“The job of the writer is to endure reality, to remain open to things.”

(...and other things I've learned from teaching writing workshops in prison.)

Feel a tilt under your feet for the last few months or so? Me too.

Reality isn't slipping. But, boy, is something else happening.

www.nelliecroysmith.com/notes-on-sur...

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about fear and its forms. (Plus, you know, a little bit about demon possession and my evangelical childhood. As one does!)

The monsters are rampaging. They can take my money, my SSN, and my healthcare, but they cannot—cannot!—make me give them my attention, my mind, my worship.

(from Lisa Wells’s Believers)

In 2016, I accidentally created an event that led me to my very best Columbus friends (and convinced me that conversation could change the world).

Here's what the "story dinner" is—and how to host one yourself. (I hope you do! This kind of thing feels especially important now.)

#community

And speaking of poetry...

Thanks to my extremely midwestern brain, my internal voice first pronounced Bluesky to rhyme with "brewski."

I resisted for months, but now...I'm actually pretty darn certain that's the correct and only pronunciation.

(See? Once you hear it, you can't flippin' unhear it.)

While I have plenty of deep, philosophical, smart, profound things to proclaim in this space, none of them are nearly as important as this recipe, which has saved my hangry you-know-what at least twice this week.

(It's a gift article! Knock yourselves out!)

It's been hard to write this month! Instead, I've been literally slashing words out of texts.

A visceral form of editing, I guess? In any case, it's strangely meditative.

Sad story: Many moons ago, I created accounts on what felt like every single Twitter alternative...except the one that actually took off.

Happy ending: Hi, all!