Earlier this summer, I was accepted to a three-week writers residency at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT in February 2023. My dear friend and fellow writer TK made the drawing above to support my fundraiser for tuition and travel:
I look forward to the slushy crunch of snow under my boots, watching ice flow on the Gihon River from a cosy writing studio, and gaining brief intimacy with Missisquoi Abenaki lands.
…
Your donations will allow me the time and space (literal, financial, mental) to further write about outdoor journeys, redwoods, and dreaming.
I’m so grateful to be well over halfway to my goal with a little over three weeks until tuition is due (December 29). [UPDATE: I met my goal on December 3!]
“Nothing belongs to me; yet I belong to everything.”
–Reem Sav See*
I do not need land to belong to me.
I need to belong to the land.
My flesh and bone
are only borrowed from the earth.
My breath, my blood, my sweat
are only borrowed from the earth.
From last year’s chapbook, abandon our nightmares, the page pictured here with a calendula bloom on my stoop.
I am currently at work on this year’s chapbook, exploring more questions about place and belonging. Rather than take pre-orders, I will send a copy to all fundraiser donors (regardless of amount).
It means so much to be supported. I take none of it for granted. Thank you.
*Quoted in an essay by Kalyanee Mam which I return to often
narinda heng 