Announcing new deals for @aritison.bsky.social @timmanley.com @seakit.bsky.social + more

I wrote a book! I’m very excited for you to read it! I’m speechless!

BRB in a few months. Going to revise a project I’m excited to share soon

I frequently find myself looking forward to the next Kacen Callendar book. Whatever and whenever it will be, I will read it.

Today I will lead a storytelling workshop with some teens. I’ve done this a hundred times before. I am, of course, terrified.

I read Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School before bed this past week. I found it at the library, wandering the rows looking at spines, collecting a stack I’d always considered reading. I brought them all back to my desk and read the first pages of each.

Soon all the green things I don’t know the names of will return for spring and summer, and it will be harder to walk to the big tree I’m trying to befriend. I already barely visit the tree. Next time I do, though, I bet I’ll enjoy seeing all the green things returning or returned.

On a misty morning I drink coffee and look out the window. Maybe I’m wondering if I’m supposed to be thinking or feeling something. I have an empty mind, but I don’t know if that’s a sign of wisdom or stupidity.

On Saturday I’m taking @1demerith.bsky.social’s class on movement for writers. I’m always trying to discern how much of my work should come from deep in my body, and how much from my regular dopey brain. On Saturday, at least, we’ll try the body. learn.slc.edu/courses/writ...

This morning I was trying to quickly prepare everyone’s oatmeal and I accidentally knocked our French press into the sink. It shattered, and the coffee went down the drain. An inauspicious start to the day. Dark energy. I’m approaching the afternoon cautiously.

One night around this time last year, I was driving home and saw a frog in the road. Then another. Then another. Hundreds of spring peepers were emerging from their hibernation and crossing the road to get to the creek downhill. I had to drive very slowly.

The NEA's new compliance guidelines are anti-trans, so we aren't applying. Today, we're asking our readers to stand with us. Please donate to help us raise $15K to replace our annual grant by April 15. Read the full statement from Halimah Marcus: buff.ly/PJ0P801

I am attempting a new routine. I must write two journal pages, drink a full glass of water, and stretch for fifteen minutes, before doing any work. I’d really rather get right to work, but the routine consistently improves my focus and decreases my anxiety. It’s very frustrating.

On the drive home from and back to my kid’s school, I’ve been listening to Micaela Blei’s Audible Original memoir You Will Not Recognize Your Life. It keeps us in scene, with just enough detail to experience what’s happening, and just enough backstory and reflection to feel the weight. I like it.

Two years ago I dreamed up a very strange magazine. Now it's real. I can't put into words what it's meant to me to conjure this thing, pack it with the fifty writers and artists I most admire, and put it into the world. I hope you'll get one, read it, love it.

One night, after my five-year-old went to sleep, I wrote a letter to a friend. I found an envelope and even found stamps, and her address, and I walked the letter to the mailbox. She received it a few days later, and she wrote me back. What an incredible life.

It feels serendipitous to come across an answer I needed in this conversation between two artists I admire. @esmewang.com talking with Andrew Garfield in @thebeliever.net:

My brother hangs out with my kid two afternoons a week, and stays over the night in between. This means he and I get to regularly go out for the first time since we lived together in Queens. We were in our twenties then, and I remind myself we are once again living inside what will become memories.

Last night while cutting carrots and sweet potatoes, I got lost in a memory of working in the woods in the winter. I wore my shirt as a skirt. But it was a scene from Stag Dance by @torreypeters.bsky.social. I know this even though it didn’t feel that way.

The big tree I am befriending has four arms stretching into the sky. I like to imagine it’s shooting lightning out of its fingertips. Or capturing the lightning and directing it into the earth. I like to imagine the tree’s roots extending into the earth similar to how its arms stretch into the sky.

I washed the walls of my child’s bedroom, which triples as my office and our guest bedroom. I’ve never been in a room so clean. Now I must determine whether to clean the walls in every other room or to accept that will never happen.

My child and I went out in the rain this morning to say hello to the tree I’m befriending. When we got to the tree, I gave it a pat on the trunk and said, “Good morning, tree.” It’s hard to explain but I believe this was the best use of my time.

A friend pulled tarot cards for me and sent audio messages with the results. She suggested that I befriend more trees. I’ve chosen a big tree as a potential friend, but it’s hard to know how the tree feels about me. Still, today I placed my hand on its trunk and closed my eyes.