Vibe: limerence, exquisite pain, diary-esque
Rejections: 7
I remember that Theseus ate dandelions to fight the Minotaur, and wonder whether we always have what we need to be fortified
Read more at The Collidescope.
Exciting news! My hybrid essay, "A Forgotten Notebook," first published in 2023 by a now-defunct journal, is available to read again. Thank you, The Collidescope!
"A Forgotten Notebook" is part of my hybrid, speculative memoir collection, which I will hopefully finish and submit for publication this year, so I am both grateful and relieved it is back out in the world. Most publishers require that ~ no more than a third of your book be published elsewhere, so I am trying to be careful about what I send out. (Other published pieces from this manuscript include "A Leopard Leaps, Deep in Love" and "Me & the Medium.")
To me at least, "A Forgotten Notebook" is an appropriate introduction to my work; if you like this piece, you'll most likely enjoy my other writing, too.
Recently, in a writing class, our instructor had us make a list of our literary influences, with the requirements that they be a) relatively known, successful artists and b) still alive. After some furtive giggling and co-reassurance (funny how the ego scuttles away in the moments we need it most), we got down to it.
My list includes Annie Ernaux, Amy Fusselman, Jenny Boully, Melissa Broder, and Sarah Manguso. (If you love these writers, too, hit me up—we can correspond!) I'm always seeking out new, boundary-breaking, elegantly observed, beautiful prose with a dash of wit, so I was delighted when The Collidescope's editor, George Salis, pointed me in the direction of Garielle Lutz.
In a recent article for The Nation, Daniel Kolitz says of Lutz's most recent work, Backwardness:
Any brief synopsis of this book will make it sound indulgent, repetitive, and unabashedly nuts, and any honest assessment of it would have to concede that it is, in actual fact, all three of those things. But it is also, I’m convinced, a masterpiece, one that captures things rarely expressed about what it feels like to be stuck in the same head every second of every day until death—to be always, forever, and unrelievedly yourself. That it has, nearly a year after its release, failed to light up the culture—failed even, until this very review, to warrant a single critical notice of any kind—is to be expected: Many landmark encyclopedic works have taken the scenic route to prominence, after a few trial decades of scorn or neglect.
Lately, I have not been feeling much like a successful writer. "A Forgotten Notebook" is my first and only acceptance of 2025 (current rejection count: 11). I haven't been producing new poems, I'm barely plodding along with my manuscript, and sometimes my writing sessions are nothing more than bullet points on my phone or pencil scratchings in my notebook.
It was a difficult winter, complete with car and house emergencies followed by an inevitable financial emergency. I am busy with my day job and applying to graduate school. My focus has been elsewhere! And it's okay!
Remember, writers, we are never lazy, too slow, or unsuccessful. We are taking the scenic route to prominence.