Spring doings

Windows are open! Migrating birds are stopping by the feeder on their way through. Everything is in bloom. And here’s a quick review of a few highlights in my writing life.

At the very turn of the season, I participated in Les Bleus, a literary salon in Brooklyn. The day was rainy, my cell phone died, I limped along on a loaner for the maps program and some hail Mary texting with comrades for encouragement when its battery nearly gave out as I was crossing the Lower Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn with a full bladder. Fortunately around the corner from the reading in DUMBO there was a marketplace where I could pee, plug in, and get some vittles to fuel me up for the event. I was reading from new work, a memoir about love, loss, and commitment in climate crisis. It’s in a word, urgent. Also, vulnerable. I felt all those things stepping into the elevator up to the reading space.

As you can see, I survived. More than that, I felt grounded in my words, for the most part. Competent. I don’t know what everyone thought, but those who approached me afterward said they were incredibly moved. I’ll take their word for it. And also, in a way, it doesn’t matter. I’m there to do my job, and I keep showing up day after day to do it. Write. Read. Submit. Repeat.

Speaking of submitting, the project that I read from is out on submission through my amazing and steadfast agent Jennifer Thompson. It can be a bumpy road, the path into the marketplace of ideas and stories, but we’re on it.

On Earth Day, I interviewed Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm for Terrain magazine. Hooboy she is everything I want in a person to be in conversation with. Smart. Articulate. Passionate. Generous. I can’t wait for that piece to go live. It’s slated for publication in July.

But the apotheosis of my Spring so far? This visit from a mama black bear and her wee cubs in my yard.