Why Am I Crying at a Fifth-Grade Graduation?

A long-awaited essay sees daylight

I’m just really enjoying the late roses this year. It seems the bugs that ate them all in the springtime are gone, and these flowers are 1000X prettier and more sturdy than the early ones. I also like knowing that there’s a cute little bee hiding inside the pink one. Photo and design by author.

Hey there,

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Regardless of who you are, I’m coming in hot and leaving before you even knew I was here, like a thief in the night. If you enjoy my work, feel free to share or become a paid or free subscriber.

As expected, the entire week has been one long list of items to check off, and there are only a few more checks to make before getting up at approximately hell o’clock tomorrow morning and somehow getting a family of five to the airport with all our stuff and without a meltdown or four. From the others, of course. Never me.

The good news: Much of the work I set out to do early last week is done. The bad news: No writing or book updates at all. Radio silence from agents (which is fine, totally fine, it takes time to go through queries and it’s definitely not yet time to get nervous that the submissions I made a *gulp* month ago are just floating in the ether) and no time to look into self- or independent publishing, though I’ll hop on that next week.

So, instead of a longer note this week, I have a teensy bit more good news for you. Remember back in June when I wrote an essay about my kid’s fifth-grade graduation? It’s published! It went live last week on Zibby Mag, the redesigned website and media outlet from author and publisher Zibby Owens. I heard an interview with Zibby a few months ago on one of my favorite writing podcasts, QWERTY, and I really enjoyed her perspectives—so, of course, I pitched her. Her team read the novel and passed (too speculative for them, which totally makes sense), but they liked my essay and I’m so excited to see it in print. I look forward to having time to write more essays and have them published here and elsewhere, like this one (adapted from the newsletter) that appeared in The Writing Cooperative yesterday.

What’s Exciting, Entertaining, and Enlightening Me?

I’m putting these all under the same header this week, mostly because I haven’t had much time to consider any of them. But here are some bullets.

• I’m excited to be beta-reading a friend’s sci-fi book about a migrant crisis between Earth and Mars.

• We started The Wire but have only finished one episode. I liked it but spent most of the time trying to figure out where I knew McNulty from. (I think it’s The Affair, but I’ve been too lazy to check.)

• I left this comment on a friend’s newsletter last week, which I think summarizes how I feel about a lot of things we “don’t talk about in polite company.”

  • I don’t believe it serves us well to ignore politics. The only reason not to talk about politics or religion is because we are incurious beings who wish not to have our worldviews threatened or wish not to threaten those of other incurious beings. If we can approach each other with curiosity and a desire to understand instead of a desire to change someone and/or a sense that ours is only the right answer, we can talk about politics or religion and still maintain our friendships.

Thanks for stopping by today. I’m glad you’re here, and I’ll see you in a week.