writing
I spent an hour recently in a heart to heart with my mom trying to find the right words to describe the shame of using food stamps in the late 1970s. I had "cardboard kind" but she pointed out the paper in those thick booklets wasn't actually cardboard. We spent a good hour looking it up.
That conversation is somewhere in the book I’m writing. So is the pizza party I threw for my siblings when I baked saltine crackers, ketchup, and cheese when there was nothing else in the fridge. And the food pantry I helped open in a school years later.
I’m working on my first book, a memoir and essay collection rooted in poverty, loss, grief, and the long work of healing. I spent part of my childhood seeking refuge at a campground trailer park in Indiana and it’s where I returned during the hardest moments of my adult life to write my first essay.
If you know of a writing fellowship, a residency, a literary community, or someone I should meet, I would love to hear from you. Every connection matters.