Rest, Repair, Release, Repeat

Some updates, what I'm doing and reading, and where you can find me next month

Hello Friends! I’m working on not being a perfectionist about everything, which means I’m sending this newsletter out despite it not being a deep dive on anything at all. I’ve been managing a rheumatoid arthritis flare, which means my energy is super limited at the moment. I have an essay in the works, though. This is just a little update! If you feel inclined, share your own updates in the comments.

FIRST: I’ll be at Tucson Festival of Books March 14th & 15th. I am so excited for this! You can find all the info HERE. I’ll be on panels with some incredible writers, and I’m truly thrilled. I also can’t wait to see some new friends and meet some online friends IRL for the first time.

I have several events coming up over the next few months, so make sure to take a look at my website. Also, if you have a book club or local bookstore you’d like me to collaborate with, feel free to reach out! I’ll also be reading/speaking at Syracuse University directly after Tucson, for their Raymond Carver Reading Series (a full circle moment).

Here’s what’s happening in my life:

• I’m working on my next book, and it’s finally feeling like I’m in a groove rather than a struggle.

• This week I ended my relationship with my literary agent. It was a scary thing to do, and is scary to write about it here. Many writers and agents part ways after a first book– it’s highly usual and, in my case, not personal. We parted amicably. So now I’m preparing to query agents again, once I get this first draft done.

• I have some very exciting news to share next week, and I can’t wait to do so!!

• My Instagram account is deactivated. Turns out this is much more stressful than I predicted! I keep wanting to reactivate my account. I’ll be writing more about this in my next essay (currently in my drafts!). You can also read about why I want to divest from Meta in this essay.

• I’m fucking tired. This week was a slog. I barely got anything done, and that’s super rare for me. I’m hoping things are on the upswing, and I have felt a little better over the past couple days.

• I’m still on the academic job market. There have been some more interviews (and a couple more next week). Things may be in the works, but as of now everything is up in the air, invisible to me.

• I love my cat.

• I am so, so grateful that, during this autoimmune flare, I’ve been able to rest. In the past that hasn’t been the case, and I’ve had to push through in ways that felt very damaging.

• I’m also grateful that people are still buying and reading my book. It’s currently nearly half-off at Amazon, so if you’ve wanted to buy it but not wanted to spring for a hardcover, now’s your chance. Even though Amazon is evil. It’s also half off at Wal-Mart (also evil!). Sigh.

• I’m reading Jill Bialosky’s gorgeous book about her sister’s suicide. And Yiyun Li’s Things in Nature Merely Grow. Yiyun once visited the MFA program at Syracuse and gave me so much insight into my writing. Hers is remarkable. I’m also reading several other books on surviving the suicide of loved ones, as well as books about suicide in general, because my next book is about surviving my mother’s suicide. Not easy, but necessary, and often inspiring in terms of writers revealing their inner lives as they cope with suicide loss.

• Despite things being difficult on a personal and political level, I am feeling very grateful for many things right now. Simple things, like running water and groceries and phone calls with friends. Like my bed, and blankets, and my white noise machine.

• I’m also grateful for some freelance editing and developmental coaching work that’s come my way. Yes, I do those things! Get in touch if you’re working on a proposal, essay, memoir, novel and you’d like some precise feedback and encouragement.

• During a campus visit (for an academic job), I created a presentation using these lovely illustrations, which related to the rhizomatic theories presented in the book A Thousand Plateaus, by French theorists Deleuze and Guattari. I used to hate theory. Now I love the diverse frameworks, and rhizomatic theory in particular encourages one to expand and embrace. I look forward to writing about this more here, soon.

  

  How are you? What are you reading? What are you grateful for, or wishing for, or proud of? I’d love to hear in the comments.