My most exciting update right now: Readin’ N Rhythm is pairing up with Fairleigh Dickinson’s WAMFEST for the Move On Up Showcase, featuring some of our favorite Brooklyn artists alongside FDU students.  This, and all the other WAM events, will be emceed by the amazing author and musician Wesley Stace/John Wesley Harding (I love this picture of him! It’s from his new album, The Sound of His Own Voice).  Brooklyn Players Reading Society, the strange spoken word trio I’m in with Dave and Ben Jaffe, is performing our first original piece, so everyone’s pretty psyched over here.  I’m also working as WAMFEST’s PR Gal and running the blog – go check it out and let me know what you think.  Some pretty awesome things happenin’ out there in Madison!

In writing news, I received some very helpful comments on my book from two great friends, Liz Levine and Meghan Cain (thanks, ladies!).  The feedback is so essential – after working for so long, I definitely lost perspective.  Now I’m pretty pumped to get to the edits, feelin’ good about it all.  Then the reality of agent-hunting begins…

Teaching wise, I just wrapped up an intensive “Foundations of Writing” course for incoming students at Berkeley College.  We met four hours a day, four days a week, for two weeks in a row.  I’ve never taught that much all at once before and, while the planning was certainly difficult and time-consuming, I loved it.  The challenging aspects were actually exciting and fun, my students were interesting and entertaining, and I felt really proud and good about it afterward.  Unfortunately, my classes for the quarter were canceled (I guess this happens to adjuncts??), so now I’m waiting to hear back from a few possibilities that are still in limbo, and sending out new applications.  To the ups and downs of life!

In general, I’m learning that flexibility is an incredibly valuable trait to have, and that I can always work on honing it within myself.  I often think about how our reality is, in a way, completely what we make of it.  Sometimes I feel like so much of our experiences and memories comes down to a simple switch of perception, a little brain twitch that changes everything.  Perhaps flexibility means twitching the brain to the right spots at the right times, no matter what else is going on.  Right now, I’m twitching to the chilled-out, laid-back, zen mode, and enjoying the sound of the rain falling on my yard.  This is a good place to be.