Something to Look Forward to

Hi,

How’s it going? In nine days I have to run a marathon, so I’m feeling a little weird. I’m in the tapering stage of the training plan which basically means running a lot less than I have been for the past few months, trying to restore my muscles and regain some energy.

It’s a strange time because I’ve already done most of the hard work. These are the distances I have run every Saturday since the year began:

January 3rd, 25km (15.5 miles)

January 10th, 30.5km (19 miles)

January 17th, 25km (15.5 miles)

January 24th, 34km (21 miles)

January 31st, 22km (13.5 miles)

Tomorrow I only have to run 13km (8 miles), so I suddenly have more time than I’ve become used to - but I still have this looming endurance event on the horizon and I don’t feel like I can relax until it’s over.

It’s so hard. Not the running part as much as the recovery. Feeling tired all the time. And like my brain doesn’t work properly. I don’t really understand why this is happening to me. I don’t ever want to do it again. But then I also said that last time.

I haven’t been able to do much writing during the last few weeks, but I have been editing a lot for other people. I’m working on three new Shabby Doll House books, which is very fun and exciting. Hopefully I’ll be able to share some more details about them soon. And I’ve also been editing a lot for Zona Motel, including an interview that was just published today:

Writing Elegies for the Living, Gion Davis by Carmen Brady, on his new book Designated Stranger.

As Carmen mentions in her introduction, she first met Gion in the ~Profound Experience of Poetry Book Club that I used to host online during the pandemic.

This feels like the dream, in terms of “building literary community”. Not only that people could become friends and eventually meet, but that they would actively support each other’s work for years to come.

Another fun thing I learned a few days ago is that a group of poets who originally met in the Winter Writing Weekend I hosted in early December met up again online to workshop their writing together last weekend.

It was kind of wild when this group of writers got together. We did this exercise right at the end of the weekend where we had to plan/perform short group readings. And it felt like they had known each other forever and had been preparing for weeks. But they’d just met and had, like, twenty minutes…

So I’m really happy about that too.

As I mentioned, I’ve been spending every weekend recovering from running long distances, so I haven’t been able to host a six-week session of Zine Writing Club yet this year. But I do want to host a one-off meeting after I finish my race and before many people head to Baltimore for AWP.

Do you need something to look forward to?

Join us on February 22nd. We’ll spend the first part of the session discussing some fun, very contemporary creative nonfiction that experiments with form, then move into some playful writing exercises so everyone leaves with new words and ideas. All in the spirit of surviving the winter together and feeling a little more hopeful. Come hang out, meet other writers, and have some fun with literature.

You can sign up here. First come, first served. Registration closes on February 18th.

Before I go, here are a few more things I’ve edited over the past couple of weeks that I wanted to share. They’re all different, but connected by this literary community idea.

Profile:

Word Virus Books, Portland OR by Edy Guy / This sounds like a great bookstore. If I ever go back to Portland, I want to go there and have a reading.

Dispatches:

Poetry for Good at Snowfort, Westport NY by Amy S Robinson / I really wanted to find a way for Zona Motel to publish something about Renée Good’s poetry, and when I learned that Amy had hosted a workshop based on her writing, I reached out. I think this is a really good template for what to do when you don’t know what to do, and you only have poetry.

Friday Night at Bar Palmina, Philadelphia PA by Evan Femino / The introduction to this one asserts, ‘I’m making a choice to write about art right now. About a poetry event I went to on a Friday night. It’s difficult to redirect the energy. Maybe this isn’t okay to do at all. But I sincerely believe it does matter. Community, as proven by Minneapolis, is important and caring for one another is important. If we stop doing that we become easy targets.’

Is it Dirty? Margate UK by Isaac Hanson / I love this as an example of how a literary scene can thrive outside of a major city. And actually, in both this one and the previous dispatch mentioned, the writers both said that they recently moved to where they live now, and so I thought that was really cool, that writing these kinds of scene reports could be a way to get involved.

If you have an idea for something you’d like to write about for Zona Motel, let me know. The guidelines are here.

I can’t wait until nine days from now when I will have (hopefully) finished running a marathon and I can write again. Truly something to look forward to :)

Okay, tell me more about the workshop

Have a good weekend!

Lucy