First of the Month by Courtney Gillette
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November: Pumpkin Scones
November 1, 2016
In November 2008 I started taking Celexa and found myself wanting to die less. Somehow I'd hurtled through my late teens and early twenties thinking...
October: Rosemary Parmesan Waffles
October 1, 2016
We had a waffle iron growing up, but I rarely remember using it. If my family was going to have some sweet breakfast treat, it was always pancakes, made with...
September: Salted Fudge Brownies
September 1, 2016
Welcome to a new year of First of the Month! I started this Tiny Letter in September 2015 because I was unemployed and desperately needed a writing project...
August and Wonder
August 1, 2016
Fifteen years ago, I moved to New York. The joke in my family was that I’d been packed for college since the sixth grade, and there was indeed an ease with...
July: Taking Comfort in Poetry
July 1, 2016
When I was nineteen, I took a class called Writing from the Margins. The professor stood in the windowless basement classroom and told us that poetry saves...
June and the Shore
June 1, 2016
June is a beginning. June is my mother’s birthday. June is school out, sunscreen on, schedules wide open. June is when I go to say hello to the beach. I’ve...
May Day
May 1, 2016
In 2001, I moved to New York to go to college and have lived here ever since. Living in the city that was also my college campus has its own weirdness. It’s...
Waking Up in April
April 1, 2016
Last April, I woke up in Vermont. It was a confluence of generosity and good timing that I was able to spend a whole month at the Vermont Studio Center, an...
The Wild Rover of March
March 1, 2016
Growing up, I spent many St. Patrick's Days in bars. My grandfather, who we called Pappy, was in an Irish band with my uncle and two others. Pappy played...
February As a Marker of Time
February 1, 2016
When Emily and I decided to move in together, we looked at three apartments. I was dizzy with anxiety, having never lived with someone I was in a...
The Forgiving Nature of January
January 1, 2016
Seventeen Januaries ago, when I was a teenager, my mother and I got into an argument on a Sunday night. The arguing was not unusual (I was not the best...
December: On Ambition
December 1, 2015
I’ve been thinking a lot about the pain of being close to something. About how ambition so often leads to failure before it can ever graze the lip of...
November
November 1, 2015
When I was in Kindergarten, the local newspaper came to our classroom to write an article about how kids prepare for the holidays. We traced our hands on...
October Is A Month of Birthdays
October 1, 2015
October is a month of birthdays. There are two poets I know who share an October birthday. There's my very good friend and her wife (also a good friend) and...
September
September 1, 2015
For the first time ever, I'm not going back to school. When it came time to sign annual contracts at the nursery school last year, I told them I wouldn't be...
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