Down Shift
You Already Know What It Is…
Y’all been following this blog for a couple years, so I know you know what it means when we get to this time of year. It’s time to slow it down!
“She had her exit; I have my door.”
Painting by Khaulah Naima Nuruddin
So check it: I was talking with my friend (and amazing artist) Khaulah Naima Nuruddin about how this time of year is like a natural wind down. It’s like, the eleventh month, heading into the twelfth, so I was thinking about how when it’s eleven or twelve at night, it’s time to wind down the day (for some people—it’s a lot of night owls out there, so this might not apply to you). When it’s the eleven or twelfth month in the year, it’s time to wind down the year.
If we look at it this way, we’re acknowledging, like we do at the end of a long day, that we are at the end of a long year, it’s time to unplug, it’s time to relax, and it’s time to reset ourselves for the new day, the new year.
I don’t know what you all got going on as we head into the last month of the year, but I hope whatever you’re doing you’re making time for yourself, specifically time to slow down, sit down, and relax a bit!
Novel in a Year!
Join me for a year of dedicated writing accountability, coaching, and community with the Story Studio Novel in a Year cohort for 2024!
Working with me, we’ll cover special topics related to craft and creative practice. You’ll also get a chance to submit 100 pages for specific feedback!
Specific topics covered during our class sessions include:
Exploring the Core of Your Story
Free-Writing as Craft
Structure and Stamina
Crafting Compelling Characters
Writerly Decision-Making
Setting as Time, Place, and Objects
Dramatic Tension and Plot
Revision as Writing, Writing as Revision
Finding and Fixing Plot Holes
The Relationship between Endings and Beginnings
Full Manuscript Draft: What Now?
Applications are open until November 27th, so APPLY TODAY!
We Do Language
During times of despair, Toni Morrison said it’s time to go to work. She said, moments of despair, is “precisely the time artists go to work.” We use our voices, we use our talents, we use our hearts to call out oppression and injustice, “we do language” to change the world.
With the support of The Poetry Foundation, Kitchen Table Literary Arts presents four dynamic poets who go to work—sharing their voices and their hearts in poems that speak to intersections of the personal and political.
This is the last program in the “A Voice, A Light” poetry project. Please join us.
Donation-based tickets will support The Dream Defenders in their international fight to abolish oppressive systems around the globe.
Meet me at Tombolo!
I’ll be at my favorite local bookstore, Tombolo Books, for an in-store event! I’m gonna be slinging books fot the day!
Come through for book signings, book recommendations, and book-lover community building!
