Have you ever included someone in a creative project and they overstepped in some way and refused to acknowledge that’s what they were doing? It’s not fun. And it can be excruciating trying to help someone to see that they’ve overstepped, even more so if there are other people around Read more…
Do you ever hear the life story of someone whose work you admire and get seriously bummed on their behalf? Well, that’s 100% how I feel about Hans Christian Andersen. I knew nothing about his personal life when I first started reading his work. I only knew that his fairy Read more…
Are you scared of the Ghost with the Most? So scared you won’t even say his name? So scared you flinch a little when a friend says it? I get it. When I was a kid, I thought Bumpelstitlskin (as we’ll call him for safety’s sake) lived in my basement. Read more…
What Little League and Michael Phelps can teach us about follow-through. Playing softball as a kid, a good coach will tell kids not to stop at the base where they’re headed but to instead run through the base. Otherwise, kids get so focused on any given base that they will slow Read more…
Start with familiar person, place, or thing. A young woman came into the bookstore where I work looking for some sort of guided workbook that show her different poetic forms and give her room to try them out, see what fit. Not idea prompts. Form prompts. Be still, my heart. Read more…
Whether it’s a sewing kit or a dozen books or a tea chest, you brought it to feel better about being someplace that has sparked a sense of discomfort. As of this writing, I see my family twice a year; once in the summer that includes extended family, and once Read more…
Living a life of any kind of balance is at its core a life of being and doing. The aim of every productivity expert you come across is going to be to get you do more, create more, live more. If they do ask you to do less, it’s because Read more…