why can’t I stop, or the eternal writing of this memoir

When we all went home in 2020, I started working on a memoir.

To get started, I dug through old journals and realized I’d documented much of my teen years, in great detail. The confusion of puberty, my longings for the future, worries about God and page after page of swooning over hot guys I no longer remember.

Five years and a full-on draft and a dozen rejections later, I’m embarking on a huge edit.

It’s necessary I think but I also think I’m somehow reluctant to be done.

To leave this space.

There’s something about staying in here in this time when my sisters and I were teenagers. When we were close, when all we had was each other. We went really hard things together. Poverty, deprivation and abuse and hilarity, a father’s rages and a mother’s near-fatal illness. It’s like I think I can change the outcome somehow if I stay.

I know I can’t. That would be silly. Unrealistic.

But if I stay, if I continue to be patient, I can figure some things out, maybe.

Maybe.

writing about mom

I've been waiting to share this new piece, "Mom Can't Remember," out in Thimble Literary Magazine's spring 2025 issue.
I won't say it's deeply personal (though it is) because duh, all writing is. As writers what we put on the page is filtered through our worldview, is our creation, what's on our mind, sticks in our craw, excites us, frustrates us, worries enrages motivates thrills us.

I'm avoiding getting to the point but the point is, this one's about my mother and the complexity of her after suffering a grave illness.

If adulthood is figuring out who to blame, I'm still working on that.
I loved her and love her, I feared her and sometimes admired her.
I miss her every day.

good golly it was a literary weekend in the dirty South

Good golly it was a literary weekend in the dirty South and I feel so lucky.

I ushered a few packed sessions at the New Orleans book festival, dealt with complaints and helped carve out space for ADA attendees. Several writers from The Atlantic were on the agenda and so interest was understandably high.

After a quick break to inhale a sandwich I got some me time and heard Alexander Smalls, Nina Compton and Nini Nguyen discussing food and culture and life; to Rachel Khong speak beautifully about how writing is the most intimate relationship between her and the individual reader; to Jarvis Deberry and others recounting the first horrifying and deeply personal hours and days of reporting on Hurricane Katrina; I listened to TaraWestover muse about how being true to yourself sometimes means parting with family, and her struggles to dig deeper in her second as-yet-unpublished book; and Charles M. Blow, W. Kamau Bell and SarahLewis in conversation with Mitch Landrieu, a funny yet deeply emotional discussion of the new Jim Crow and the work still ahead. Words and ideas still matter. Let’s get to work. 

• https://www.alexandersmalls.com/ 
• https://www.neworleans.com/restaurants/chefs/nina-compton/
• https://www.chefnininguyen.com/ 
• https://www.jarvisdeberry.com/
• https://www.rachelkhong.com/
• https://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow/ 
• https://sarahelizabethlewis.com/
• https://tarawestover.com/

 

new poem alert: "Dadless"

screenshot from The Metaworker

New poem alert!

"Dadless," published by The Metaworker, is my first poem. I feel like it's more of a creative nonfiction flash. 

Whatever, it's short and deeply personal.

I'm scared to put it out into the world but even more scared not to.