Welcome to summer! As usual, I have spent June with the best intentions regarding reading and writing.  However, I was lucky enough to land a spot in Natalie Diaz's workshop at the 2016 Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, held right here at Bemidji State University. Natalie is an amazing poet and teacher! She helped me approach my writing and editing processes in a new way. It was truly an amazing way to spend a week!

I finally finished the Anthony Doerr novel and was blown away. His sentences are so lucid, strange, and wonderful. I feel I have changed as a person as a direct result of reading this novel. War is not something I generally choose to read about, but I am glad I took my mother's advice and picked it up. I am starting a collection of short stories by Lorraine Lopez titled Homicide Survivors Picnic. I am also starting Saeed Jones' collection, Prelude to Bruise.

Motivation is difficult for me. I want to work on projects and get things accomplished, but I am just so scared of starting.  What if I fail? What if I succeed? What if I devote time and energy to things other people might not find valuable? I read somewhere that one of the most important things we need to learn about motivation, is that we don't have to "feel" like working on projects. You get up and work on them anyway. Poetry is important to me and I need my schedule to reflect that. So, I will be starting a new schedule tomorrow and experimenting to find what works best for me.

It feels like my depression is finally stable and has been for a while. This is scary for me, but I am going to move forward with my poetry and reading lives as if the next awful thing isn't around the corner. I know I will go through periods of depression and anxiety for the rest of my life, but it is time to stop letting those setbacks derail my whole life.

Peace and Love,

Erin