The fire of autumn

My goodness, it’s been a minute, huh? Just popping in here for a quick update.

Autumn is here and that should mean that I have more time to write. More time to breathe. Summer in Alaska is a time of long days packed with work and garden. For me, autumn heading into winter is a time to turn back to my desk. This year, that means Black Earth Institute and my project on Bridget Cleary.

Earlier this month, I was in Black Earth, Wisconsin meeting with the rest of the Black Earth Institute cohort. It was four days of good talk, amazing presentations, and forming bonds that will help us collaborate on various projects. It was incredible to spend time with such vibrant, intelligent, and diverse people. I am really excited about how the next three years will unfold.

Meanwhile, I am reading and writing about Bridget Cleary. I’m planning a trip to Clonmel in Ireland for February 2023. And of course, I’m working my butt off with Storyknife and the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference.

Oh, and I have two writing events coming up:

One for those of you outside of Alaska: I’ll be reading poetry with Michael Waters and Kelli Russell Agodon for Alaska Quarterly Review’s Pièces de Résistance Reading Series 2022-2023, premiering on Sunday, October 23, 2022 @ 4pm AKDT. Watch here on YouTube. You’ll be able to catch it on YouTube after that as well, along with recordings of all sorts of other readings.

For those of you in Anchorage: I’ll be taking part in this stunning collaborative art and writing project at the Anchorage Museum at 6:30pm on November 4^th, Water Stories: Visual Poetics and Collective Voices.

Listen to the multiple voices of water. Join museum artist-in-residence Andrea Wollensak for any evening of poetry expressed through sound and projection. Celebrating the beginning of her museum facade installation, Water Stories, the evening brings together youth and community voices to share what water means in their life. Poets Erin Hollowell and Jen Stever, a museum writer-in-residence, share work generated in collaboration with Wollensak’s residency. Teens from the museum’s Teen Climate Communicators also offer lyric reflections created with the guidance of Wollensak. Learn about the process of taking these individual stories and integrating them into the generative projection debuting on the museum facade while reflecting upon your own experiences with water in this program which honors the role water plays in each of our lives. 

Those of you in Anchorage and nearby, I’d love to see you!

Hope you’re all turning toward the darker part of the year as a chance to incubate your creativity and bring your vision into the world.