I wrote a personal essay on how it felt to be a woman warrior in medieval reenactment combat (SCA). It started as something I just wrote for myself, as I was working on my memoir about playing football. Then I saw an open call for short nonfiction on the subject Read more…
This is really aimed at Clarion attendees, but feel free to extrapolate out to any intense writing workshop you have to apply to get into and re-arrange your life to attend. You got in. Congratulations. Now you’re arranging your work time off, or you’re picking clothes to pack, and everything Read more…
I started keeping a journal in sixth grade English class. I still have that much-doodled yellow folder. There’s a certain lack of candor in it, not knowing how to say exactly how I feel yet. It was a dark time in my life, but you wouldn’t know it from the Read more…
1. When I was nine, I almost drowned a girl. We’d met that day, at the falls, and were instant friends in the way only nine-year-olds can be. Neither of us could swim. The river was shallow, all except that one spot at the base of the falls, which we gravitated toward like filings, Read more…
Tuesday, May 12th, I woke up at 8:38am. I don’t use an alarm clock, I’m a natural riser, and I shoot for about 8:30 so I can get dressed and make a pot of tea and be at my laptop by 9. This morning, I’m not feeling it. I want Read more…
“For the quarantine,” I said, “I can run the workshop via zoom.” “Yes, I’ll run the game devs meetup on zoom. For the quarantine. Sure, I’ll do the excuse-to-create meetings, too.”After all, it was temporary. I could run a few monthly meetings. What, just for a few months, right? It’s Read more…
March 13, we were sent home from work. That was a weird day and a weird week, and I recall mostly being impressed how the headlines kept updating just like in a novel about a pandemic, getting steadily worse. The first thing I bought from home was a planter and Read more…