On the way to Vieques, Puerto Rico. Where do you envision your writing life taking you? Recently I taught a course with the Kearny Street Workshop: Futurecasting. It was their first online workshop. The premise of the course was for writers to engage in the practice of visioning their futures as writers, to write them [...]
Author: Raina Leon
Novel: So I’m writing a novel
I accept it now. I am writing a novel, one that I started back in 2014, if I'm being honest. I was in a MFA program as a poet with the requirement of workshopping one poem a week, which meant that I had to write a reasonably good poem a week. This was at the [...]
Coach: The Press Kit
Coach: The Press Kit While I have been going on residencies or attending summer workshops since 2003, I didn't start streamlining my process until 2006. That was the year that I applied to 6 artist residencies and was granted 4. Not bad returns. What I did in that year was to start what I would [...]
Coach: How to use the time at a residency effectively
Till residency at Smoke Farms You wrote the most beautiful and authentic artist statement and project proposal. You answered questions for the residency application about who you are as a community member and what the residency will mean to your artistic work at this time. You assembled your work sample. Over all of these documents, [...]
Coach: Knowing your patterns
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash For the last few years, I've been teaching courses around the business and logistics of writing through The Speakeasy Project. The reality is that many MFA programs never talk about the work of living as a writer. Particularly for POC folks who may not have the mentorship support through a MFA program [...]
#ThisIsTheBeginningOfAnEssay
Soon after the birth of my son, I developed a hashtag, which has started to gain some traction among my friends: #ThisIsTheBeginningOfAnEssay. It was an acknowledgement that my energy to write an extended essay is truncated by the energy needed for mothering and partnering. I have been collecting snippets through Facebook especially, using the hashtag personally, [...]
Nearly two months in wandering
Just a few days after my last One Quote Response, my family and I headed off to Berlin for new adventures, a living exercise, a pointed practice of living a dream. For several months now, Matteo and and I have been futurecasting, considering what our lives will look like in five, ten, and twenty years. We [...]
One Quote Response: How Long ‘Til Black Futures Month? by N. K. Jemisin
How Long 'Til Black Futures Month? by N. K. Jemisin was a collection that arose from one of the threads in my reading. I've been wanting to read her work for a while now, though, particularly since she is a black woman reading all the awards in genres that regularly imagine a future without black [...]
One Quote Response: Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney C. Cooper
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney C. CooperIt's been a minute since last I wrote my one quote responses, but since my last post, I finished How Long 'Til Black Futures Month? by N. K. Jemisin and Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney C. Cooper. While Jemisin's book was [...]
One Quote Response: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
A snapshot from my Kindle reader of The Poet X by Elizabeth AcevedoSo I been knowing that this book was brilliant, I just finally got the chance to read the whole thing (rather than the samples online and reviews). #sabbatical #sabbaticalreading is an ABSOLUTE delight. Side note: in my general life, I only get to [...]
