This Is Not What I Expected

Sharing poetry, of all writing, seems particularly vulnerable, and I am grateful to my friends who are brave enough to do it. Writing needs community, and to find it, we have to put ourselves out there. Thank you for this one, Holly Anderson !

First proof of The Well! I love this stage of writing a book — when I finally get to hold it in my hands and feel the pages. I immediately have revisions for the next proof, of course, but the next step, hitting “publish,” is in sight!

My mom passed along a Frida Kahlo puzzle, and I finished it last weekend. It’s a collage, in the style of Kahlo’s art, of the major events and elements of her life — her love of animals, her time in Paris and New York, the house she and her husband, Diego, built, the crippling accident that drastically altered the course of her adult life.
Once I was done, I felt prompted to investigate her life further, though I’d been familiar with it once upon a time. I had a friend early in my college years who was obsessed with Kahlo. In my casual couch research, I did indeed discover that “Frida mania” was a phenomenon that trailed into the early 90s…
Read more at ThisIsNotWhatIExpected.substack.com