Today is the third anniversary of APPLESEED’s pub date! (And it just happens to be on sale for $3.99 on Kindle and perhaps other platforms—but it’s a pretty paperback too!) Thanks to everyone who read and shared this book. In many ways, it changed my life, and I’m so grateful.
My week at @clarionucsd.bsky.social has ended! Thanks to my amazing students for one of the best workshops I've ever taught. I read 100,000+ words of their new writing in five days and it would've been impossible if the stories weren't so good. I'm so grateful to have been a part of this.
Last morning in San Diego! Went for a 10-mile run, including four on the beach. I’m ready to be back in the desert but I’m going to miss the ocean too.
The view from the podium at last night’s reading at Mysterious Galaxy Books! It was such a lovely evening, and a true pleasure to get to read to my fantastic @clarionucsd.bsky.social students and the other folks who joined us. Thank you, friends!
Started my run on UCSD’s campus without a plan on where to go, ended up at an oceanside nature preserve. It’s truly magical to have the legs to make this sort of exploration happen whenever I travel.
First day of my Clarion workshop complete! I walked around campus early this morning and saw this building and thought, I want to do whatever happens there! And guess what: that’s where Clarion meets! Made my day—as did the very talented group of writers I’m working with here!
Just finished up a 43-mile week of running as my second week of recovery from my recent 53K race. My legs felt heavy today but my heart felt light. If that’s the trade running can offer today, I’ll take it.
I love this Jonathan Lethem aside on being jealous of other writers’ publicity campaigns: “It was Bowman who joked to me that when he witnessed Donna Tart's rollout in Vanity Fair he thought, ‘Wow, I wish I had a novel out,’ and then, ‘Wait a minute, I do have a novel out!’”
Book #56 of 2024: MARGERY KEMPE by Robert Glück. I loved this bold, bizarre, erotic, holy book so much. “Heaven is the total presence at once of my self and my body. It's my own skin I travel towards—its entire arousal a homecoming, effortless freedom.”
Spent my entire day at this table, typing in one last round of edits to this novel from the final ("final") read I did at Writer Camp last week. Getting close. I hope!
Book #55 of 2024: WORLD OF WONDERS by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. “It is this way with wonder: it takes a bit of patience, and it takes putting yourself in the right place at the right time. It requires that we be curious enough to forgo our small distractions in order to find the world.”
First visit to the climbing gym! I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time. Bullied a stranger into being my partner, climbed some walls, only fell and maybe screamed a little once.
Looking for something else in my running app, I came across this screen: I apparently ran, walked, and hiked over 4,000 miles in the past year, according to my step count.
Somehow I didn’t realize the Rubik’s Cube was named for a guy! Even though that’s obvious, seeing the name—but I probably never read it as a kid, only heard it. And it’s only 7 years older than me! My dad’s felt ancient and eternal; It sounds like treasure you’d find in D&D…
Thanks to David Hicks for inviting me to read as part of this year’s LitFest at Wilkes University! There’s such a good community of writers here, and I was so glad to visit it for the evening. (Also: my first public reading since I started wearing glasses!)
Today is my parents’ 48th wedding anniversary. I love these two so much. I’m so lucky to have them. In the last few years, I have seen what true devotion is, and I will never forget it.
