I'm going to the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat!

Thrilled to announce I'm attending the inaugural Jack Jones Literary Arts Writer's Retreat in the fall, as a recipient of a Natalie Diaz Fellowship for Native writers!

Basically my face when I found out I could go.

Treat yo' self....to doing a lot more intensive research! 

Along with a small class of fellows, I'll be spending two weeks in SMU: Taos with women writers of color, and I cannot express how excited I already am for the retreat.

We'll be attending master classes on everything from digital media to publishing, getting manuscript feedback from workshop participants and our writers-in-residence, and chatting with our fellow writers -- all thanks to the imitable Natalie Diaz, Kima Jones, Allison Conner, and Dr. LaToya Watkins.

Ladies, I am so happy and so honored to be a part of this adventure.

Anybody else going to be there?

"The PEN Ten With Stephen Graham Jones"

Guest editor Natalie Diaz has a gorgeous interview with Blackfeet writer Stephen Graham Jones up over at PEN America. They talk obsessions, linguistics, writing process, and more. But I think this quote is my absolute favorite:

While the notion of the public intellectual has fallen out of fashion, do you believe writers have a collective purpose? To say the truth, or something in the arena of the true. Something that feels true. To carve down to what’s real, and then fold the reader into that spot for a couple hundred pages. To write for the people of today, not the ones who aren’t born yet, and not the ones from generations ago, who can no longer be impressed with your talent. To—to be one of the ones Plato would have kicked out of his republic, because we won’t shut up, because we won’t stop stirring things up, because we insist on rousing emotions and thoughts in people that are inconvenient for those in power. And to do all this without seeming to be trying to do all this. Mostly, if we have a collective purpose, it’s to dream on the page, such that others might subscribe not so much to that particular dream, but just to dreaming in general. To asking What if? That’s the most dangerous question. The most necessary question.

Read more here.

Last night, I couldn't sleep because I had a story creeping into my head. Let's hope we can all hit the page running today.

Happy Wednesday,

CL

Image credit: PEN America