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Going Public

Welcome to my amazing new website design! I am so grateful to the incomparable Kimberly Cho of Half Cup Studio for creating it. The logo and the look of the site feel so resonant for me, giving me a boost, like a good mantra or mission statement does. A felt sense of clarity about what I’m about as …

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Coming Out, Coming Home, Coming Soon?

Exciting News! A draft version of the first chapter of my novel, Rooting for Time, just won an honorable mention in the Chicago Writers’ Association First Chapter Contest! I will be reading aloud from that first chapter tomorrow night, 12.2.2022, at the Driftless Writing Center‘s Online Open Mic. Together, these two things feel like a …

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Slow steady burn

I. Slow, steady flame warm golden glow softening honey-scented beeswax. Dripping oozing pooling hardening. Attaching carved metal votive holder to the wood of the altar. Claiming the territory, staking the past configuration to the next. Perhaps awaiting conflagration. II. Is that what’s coming? Conflagration? Certainly in the dry forests of the Pacific Northwest. Then there’s …

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She wrote

At a writing retreat with Miriam Hall last week, this flowed out during a 15-minute free-write, in response to something another participant had read aloud. She wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. She wrote truth and she wrote fiction, analysis and speculation, memoir and imagination, dreams and information. …

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Bat Mitzvah, Bar Mitzvah, B-Mitzvah, Re-Mitzvah: On Reclaiming Singing and Faith

Those of you who know me well know I grew up believing I couldn’t sing. In general, as a child I was encouraged to focus on areas where I could excel. If you couldn’t do something spectacularly well, why bother trying? After all, talent was considered inborn. You either had a nice voice, or you …

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If I were (like) you: Some reflections on vaccine hesitancy

Vaccine hesitancy is a hot topic lately. I’ve been listening to people vent about how the willfully unvaccinated are making ill-informed decisions that are putting themselves and others at risk. While I agree, I have been reflecting on why I’m not getting angry about it. Is it just that I’m slow to anger in general? …

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Tradition, Tradition

At Sarah’s favorite grocery store for her weekly shopping trip on Sunday, I’d decided to mostly focus on her and her list. Her favorite store. Her diet. Her need for both help, and sovereignty. Yet the upcoming Thanksgiving celebration loomed, since a somewhat-unexpected trip to see my dad had taken a bite out of my …

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Communing with Writing

Wow. I’m surprised to find it’s been over seven months since I wrote a blog post!! Apologies—to my readers, to myself, and maybe, to my blog. Last week I attended a 6-day in-person writing retreat with my teacher, Miriam Hall of Herspiral Contemplative Arts. At these retreats, we meditate, write in response to prompts, share …

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Steady magic

Last night my contemplative writing teacher Miriam Hall gave us a prompt about what might be going smoothly in our lives, in the midst of roughness. Here’s what I wrote, edited just slightly for clarity: Is anything going smoothly? Writing. Amazingly enough. Regular writing dates. Regular rhythm. Rhythmic writing. The (almost) daily morning pages. Almost …

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