By the time you receive this, I will be wrapping up a small, DIY writers’ retreat up in New York State with the members of my writing critique group.
Sure, it’s probably not the best time to be going away. The school year hit the ground running. Everything on our calendar conflicts with everything else. And our home is still under renovation.
Then again, maybe it is the absolute best time to be going away. I’m still living in my basement. I want desperately to sleep in a real bed again, to be awakened by sunlight pouring through a window, to have a headboard.
On top of that, my income has been unexpectedly slashed in half. What should I do about that? I am one giant shrug emoji.
Also, managing our schedule stresses me the eff out. Have I even told you about our Tuesday nights? On Tuesday nights, Em’s soccer practice overlaps with my chorus rehearsal, which overlaps with my husband’s WordPress meetup. What do I even do with that??
I am inappropriately gleeful that, while I am gone, my husband has to pack school lunches, figure out dinners, do school and soccer drop-offs and pickups, pick up our plant sale purchases, and deal with an overlapping soccer game and birthday party. There is also a Girl Scout Bridging Ceremony that I am truly sad to be missing. Still, I need a break. I am fleeing town.
By the time you read this, I will have spent over four days free writing, receiving feedback, critiquing work, and discussing submissions strategies, book festivals, and conferences. I will have led my writer-friends in a series of mini yoga sessions. Shared home-cooked meals. Perhaps been wrestled into a canoe or dragged along on a hike.
I am always newly inspired when I do a retreat or a residency or attend a writing conference. I hope that this trip will help me feel reconnected to my creative writing practice. And I hope it will be the break I need from my day-to-day life.
It’s been tough to find a routine lately. I’m trying to go with the flow.
But also, this is the flow:
How was your September? Getting your sea legs yet? - Steph
On the Internets
Last year, I felt uneasy when my daughter brought home a worksheet on nutrition and calories. This article on how “healthy eating” curricula can trigger eating disorders in kids clarifies why.
I dig good food writing, and this piece about our fixation with perfectly orange egg yolks was a fascinating read.
Aubrey Hirsch nails it again with this comic about women’s pain, and how accounts of it are rarely believed.
Here’s an app that helps you find abortion care in every state.
In this podcast episode, Hanna Rosin and Ed Yong talk fatigue. I saw so much of myself in this conversation. About those with ME/CFS and/or long-haul COVID: “Fatigue is a constant baseline presence in their life.” YES.
This story about a teacher whose students reported her to school administrators because of a lesson she taught on race made me so angry. With all of the new anti-education legislation that’s been popping up these past few years, it’s becoming impossible for teachers to do their damn jobs.
Women and nonbinary people say doctors won’t stop talking about their weight. As a result, they avoid seeking medical help when they need it. Samesies!
Everything I Accomplished Despite Life
Kristi Koeter of Almost Sated interviewed me on my refusal to diet.
I wrote four (!) flippin’ posts for Book Riot: some T. Kingfisher recs, a list of multiverse reads, a list of horror books that question our obsession with beauty, and an essay on the haunted house as a metaphor.
I found out an essay of mind had been listed as a Notable Essay in the forthcoming Best American Essays 2023. "My Father's Hands" appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of under the gum tree.
Meanwhile, I had a new essay about anxiety dreams go live on oranges journal. I just found out that my therapist read it. 😂 Worlds colliding!
And speaking of worlds colliding, I had a lot of fun writing this piece about boobs, bras, and self-containment for the Feminist Book Club. A lot of people seemed to enjoy it…including my boss from my very first full-time job in book publishing, who commented that he learned and laughed a lot. 🤣🤣🤣 Love it.
Necessary for My Sanity This Past Month
Bueller? Bueller???
Well, I suppose I did read a couple of good books. Another writer suggested I read the coming-of-age book In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard, and the way she wrote that child POV was just pitch perfect. I also also blew through Whalefall by Daniel Kraus, a fast-paced aquatic thriller about a diver who is accidentally swallowed by a whale.
Thanks again for sharing your "breaking free of diets" story on my little 'stack! And also for sharing the WaPo article on "healthy eating" in curriculum. It's so easy to see how that kind of crap is fueling eating disorders and disordered eating among kids.