I love this time of year! My two yearlong classes* have wrapped up, and while I’m still coaching and teaching a few classes, I’m mostly reading, writing, getting my yard under control, and hanging out with friends and family. So, yay!

Here’s what I’ve been digging lately:

Hunger by Roxane Gay

I read Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body in one day. And that was an important day. That was a day when I thought a great deal about what it means to possess a female body. That was a day when I thought about how a single day can change the course of a person’s life. I thought about how the omnipresent threat of violence changes who we are and how we move through the world. I thought about my daughters and I thought about myself.

And since I’ve finished the book, I’ve been thinking about all those things and these haunting lines: “I finally did say no. And it did not matter. That’s what scarred me the most. My no did not matter.” (Page 51).

The lead up to Summer Solstice

The light! The light! Things just keep getting better and better! The days keep getting longer and longer!

Until June 20th and then….Okay, we won’t talk about that.

Let’s just enjoy the light while we have it!

Noise-canceling headphones

I recently took Shonda Rhimes’ Television Writing Master Class. Tons of insight into storytelling was packed into that class. Yet, the big takeaway for me was Shonda’s secret for teaching herself to write anywhere: Noise-canceling headphones. She shared that she’s trained herself to write (anywhere! anytime!) whenever she puts her headphones on. I had a hunch headphones might work for me as for a long time I was able to write (anywhere! anytime!) if I simply put my hoodie hood up. Somehow under a hood, I felt like I was under The Cone of Work. Under the hood, no one could interfere with me–not even myself.

My research quickly led me to the conclusion that good headphones can be super expensive. But I decided to splurge and go for some middle-of-the-road (but still, in my mind, very expensive) ones, justifying the expense with ALL the writing I was going to get done (!). I picked these Sony ones  and I have to say I love them. I’m trying to train myself that when headphones are on, I write (Pavlov’s dog!). But I’ve “cheated” a bit and have also worn them at the gym, where they worked really well to block out the super annoying sound of people running really fast and hard on the treadmills. You know the people I mean?

The art of Ross Penhall

I’m loving the way Penhall brings my favorite city to life in the luminous and surreal paintings featured in Ross’ Penhall’s Vancouver.

Gorgeous!

You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessie Klein

I hesitated to even take this book out of the library, thinking: Oh, it’ll be another one of those collections where there’s one good essay, one pretty good essay, and the rest is filler. But I took a chance and checked it out. (High stakes gambler at Seattle Public Library!). And guess what? I totally dig 90 percent of the essays in You’ll Grow Out of It. My favorites are “All the Cakes” and “The Cad.” Poignant AND laugh out loud funny!

*I teach a yearlong memoir manuscript class at Hugo House in Seattle. The next one begins in September. If you’re interested in that class, be sure to register during the Members Only registration period as that class fills fast. I have also taught a yearlong memoir certificate course through the UW’s Professional & Continuing Education department since 2006. Starting in the 2017/18 academic year, UW PCE will  just be offering one Certificate in Writing (rather than individual genre certificates), and I’ll be teaching four different classes for that certificate.