This week we’re chatting about our support systems, so I paused for a moment and thought about who I’ve chatted with in the past few days. I texted my two IRL bffs to finalize a date for a summer BBQ. But besides those two lovely ladies, and of course interacting with my family, my week has been mostly bookish encounters. I DM’ed with my mentee from Pitch Wars 2016 as she went…
I’ve been writing seriously for about four years, not counting my years as a grad student when I wrote papers on equivocation in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (we won’t talk about how bad that paper was). The clock started when I outlined my first ideas for what became THE COINCIDENCE OF COCONUT CAKE. During those four years, I’ve seen a lot of days where I love writing, but I’ve also racked up (pun…
We live in an amazing time to be a writer. It’s easier than ever to share work, offer feedback, and commiserate rejection. With the glory that is THE INTERNET (imagine angels singing and the words illuminated by a heavenly glow), we don’t even need to put on pants to do it. There are lots of places to meet fellow writers in person and online, several that Colleen wrote about yesterday. But…
As I write this, I’m sitting in an airport terminal in Dallas, waiting for my final flight back to Austin. Bare with me, I’m exhausted. Not only did I spend the last four days in Seattle for AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference) with 13,000 other writers, but my flight home got cancelled overnight. I’m so ready to be home. But so very happy I came. I’d love…
Hmm. That title sounds kinda harsh and possessive, doesn’t it? That’s because these are my writer friends and I’m not sharing (kidding). It’s really because, like all communities, each one is different. The people you click with might not be the same people I click with, but the point is, find the people who are right for you. Since there’s no real formula to writer friendmaking (though Lori has some…
I’m not a huge fan of the Fourth of July. I don’t like fireworks or char-grilled meat or planned activities and having grown up with leftist parents and having attended an even more leftist liberal arts college, the whole forced patriotic thing still brings out the rebel in me. This is not to say that I don’t participate in the ENORMOUS celebration my neighborhood has every year. A celebration so…
I live in a gated community, a place where the homeowners association frets over whether our mailboxes are as nice as the mailboxes in the community on the other side of the preserve. A place where we have standards about how long one’s Halloween decorations may be left out in public (one week) and how tall one’s grass is officially sanctioned to grow. (1 1/2 inches). I am a woman…
We lived in the Washington, DC, area for many years. And while there was plenty to love about the region, one thing that was sorely lacking in the anonymity of suburbia was a sense of community. We yearned for real neighbors. Not that we didn’t have them. With the density of building that goes on in the sprawling metro area, we had plenty of people in very close proximity to…
When I first moved to New York City, the noises overwhelmed me, the constant clatter of voices and horns and sirens and engines and high heels and exclamations. I’d grown up in the suburbs with the sound of cicadas and thunderstorms and the Frigidaire humming and doors slamming when my parents fought. But the New York City air was thick with steaming hot dogs and roasting chestnuts and exhaust and…
