Renewed

When I started this, I funneled the craft lessons I've taught since 2016 into a space that folks could access online or in small, email bursts. That part remains, but now you’ll receive shorter, video/audio explorations around aligning craft with our lived experiences. I’ll transcribe what I say, to the best of my ability, so it’s offered in both forms. Sometimes, reading another email is a pain in the ass. Sometimes, our lifestyles or culture doesn’t make room for a sit down and read session, so you can listen to this while you’re doing the dishes or walking, with some imagined purpose, around your office.

announcements, updates, calls

I am the co-editor and a founder of Parley Lit, a multimedia literary magazine.

Our most recent issue is here.

We are open for submissions for your audio essays, you mini documentaries, your poems, out loud. Each issue has its own Youtube playlist. Soon, each issue will be on every podcasting platform we can manage.

We are also taking pitches for the following ongoing projects:

• Audio/Video Columns | Pitch us with a 3-12 month plan/outline and 1-3 sample columns.

• Regional Issues | We want to center your community. Let us know who you are, where you are, and the best modality for soliciting submissions from your group. Upcoming regional issues center on the Florida Gulf Coast and New Orleans. If you’re from or have lived in either area, send us your work that centers or in some way nods toward the place.

• Audio/Video Book Reviews, in conversation | We would love to interview writers who have published books.

  • Our first focus is recently published/ upcoming indie books and books published between 2020 and today that didn’t get a lot of play in the wacky marketing climate during the pandemic.

  • Also, if you published a book 5, 8, 27 years ago, pitch us. We’d love to talk to you about it. Our interviews are published on our Spotify channel and on a Youtube playlist.

craft retreat

I’ve never been on a yoga or meditation retreat. I flirted with the idea after high school when I learned that body work provided lasting relief for the weird spasms that shot down my legs due to a spinal deformity in my lower back. Even in the years between high school and becoming a parent, there was too much work to do to seriously consider (or afford) disappearing from regular life for days or weeks.

Still, I love the way we have changed the word retreat. Instead of withdrawing, as in the army retreated after they lost the battle, we’ve transformed the concept of stepping backward into a positive movement - stepping back from our daily life, stepping into something else. With retreat, we move backward and in. We use phrases like root down, go inward. We focus on breath. Even in a writing retreat, there is the idea of an open space surrounding the practice.

Most of us don’t have time and/or can’t afford to go to a secluded curated retreat. We have kids and jobs and bodies and lives to manage. So, my focus with this part of the newsletter moving forward will be to provide an opportunity to retreat, wherever you are.

Today, it is in repetition, the way it works like a drum beat in writing and music and everything we say out loud. We can use it for speed, for emphasis, to overwhelm, to remind. The whole world throbs in currents and wind and heartbeats.

If you have time to write, write about what has worked like a chant, or a drum beat, through your life, your book, your story. Or, if you don’t have time to write, take note of the repetition today. Take note, also, of what is noticeable to you. What repetitions are you focusing on? What do you remember? Why do you focus on this rhythm? What is alive between drum beats? What are you missing?