and then moving against the waves of extra things that I add, because who am I to pass up an opportunity? I tell myself these things that cost the present pay off in the future.…
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It’s been a bit of a time here sick kids and snow days so many emails to get out from under. So this will be short. There are beautiful things in the world and Camille Dungy is one such beautiful shining writer in the world. Read everything by her. Follow her on all the social…
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I’m working on this manuscript and treading water on my regular responsibilities. It’s up and down with the manuscript—sometimes I love it, sometimes I want to pitch it all out the damn window and learn plumbing. This morning I was thinking about taking three big pieces of paper and making lists: Balls I have in…
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This morning I stumbled from bed at 5 am in search of a book that I must have dreamed about, a collection of essays by V.S. Naipaul called Literary Occasions, which I read more than a decade ago. My conscious mind can’t remember even things I wrote myself, but in my sleep I remember literary criticism and theory…
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I was kind of sick and home most of this weekend, and it was a little spectacular. I read and read and read. I also started watching a really stupid television show that I hate. Only one person knows what it is, and they’d never betray me. I am so ambivalent about the characters that if they all got…
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I have a friend on instagram who posts these lovely, sacred looking photos of her notebook ready to receive writing every morning. I look at them while I’m avoiding my own writing. Yesterday morning I was sitting on my bed with my laptop and stacks and journal and pen and the hood of my sweatshirt…
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Recently a friend said to me, “You were just talking about how writing is what matters most to you and now you have another book coming out! How lucky!” Um. But it’s not luck. But also…it’s not just Hard. Work. either. I mean, of course it’s hard work, it just is automatic in a lot of ways.…
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