It’s been a while since I wrote one of these letters to you, but I have a good excuse! I’ve been busy writing a book.
I’ve been writing about apple trees, abortion, and Midwestern basements. I’ve been writing about the Mississippi River and the limits of language to describe land. I’ve been writing about caring for my dad in the year since he survived a stroke. I’ve been writing about State Fair, river otters, limestone mines, and how to navigate the idea that writing itself can be an exploitative act.
The first publicly-shared poems from this project will be forthcoming in About Place Journal and Split Rock Review over the next couple of months. I’m excited to share them with you!
This Saturday, I’ll be presenting an in-person writing workshop called “Poetry Like Water” in which we’ll be crafting poems about water justice. Join us in Sheboygan, Wisconsin at WordHaven BookHouse on Saturday, November 5th, 2022 at 1:00.
That same morning, I’ll also be virtually signing into the CD Wright Women’s Writers Conference to present on a poetry panel called “Give and Take: The Entanglements of Caregiving, Writing, and Environment.”
I’m also looking forward to my big in-person reading on Saturday, November 12th at 1:00 pm at Ripon College in Wisconsin where I currently serve as the Poet in Residence. I’ll be reading from the book I’ve been working on the last few months, some of which takes place at the prairie here on campus. I hope to see some of you there!
More soon, including the lazing, wandering musings that usually take place in these letters. It’s been good to be focused on poems intensively for a few months (though I did get to write a book review of Margaret Rozga’s Holding My Selves Together for the ALL Review). These next months will be a turn toward an outward expansion of the types of writing I do once again, including these letters.
Are any of you doing National Novel Writing Month? Writing a poem-a-day for November? What have you been working on?