Introducing “Flowers for Linda” Audiozine Episode 2 Skip the intro and listen here. Dear Friends, When I was asked to present a keynote speech in fall 2021 at the Transformative Language Arts’ Power of Words conference, alongside one of my inspirations, the astonishing poet laureate Joy Harjo, I knew I had to muster up the courage to…

Dear Friends, Over the past four months, life has taken me to various cities, stages, screens and platforms to talk up the book I edited, The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison, which has garnered a spread of impressive press that keeps rolling in. You can…

Music to facilitate catharsis, elevation of spirit + spiritual strength — I made something for a friend a few weeks ago who is facing serious illness in his family, and thought about how many others could use the gift, too. It is meant to be medicine. It is a mixtape with a very intentional flow. It is meant to facilitate catharsis…

A love poem to The Bay Area, with all its difficulties and persistent magic, whom I visited with last week — A question from Soph: If you could kiss any kind of bear, which bear would you kiss? Koala’s have nice breath because they eat eucalyptus is the appropriate answer. These are the kinds of questions I remember her asking at age 5, but now she is nearly 19 and still…

(Or how I re-fell in love with The Beatles, and their creative life lessons while watching Peter Jackson’s GET BACK film). — My sister has a crush on Ringo, that’s who — or at least she did when we were kiddos (“I liked the underdog!”), and once swore she saw him driving a mac truck on the highway (she was five, we laughed hard). These are the kind of anecdotes that populate…

On honoring gifts through your imperfections, the word motherfucker as a form of self care (this title is leaning into clickbait territory), among other reflections-of-the-week. — I keep noticing that my friends who lean deeply into their particular and specific gifts are less concerned with being perfect and more at ease with the value they already hold and can purposefully cultivate within themselves. The imperfections are a matchbox if you’re brave enough to light up against…

This week’s retrospective on the theme of finding your narrative loopholes — or rather, how I keep finding mine. — When life feels TOO BIG, let the little things carry you. It helps to notice and name them. For example: every week I can’t wait to hear the opening credits to Succession. Especially the way it sounds when paired with the grainy nostalgic film clip of children riding an elephant. …

A brief meditation, ultimately on choice, under the “smoke that thunders,” Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls), Zimbabwe. — “Some of us may have imagined, from time to time, that we are living in the hippest, coolest, most happening place in the world. New York? London? Berlin? Montreal? Shanghai? Barcelona? I can recall having delusions like that myself. But the truth is, as far as I can tell, that…

On the symbolism of spiders, 1,000 year old civilizations, cow crossings, keeping our beloved dead alive and, of course, flowers. — Big spiders straddle the ceiling. I read that they symbolize power, ancient wisdom, illusion, balance, and interconnection, and then feel a wash of guilt that we captured one to flush away. The next day, I sit with a large one as she chills on the wall beside the bed. I…