“There’s always five minutes to write... Because five minutes can lead to ten. Because a month of five minutes adds up to a few new pages... Because those five minutes might be the best part of your day. Because those five minutes could feel like saving your life.” - @jamiattenberg.bsky.social

Incredibly pleased to have a new piece in KHÔRA's 49th issue this month...

I'm teaching a writing workshop about shame: wordsbyladonna.com/workshops

"American history needs more names, not fewer. It needs the names of the famous and the names of those who... have remained unidentified in personal and institutional archives. Take that shoe box out of your closet and label your family photos. Everyone’s story matters."

Teaching two writing workshops via Zoom rn, seats still available for a 1-session class called "Write Your Life" and four sessions of a generative/germinating class called "How to De-Fang Shame"... wordsbyladonna.com/workshops

“There is a Gaza—an unwanted and dominated population—behind most stories of democractic rule, which is why the truth that Gaza embodies has the potential to dismantle our world order." —Tareq Baconi in “Confronting the Abject”

The amount of awful in the world is overwhelming. But there is always something we can do to help. Here is a small thing you can do right now if you have extra cash in your pocket and believe writing is essential: Click below to help my friend Nicole. gofund.me/6c4724ad

"Would I have come all this way if my mother weren’t disappearing?" - from "Like a Deer in the Dark," @wordsbyladonna.bsky.social's essay about visiting aging parents in rural Illinois in our July/August issue:

"Not all immigrants are created equal. Not in circumstance, not in reception, not in opportunity, and certainly not in the English language. We define the terms that create hierarchies within our societies: Who matters and who doesn’t. Who gets welcomed and who gets cast out."

My lit wife Nicole Morris tells it how it is in her latest essay: "You have to have money to be a real writer... It’s just like anything else in these systems of dominance and power. Some of us get in; most of us are locked out."

One thing I love is that sometimes I forget about this poem, and then I cross paths with it again and fall in love once more like the first time I met it:

This Friday, DON'T BUY ANYTHING! <illustration by Martha Rich>

Thursday, February 13, 2025 at 12:52pm Lisbon time: I finished the first draft of my book. 294 pages, 78,777 words. Time to celebrate and then go back to the beginning with a red ink pen.

My mom has Alzheimer's and doesn't know who I am anymore. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if she hadn't lost herself.

My friend Nicole has a brilliant piece out in Blood Orange Review. Here's the first sentence: "The biopsy revealed the start of tooth and bone material, keratin and hair, the beginning and ending of what would have been my twin at conception." The rest is here: bloodorangereview.com/take-care/

Loving this gorgeous poem, "Willingly" by Barbara Sabol... @swwim.bsky.social www.swwim.org/swwimeveryda...

They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but that is exactly how book publishing works, right? On using rejection as a signpost. Not so much "No" as "Next!" open.substack.com/pub/wordsbyl...

A gorgeous piece of writing from Jessica Petrow-Cohen in The Common. "It’s happening now, in June, not then, in June, time is collapsing, June is June is June. I’m sticky in June’s web, tangled, caught, strangled." www.thecommononline.org/the-laws-of-...

Rejection is something every writer faces. But how do you press on when those rejections begin to feel overwhelming? Benjamin Schaefer has advice we all need to hear from time to time. electricliterature.com/all-of-my-accepted-stories-started-with-rejections

Early January is brutal for writing rejections. It's like all these editors were sitting on their reading queues for months but now they're finally wading through submissions and damn. My inbox is like a firehose of No.

I know it's January, but ugh, this writing! It's so good I want to eat it. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/12...

Ready or not, the New Year is upon us. I am riding out to meet it with every intention to at the very least not make it worse and at the very best make it better, bog witch style. wordsbyladonna.substack.com/p/dont-make-...