Thank you!!

To be able to make something that has beauty in it, it’s kind of like a miracle, really. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that. www.parleylit.com/review-jeann...

But when we come to the page through craft, we have all these tools to shape a story, to make it into something beautiful, that is my goal, always, to make something that has beauty in it, even when the lived experience was devoid of beauty, was really hard, painful, terrifying, destructive.

"My Substack's tagline is Writing saved my life so I teach writing as if it might save yours & that's how I feel--writing is more than telling these stories, it's making something more than & different from living them, especially childhood stories, because we were powerless in childhood.

"I’ve said before: it’s not that we get to erase the past—whatever we’ve lived through is always a part of us. But when we use craft to transform those stories into something more than the lived experience, it’s incredibly empowering. I know that it really did change my life.

Here’s a snippet of my answer, and the full episode is linked:

"With telling hard stories, craft can actually be the vehicle, the bridge, the doorway, not just through and into those stories on the page, but out of those stories in our lives.

The Part That Burns is so short! I think just over 50K!

Thank you for sharing this, Sarah!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Ah, thank you so much, Caitlin! I love Jeannie Vanasco, too!

Thanks, Sarah, for reading & sharing!

Thank you for reading. ❤️

Thank you for your labor!! You do the best job. I love that you are weaving in direct excerpts/quotes, Notables, and the Dept of Context and Consequences. Thank you again.

And Haitians are fleeing Springfield in terror, and a group of armed, masked individuals waving flags with swastikas on them marched through the streets of Columbus, Ohio.

Etc.

We are going to need to be ready for what's coming, because it's already here.

And he and Johnson ARE trying to bypass congress and to make his cabinet appts during a recess, and he IS making a list of current and former U.S. military officers involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan for possible court-martial.

Also, Indivisible, which was awesome in the wake of the 2016 election, is preparing to be awesome again, and has a toolkit. docs.google.com/document/d/1...