Walking in the Albaicín neighborhood in Granada, Spain. This happened this year. Seriously.
Hi and welcome to my seasonal newsletter!
At the start of this year, I had been flying high. Because I had literally flown to Barcelona, Spain where I was doing research on a Fulbright Fellowship because a committee intentionally gave me money to write a book! Everything was going great. I spent my days reading, writing, and having my coffee al fresco. In February, I wandered through Granada to research that beautiful setting for a novel. And then one morning, I woke up to hear that the President had made an address banning all travel from Europe to the U.S.
Personally, I thought “Cool! I will be trapped in Spain and remain indoors with my manchego and red bell pepper marmalade. Oh, and my vino tinto.”
But then my program got suspended and we were strongly encouraged to return home. I had a lot of reservations about it, which I wrote an Op-Ed about in The Baltimore Sun. I got some positive response from that and one disgruntled man who told me I should return to Spain for good. Honestly, I still wonder if that was supposed to be an insult. At any rate, to the U.S. I went, living the dream of moving in with my parents. Since then, I have been writing and finally publishing essays I’ve been sitting on for years. Here’s some more of my work that came out recently:
A flash nonfiction piece in The Citron Review: What We Can’t Do: A Father and Daughter’s List
An essay in The Offing: Bhangra
Readings
In other news, Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology got published back in March. My essay, “Hair” was included in this wonderful collection. Women Who Submit invited me to read an excerpt virtually which can be viewed here. If you would be interested in purchasing the anthology, you can do so here. All proceeds go to the fantastic literary organization Women Who Submit, which offers free workshops to marginalized genders on preparing their poetry and prose for publication. The organization is near and dear to my heart.
Rejections
I have gotten lots of rejections lately. Here are some of the things I applied for and didn’t get:
Fine Arts Work Center Fellow
Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship
Tin House Summer Workshop
Blue Mountain Center Residency
The Philip Roth Residency: The committee informed me that I was a finalist. So close. So. Close.
Along with these rejections, I’ve had a slew of “No”s from different journals for publication and even to volunteer as a reader. And yeah, these things can sting. But there was one thing that I kept reminding myself while in Spain: Your self worth is not based on your accomplishments.
It’s hard for me to believe, especially when I read someone else’s bio and see they’ve somehow written twelve books and won a Guggenheim before 30. But I have to say rejection can make me even more geared up to work. There was a great essay on the idea of self-worth I encourage you to check out called “Fuck the Bread. The Bread is Over.”
Creative Advice
I feel a little uncomfortable encouraging people to be writing right now. I know we are all struggling in one way or another and that we are all responding to our stressors in different ways. If you are in that party of people that cannot hold a pen, I understand. Please know that it won’t always be that way. There will come a time when you do want to return to the page and when you do, we’ll be thrilled to read it!
For any of you who find that you can write, but are dealing with monotonous days, I want to recommend bullet journaling. Here’s an example of mine from a month ago. In regards to the 100 squats, I did it once, got really sore, and never tried again. See? Productivity!
Behold! My bullet journal! (Please note the colors changed because my sister gave me her colored pencils.)
Bullet journaling has helped me keep some semblance of a routine during these strange days. I started a habitual novel project where I am writing about a friendship between two cousins (totally different from the Fulbright project). With this one, I have removed any stakes. I don’t care if it gets published. Removing the external pressure has made me lighter and more excited about getting down to work on it. Plus, it’s nice to have the actual notebook in my hands instead of putting it all on a computer file.
Black Lives Matter
I feel weird writing this newsletter during this tumultuous time in our history. I am certain you feel the same way I do: angry, frustrated, ashamed. I found this great list of resources worthy of donations (thanks, fake Tim Curry Twitter person!). Feel free to share this among your community. It’s so important that we keep this on the forefront of people’s minds. Conversations are going to be tough and uncomfortable.
Finally, I want to end with a reading recommendation. Robin DiAngelo coined the term “white fragility.” I know that she has several best-selling books out there, but I have to recommend this one. DiAngelo spoke at my last job at a college. She asked us to remember the first year we had a teacher who was black. For me, it was late in college. Before that, all of them were white. This was one example of how we have grown up to see authority figures as white people. Anyway, I could go on and on, but buy this book or get the ebook from your library.
Stay safe!
Anita