I didn’t forget about this blog, this website. Or maybe I did—for a little bit, anyway. It’s always been a home for long-ago projects, for works-in-process, for nows. And right now, I’ve been quietly but regularly showing up online, between school and work and parenthood, popping in with weekly periphery prompts, revamping essays with a now-lens for the book I’m piecing together—those essays on modernity, nature, and connection.
And oh, this amazing thing just happened.
My pal and teacher, Brian Benson, passed along a few places to submit writing to—specifically, the micro kind, the very, very brief kind. One of them was this place called Six Sentences. I was drawn to the challenge of distilling something down, stripping a short piece about my friend Chris (who died in September, of all the cancers) into a few sentences. It was a puzzle, but also a hearty reconnection to who Chris was before all of the cancers.
And here’s the kicker: the editor of Six Sentences, Rob—a kindly soul, clearly—accepted the piece within two hours. A record-holder acceptance for me. I think it deserves some sort of trophy, because, as anyone submitting work knows, publishers can sometimes be maddeningly laggy (no fault of theirs, but true).
Topping it off, Rob then wrote a flash story in response to my website, this one—about selling alien doodles, about how meeting new mammals can get you outside more often.
You can read my six-sentence piece here.
Here I am, writing from the birch branches out back.
