Gatherings | Issue 25

SMLTA Recommends: Tajja Isen's Creative Practice, Bullet Journals, My So-Called Selfish Life documentary, Flying Books, Stolen Youth, Hamilton Review of Books, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Open Book & more

Mar 7

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Here are the Issue 25 Gatherings! Enjoy!

Thanks to the Hamilton Review of Books for recommending my forthcoming story collection in their Spring 2023 reading list.

Creative Practice

On Being Edited

Hello, friends! Newsletter is a little later this week, but for a good reason (I hope): I’ve been writing more. I guess that’s the paradox at the heart of this project—the more I do the thing I want this newsletter to help me with, the less time (and, let’s be honest, motivation) I have to write the newsletter. I n…

2 months ago · 14 likes · Tajja Isen

Jael Ealey Richardson @JaelRichardson

When you feel jealous or bitter about the state of your work or work in progress - or when you find yourself leaving that way - a tip that serves me well is to send notes of encouragement to someone, to hype up someone else’s work. Turn your inward hurt into outward acts of joy.

I’m a Bullet Journal Person!

I started using a bullet journal in January because I found out that the creator has ADHD like me and I felt like I needed a better organizational process for all the different things I’m involved with.

I thought bullet journals were all about making the pages pretty, and for some that can be a good use for them, but I like it for time and project management, but also prioritizing what is important to me in my life. By reviewing it at least twice a day, the bullet journal gives me an opportunity to reflect on life and how I spend my time while I’m living it.

Looking through the pages January to March, I realized that these tasks are what make up my life just like that Annie Dillard quote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”

This sort of freaked me out at first, but now it’s getting me to rethink the things I don’t want to do or repeatedly put off and exactly how I want to spend my time and with whom.

I will be writing a post on it soon, but for now, I love my bullet journal.

Sitting in Silence

Yes, Networking is Art, Too.

Today I write from America’s largest writing industry conference: AWP. I know big conferences can feel overwhelming to many of us, but personally I love a bustling conference. Program notes: This AWP I’m on two panels, one on writing linked story collections…

16 days ago · 16 likes · 4 comments · Sitting in Silence

Toronto Public Library exclusively featuring banned books in new collection, Toronto Star

A New M*A*S*H Scene: Written by ChatGPT Read by Hawkeye and B.J., New York Times

The World As We Knew It, Ed. by Amy Brody and Tajja Isen,

Nineteen leading literary writers from around the globe offer timely, haunting first-person reflections on how climate change has altered their lives—including essays by Lydia Millet, Alexandra Kleeman, Kim Stanley Robinson, Omar El Akkad, Lidia Yuknavitch, Melissa Febos, and more.

March Writer in Residence Eden Boudreau Talks About Battling Rape Culture in Her Searing Memoir, Crying Wolf, Open Book

Stuart Ross Creates a Place for a Weirder, Wilder, More Innovative CanLit with 1366 Books, Open Book

The Case for Spoilers, The Washington Post

“Into the Material”: Remembering Ann Rosenberg (1940-2018) with Pierre Coupey, Dorothy Jantzen, and Jenny Penberthy, Capilano Review

The Long Strange Trip of Mountain Girl, Insider

How to Unleash Your Creativity by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Lion’s Roar

Check out My So-Called Selfish Life by Therese Shechter about choosing not to be a mother, which will be available for rental on Vimeo on Demand until April 30, 2023.

Challenging the sacredness of motherhood as the core identity of womanhood is one of the most taboo subjects to tackle; merely questioning it provokes outrage. In telling these kinds of stories, humor has been essential to my artistic vision and voice, keeping the conversation open and creating a distinctive and engaging documentary style unlike many mainstream narratives. There have been few films on the subject of childfree people and the effects of pronatalism on women's lives and bodily autonomy, and there is a lack of non-stereotyped media depictions of this group. —Therese Shechter