This Sunday, I’m flying to Lynchburg, Virginia, for a two week writing residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

This will be my third artist residency. I’ve also gone to Dorland Mountain Arts in April 2021, and Ragdale in September 2022.

Residencies are a rare gift: the time and space to simply be present with your art. There are no schedules, no obligations, only the invitation (and challenge!) to focus on your art without the daily distractions of your normal life. I’m incredibly lucky to be given this time away from daily responsibilities and life maintenance, to sink down into the deeper parts of my consciousness and see what treasures are waiting to be brought back to the surface.

When I was at Dorland, I spent most of the week in my little cottage working on a single poem. I read Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, Make Your Art No Matter What by Beth Pickens and Imagine Us, The Swarm by Muriel Leung. It was, honestly, a sad and lonely week, but the surroundings were beautiful, and I unlocked a poem I had been working on for over two years. During my month at Ragdale, I wrote a few new poems, did a lot of freewriting, substantially revised a chapbook, and read ten books. Ragdale was much more social than Dorland, so I also spent a rejuvenating amount of time hanging out with the other residents at our communal dinners and informal artist showcases.

If you’d like to send me mail while I’m there (August 25-September 7), the address is:

VCCA
154 San Angelo Drive
Amherst, VA 24521

One more book to pre-order

I should have included this with last week’s list.

We Are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza’s Youth, is on sale on September 2, 2025. You can pre-order here from Interlink Books, the only Palestinian-owned press in the United States.

“These are the stories of young people from Gaza, born under Israeli occupation and blockade. They are people who have endured unspeakable struggles and losses, who keep fighting to be recognized not as numbers, but as human beings with hopes, dreams, and lives worth living.”

An update on The Sameer Project

Thanks to paid subscribers, we have already sent $227 to The Sameer Project in support of their lifesaving work for the people of Gaza. If you are a free subscriber, consider signing up for the monthly fee of your choosing:

I receive payouts every Monday from the previous week’s paid subscriber sign-ups, and then I send those funds to one of The Sameer Project’s campaigns to provide mutual aid to Palestinians surviving the genocide.

One of my favorite poets, Shira Erlichman (a VCCA alum whose approach to writing residencies is GOALS) said in an Instagram post today, “All day I am grieving for Palestine, fighting for Palestine, hoping that you too do not let a moment pass when the multiple genocides of the world, Sudan, Congo, escape your heart, your mouth, or your actions. It’s you who has to stop it, this has always been true, you who has to care, to show up with your sign, your money, your recommitment, it’s you. It’s you, you, me, & you, together, over & over again.”