my story is out and I’m having FEELINGS

I have another story out in the world today!!! Click here for the link! Technically, it came out March 1st in Trollbreath Magazine, but today is the day it came out from behind the paywall. (Side note: I love Trollbreath and everything they’re doing. Subscriptions are only $6 four times a year, or if that doesn’t work for you but you also like what they’re doing, check out their ko-fi.)

This story, Constellations Falling, is near and dear to my heart. Writing this story broke me through a barrier, craft-wise. I first wrote it a little more than seven years ago, furtively typing in the dark, hoping the sound and light from my computer wouldn’t wake my newborn, unwilling to risk stepping away to write somewhere else in the house. I switched back and forth between half a dozen projects, unable to focus on one for more than a few minutes at a time, but still desperate to prove to myself that I could write AND have a baby.

(Side note, the second: the book Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood by Chelsea Conaboy is freaking amazing for helping make sense of the chaotic mess that is early parenthood. So much information, but presented in an approachable, inclusive way.)

To write this story, I inhabited my middle school self in an intense, visceral way I’d never done before. Maybe because everything was raw and emotional in those days. Maybe because I had no barriers left. This story taught me how to make it true in a way I hadn’t understood before. It is still harder to share this than rough, new pieces.

So, of course, I want everyone to read it. (Please go read it HERE!)

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