Shark School Grad and Other Wisdom

You’re reading The Hundred Day Reckoning: a Creative Response to Hard Change, in which an award-winning playwright (me) mines ancient dramatic principles and a range of current wisdom to expand creativity, capacity, and freedom in the face of Life Drama (a.k.a. yours).

This Substack offer tools to transform your response to life drama, plus my candid personal tales, plus reflections and artwork from the magnificent alumni of The Hundred Day Reckoning, a Creative Response to Hard Change, like today’s roundup.

The next Hundred Day Reckoning session, live on zoom with me, has a few spots left! Evening is waitlist only, but there is still room in the morning session and independent versions. Day 1: Sept 7th, Day 100: Dec 15th. Join me! - KH

Read Janet’s original post, In the Cards: Grief, Cancer, Sharks, and a Concert.

Not being able to get the idea of swimming with apex predators out of my mind, I decide to drop in on some actual (not metaphorical) sharks.

As we pull up in the dive boat, off the coast of Haleiwa, Hawaii in 306 feet of deep blue ocean, the captain blasts some 80s dance music and four or five sharks surface alongside the boat, gliding to the sick beats like they’ve got an underwater dance floor. “The pool is open,” the captain says as I grab my mask and snorkel, slip on my fins and awkwardly slide off the dive ladder into what awaits.

I see four below me, then ten, then more below them, and below those even more. There must be forty or fifty sharks under and around me.

Dropping into 306 feet of deep blue water off of Haleiwa, Hawaii lands me in the middle of a school of sharks.

I am there for the adrenaline rush, the feeling of being alive in the face of danger, to learn to stand my ground. To face my fear of death and the unexpected, to bump up against the unknown.

Instead, I feel curious. I feel calm. My heart beats slowly and my breathing keeps rhythm with the ocean swells.

Maybe I’ve faced enough fear and made it through. Through grief big enough to swallow me whole. I’ve survived cancer, I’ve adapted to a newly reconstructed body after breast cancer surgery, maybe I’ve been facing apex predators all along.

Maybe I am an apex predator.

I’m surprised that I don’t have the desire to get away from the school of sharks. I only want to stay. To see more.

Also, I suddenly know I don’t need to be here facing sharks. I don’t even need to be here. There is nothing to face, nothing to stand up to, nothing to prove, nothing to chase, nothing out to destroy me or tear me limb from limb. The sharks are in constant motion like me. They are moving to breathe. We are all coexisting in depths unknowable. The sharks and I. And it is wondrous.

- J.A., August 2026

Read Ann’s original post, Won’t You Be My Neighbor.

Or listen to Ann read that post:

In June, I found myself stranded at the Denver airport, so I took the “found time” to process and finally decide, once and for all, what my new artistic/professional focus would be now that I’ve broken up with singing opera. At the end of three or four hours, I had five project ideas, each requiring me to learn a distinct, and distinctly new skill set. I was overwhelmed and freaked out.

Luckily, I phoned a friend, and she introduced me to an idea that may just define my artistic identity: polymathy. Polymathic thinking is all about developing knowledge, skills, and interests across the very broadest base possible. This allows the polymath to draw on a rich and varied well of ideas and connect and combine them into unlikely-yet-useful/beautiful/enlightening solutions, stories, allegories, theories, and mashups.

American education (and capitalism, probably) has encouraged each of us to specialize in one thing, and to be the very best [ ] we can be. By giving my lifelong curiosity across disciplines and career tracks the name of “polymath” (as opposed to “dilettante”, “dabbler,” or… “failure”) my friend set me free to be the kind of thinker and maker I have always been.

And with this freedom, the choice of my next project (a fantasy play about my daughter’s cancer doctor starting a cult with me as his most ardent disciple) became crystal clear. I can’t wait to see how it unfolds!

- A.B., July 2026

Read Rachel’s original post, Maternity Leave Surprise.

Or listen to Rachel read that post:

Since my creative reawakening in the Reckoning, I finished my first full-length play in a decade and am hard at work on my second. A group from my Reckoning cohort continues to meet twice a month (over two years out, now!) to do a writing prompt, share creative work, and give feedback and encouragement. This community provides vital fuel for my writing and reminds me daily that the process of reckoning—in art and in life—is ongoing.

- R.L., July 2026

Reckoning Curious? A Couple Spots Left for Fall!

Day One - September 7th

Janet Allard a playwright, musical-bookwriter/lyricist, and video game writer. Her musical Alexander Supertramp (with composer Niko Tsakalakos) was commissioned by Perseverance Theater and developed at Berkeley Rep Ground Floor, Rhinebeck Writers, Playwrights Horizons, and Encore Theatre. Other works include: Pool Boy at Barrington Stage, Vrooommm! A NASComedy published by Samuel French, Speed Date, Incognito, Loyal, Painted Rain and Untold Crimes of Insomniacs, published by Playscripts, Inc.   The Unknown: A Silent Movie Musical  won a Jonathan Larson Award with P73 Productions and appeared at NYMF. She has an M.F.A in Playwriting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, studied at the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program, and worked with Deck Nine Games.

Website
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Ann Benson is active both as a classical mezzo-soprano and as a theater artist all throughout the Inland Northwest. Opera roles include Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Third Lady in The Magic Flute, and Count Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus with Inland Northwest Opera. She also likes to keep her creativity and performance toolkit sharp by cross-training in other forms of art-making, including improv acting, crochet pattern designing, theatre directing, writing arrangements for school ensembles, and songwriting. Ann lives on the south side of Spokane, where she happily runs a voice studio and lives with her husband, Kevin, and their two hilarious, lovely kids.

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Rachel Leopold’s plays have been produced by the Gallery Players, read at Red Bull Theater, and published by Stage Rights Publishing. Her prose has been published in The Boston Globe. Rachel lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Read Rachel’s Post-Reckoning Essay in the Boston Globe.

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This Wednesday morning post is free as always. The paid version gets you access to archived writing prompts, and most importantly, subscription fees directly support the independent creation of this work, including paying other artists. Thanks for considering an upgrade!

The Hundred Day Reckoning, a Creative Response to Hard Change, live on zoom with me, is open for fall enrollment. A few spots left. Starts September 7th!

Curious about how this all began? Read my very first post to learn more. - KH