Today is for relaxing.
I should be headed to a quilt guild meeting today but I don’t think it’s happening. I haven’t sewn in weeks. I’ve been in slumps before; I’ll come out of it. But today is for reading and dozing and maybe some piano.
Spring in New York and Beatrix Potter at the Morgan Library
I finally got my act together to see Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature, an exhibit at the Morgan Library in midtown Manhattan. It was great- two rooms of her original artworks, letters, books and ephemera. Just delightful. It was really just the perfect thing for spring. The exhibit is showing until early June. If you’re in NYC in May, don’t miss it.
I also got to visit the Strand bookstore, which I rarely do, and it was a real treat. We had a beautiful few days here in the NYC area and I’m crossing things off my spring checklist left and right.
Writing Update
My winter/spring writing class is almost over and I’m looking for something for summer but I’m not sure what I need. Something for essays? Something memoir-specific? Maybe poetry, for a change of pace? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll reconnect to the daily write-in group I used to go to and just work.
What I do know is, I’m deep into my next draft and having fun with shorter pieces. I’m enjoying the four-week generative online workshop I’m in courtesy of The HerStories Project. The workshop, four weeks long, is made of a series of prompts and meetups centered around the music of Taylor Swift. I know. But “All Too Well” was the soundtrack of 2022 because reasons.
I have an online writing group that meets every two weeks and I’m being workshopped for the first time tonight. I’m hoping this can be an ongoing resource for feedback on my chapters.
I had another poem published! You can see it at The Coalition. Links to all of my published work can be found on my website, www.mariecloutier.com.
TV Time
I finally got around to Quiet on Set, the searing Max/HBO documentary about child actors in Hollywood. Dan Schneider, a subject of the film, is now suing for defamation- so you know that tea is hot. In all seriousness, it’s devastating and will make you very sad.
Reading This and That
I finished Sarah Waters’ amazing Fingersmith the other day. I’m sure you’ve already read this but if you haven’t, please rush out. Virago Press is coming out with new, gorgeous editions of this and Waters’ other books and I highly recommend finding one of their beautiful copies. I may replace my ratty used paperback with one of theirs. You can find more information here.
In memoirland I’m reading Alex Marzano-Lesnevich’s remarkable The Fact of a Body. I’m about four nights from finishing. It’s really amazing. I love the way they use present-tense for both sides of the braided narrative and the slow way it all unfurls.
Trash Haiku
My horoscope says
big things on the horizon.
I guess we shall see.
Congratulations on the publicatiion!
It's not a slump when you are soaking up all that wonderful inspiration! And I'd never scoff at Taylor Swift. Haven't even finished listening to TTPD because some of the lyrics hit so hard. I'm also a Sarah Waters fan. She is a great storyteller.