A Shift

This week at The Last Word on Nothing: a change in my internal weather. 

You can read the post here.

A Carrie Fisher Poem

via Unsplash

I am so, so, so pleased to share that my poem "i tell the ghost of carrie fisher the world is ending" is out today in Qu. You can read it here, or click here to buy a paperback copy.

Another New-Old Poem at LWON

 

via unsplash

Haibun is one of my favorite ways to tell a story. The dense, vivid sensory details, the immersion in environment, the care paid to fine detail, & then that surprise & deepening at the end—so good. 

My haibun “Parking Lot, Deception Pass,” originally published in Moonchild Magazine, is up today at The Last Word On Nothing. You can read it here. 

Upcoming Panel Discussion

 

Photo by Alex H. Pflaum

Want to learn more about inclusive writing? Join me, Ebonye Gussine Wilkins, and deandre a. miles-hercules for a free panel discussion moderated by Tiên Nguyễn and hosted by the D.C. Science Writers Association.

Wednesday, August 26
6:30 p.m. ET
register here
read more here

New Feature Story at The Open Notebook

To write about a body is to expose it. This is, of course, part of the reason we do it: to lay bare the experience, to enlist witnesses, to find connection. But this exposure is not without risks. 

Read more at The Open Notebook.

New Course at Hugo House

photo: Jp Valery via Unsplash

Sickly,
but somehow the chrysanthemum
is budding.

(Bashō, tr. Robert Hass)


This summer I'm leading a one-day workshop on writing illness and disability at Hugo House in Seattle. We'll practice expressing what feels inexpressible and examine the way great writers from Virginia Woolf to Ada Limón have pulled it off. We'll navigate the web and history of ableist language. We'll talk about rest as revolutionary action. We'll rest.

Want to join us? Details are here.

New Q&A in Luna Luna

"Cloaked" by Rebecca Chaperon

Q. What's something that surprised you recently?

A. How powerful I've felt.

New this week: Joanna Valente asked me some excellent questions in Luna Luna Magazine. 

Read the rest of the interview here.

[Image description: Painting of a peaceful blue nighttime scene; a woman stands on a rock in a dark body of water. The woman is nude save for her pointy hat and black cloak. She is holding a wand and raising her hands to cast a spell. High above her, the moon is distant but immaculately bright.]

Another Bird Poem, If You Can Believe That

I'm honored to be a part of Monstering magazine's inaugural issue.

You can read my poem "Ketoconazole" here. It even comes with its own soundtrack.

Performance of a Lifetime

Dr. Moran tapped his heavy silver pen against a sheaf of test results. “Well,” he said, “I’ve found the problem.”

I’d arrived enervated in his office a few weeks ago, drifting through the door in a fog of weakness and fatigue. Headaches hammered me all day. I was 23 years old and my bones ached. I couldn’t feel my feet. My guts felt oily and torqued. Once a month or so I slipped into a hot, dizzy spell that made the floor slant and my eyes blur. None of this was new.

Want to read the rest? Click here or, better yet, go to your local bookstore and buy the summer issue of Bitch magazine.

Buy a few copies, actually. It's good.

May Is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Awareness Month

art by Lora Mathis

May Is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Awareness Month.

No other disease in the history of medicine has been neglected in such a way.

--Dr. Rodney Grahame

I cannot think of a single illness that needs more awareness than EDS. It is not taught in medical school; most doctors have never heard of it. 

EDS is a genetic disorder that causes defective connective tissue. I was born with it, and started showing what would later be recognized as symptoms very young. 

I was not diagnosed until just before my 30th birthday.

In the intervening time, I was blamed for my illness. I was told by an allergist that I was making it up, that I was "doing it for attention". I was told by an emergency room doctor that "women just have pain sometimes." I was told by a neurologist that I was "performing illness" to cope with some suppressed childhood trauma. I was told that what I was experiencing was not real. 

My experience is not uncommon. The average time to diagnosis for people with EDS is ten years. Most of those people are women.

For you and your loved ones--because you likely know somebody who has EDS and does not yet know--just learn the basics.

I've written a little about the experience of living with EDS and its comorbidities in Pacific Standard, Luna Luna, and Quail Bell magazines.

This website is for my writing. But at times, my illness makes it difficult and even impossible to write, and I wanted you to know why.

New Essay in Luna Luna

I wrote about chronic illness, love, and The Fountain in Luna Luna magazine this week.

You can read the essay here: To the Man Who Would Save Me from My Own Life

Plush Guts Make Life with Chronic Illness Just a Little Less Terrible

I wrote a story for mental_floss this week on a subject very close to my heart (and the rest of my body): coping with chronic illness.

Check it out if you get a chance: Cuddly Guts Bring Comfort to the Chronically Ill



photograph: I Heart Guts

Save (Me From) the Whales

"Cetaphobia" by June Park

Some people are afraid of heights, or airplane travel, or public speaking, or spiders. I am not afraid of any of these things--in fact, I like them all--but, as some of you may remember, I am afraid of whales.

Read the essay at The Atlantic.

Seeing Stars

I went to Los Angeles to appear on Jeopardy!. 

My invisible illness came with me.

Read the story in Pacific Standard.



photo: Jared Gottlieb

Save (Me From) the Whales

Goodness gracious me. My essay about confronting my whale phobia—remember that one?—is finally in print. And oh, look...it's the cover story!

The folks at Open Minds Quarterly are lovely, and I highly encourage sending them your money in exchange for copies of the magazine.

Read more here.

Short Essay: The Plane

Once the luggage was out of the way, the passenger seat of the rental car reclined almost 180 degrees. My body went down with it, twinging tailbone flush and grateful against the bedlike plane, bare feet alighting on the sun-warmed patch of faux leather atop the glove compartment. The headrest was unreachable, crafted for a longer person, but a heavy head will rest wherever it can.

Read the rest in Quail Bell magazine.


photograph by C.M. Drysdale

Well, It's Not Poetry, But It Is a Thing, Written Down

Remember the blue whale on the ceiling? I went back. A miniature version of the article I wrote about that visit was published this weekend in the Washington Post. You can read it on page 9 of the magazine, or online here. With luck, I can publish the full-length article soon, too.

Widow at the Orthopedist

He takes my right hand gently,
touches each fingertip. I look at the door.

I wouldn't have come.
It's never hurt this much before.

Every day? he asks, turns my palm
to the white ceiling. Cross pens clink
in his breast pocket.

No, I finally manage. Some days
I don't feel anything. Some nights
numbness is what wakes me up.

Everything is just so slippery.
Nothing will let me hold it for long.



photograph by Lara Korlara

Saint Anthony's Fire

The fields are full of demons, child.
You must know the new color
of this old madness: it is red. Do
as I say. Take both my hands.

The angel descends. My body
is his flaming sword:
we will all be consumed. This
is our only salvation.






read more about Saint Anthony's Fire* here.
photograph by flickr user tworm


*not to be confused with Saint Elmo's Fire.

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

What She Was Wearing

this is my suicide dress
she told him
I only wear it on days
when I'm afraid
I might kill myself
if I don't wear it

you've been wearing it
every day since we met
he said

and these are my arson gloves

so you don't set fire to something?
he asked

exactly

and this is my terrorism lipstick
my assault and battery eyeliner
my armed robbery boots

I'd like to undress you he said
but would that make me an accomplice?

and today she said I'm wearing
my infidelity underwear
so don't get any ideas

and she put on her nervous breakdown hat
and walked out the door






by Denver Butson
photograph by Meghan Colson