short story

Honorable Mention in ILS Fiction Contest!

I’m thrilled to share the good news that my short story, “The Lola Channel,” won an honorable mention in the International Literary Seminar (ILS)-Fiction Contest Fellowship, with a tuition discount to their residency in Kenya this December as the prize. Very exciting!

However, after going back and forth for an entire week (and pulling lots of tarot cards for guidance), I’ve decided not to attend. It’s still out of my price range even with the discount, but more so, my beloved dog Basil is terminally ill, and I want to be here with him for his final months after so many years (15!) together.

I’ve also been moving into more of a homebody vibe these days, and while the idea of a writing residency in Kenya got me all amped up, I felt an internal friction when I envisioned getting on a plane, staying in a room, meeting new people. Winter is coming and I love the idea of nesting at home with my creatures and our art. I want to finish a draft of my memoir. I want to record two new songs I’ve been working on. I want to meditate and rest and take care of this body I’ve so often neglected in favor of going out on adventures. Dave and I also dream of opening our own art house one day down here in Brooklyn by the Sea and have been engaging in exciting conversations about art as community nourishment. I’m realizing that right now, I’d rather put my time and energy into my home and my neighborhood than into traveling.

Does this mean I’ve lost my adventurous side, that I no longer have a traveler’s spirit? Of course not! There will be future opportunities. It just means now isn’t the time for me to go.

Still, I wanted to be extra sure before emailing the organizers my declination, and so I returned to my tarot deck last night. The Queen of Pentacles greeted me. Do you know what she represents? Caring, nurturing, homebody.

I am on the right path for me at the moment. It has taken a long time to be able to even hear my instinct, much less trust it. I’m grateful to be in tune with myself now.

And I’m also grateful for this win! Declining the fellowship doesn’t mean I’m not celebrating. Cheers to me, and cheers to all my writer siblings out there!

Is real life just a fiction?

One day when I was angry over the constraints of American society, I created a 20-something, closeted bi girl named Jessie. Her story took place in a yoga studio where she was trying to discover why her artistic inspiration had vanished. Without thinking twice, I threw in my favorite meditation.

The idea of this meditation is to envision yourself lying in a beautiful forest beside a river, surrounded by fallen leaves. As a thought enters your mind, you picture yourself picking up a leaf and dropping it into the flowing water. It drifts onward and away, just like the thought drifts in and out of your mind. But Jessie is a ruminator, and also resistant to change, so her version went like this:​​ 

“She envisions herself lying in the woods by a creek, the warm sun beating down on her skin. Breathe in, hold, release.  For every thought that enters her mind she picks up a leaf from the ground, feels its crinkly, dry edges on her fingertips, and drops it into the water.  Then the leaf plasters itself against a rock, splayed out so she can see every word of the thought shining in the sun.”

Whenever I tried this meditation again, leaf thoughts started splaying out for me, too, and I could no longer let them flow onward. My favorite meditation was ruined. I told myself that day: be more careful about turning real life into fiction. 

As I was drafting my first novel, a futuristic dystopian story about a young musician connecting with her radical side, I found myself analyzing the reverse of this. Just ask any sci-fi writer: fiction can become real as quickly as reality can become fictional. 3D printers. Tablets. The metaverse. All of this was thought up in fiction well before it existed in real life. If you can dream it, you can make it.

I began to wonder what the difference between fiction and reality truly is. Isn’t society itself just one big Paracosm, an incredibly detailed, imaginary world, that we’ve all agreed to believe in? 

I find this thought to be full of hope. The next time I sit down to meditate, I try the river in the woods again. The leaf thoughts drop into the water, flow toward a rock, and, for the first time in years, keep going, the river carrying them away toward a future built on dreams.