Y’all, clearly social media is not my thing. But while I have not been keeping up with this blog, or my other blog, or my Insta, and it’s been so long since I logged into TikTok that they kicked me out of my account and now I can’t get back in, I HAVE been doing other writerly things.

I landed a few editing gigs this year, and I attended a writing conference for the first time since before Covid. I submitted several pieces for contests and publication (some were accepted – and even won! – and some were ignored or flat-out rejected). I was asked to read one of my children’s picture books at a local bookstore. (Only one single, childless friend came – bless her!) I pitched a yoga-and-writing event to a couple of groups I’m in and they accepted my idea. I was even asked to give a presentation to the Atlanta Writers Club (it’s not til 2026, but that just means I’ll have a whole year and a half to be excited about it).

But the most upcoming event, the one I’m very excited to share with you right now, is a poetry reading on Friday, December 13th. Some of y’all will be strongly considering whether to stop reading at this point, and I don’t blame you. Even I occasionally get the ick when I hear “poetry reading.”

My collection of Christmas-themed poetry A Marvelous Time started off as just a single poem I wrote after being inspired by my stepmother’s frenetic and beautiful desire to be an amazing party host. Then I joined a writers’ group and each year for their open-mic Christmas party, I would write a new poem. I had about four poems under my belt when a friend asked if I wanted to be the featured speaker at an open-mic he was hosting in December 2022. Well of course I did, but I figured I should have a few more poems to choose from, so I got to work.

The poems seemed to go over well enough with the crowd that night, so in 2023 I put them together in a collection, and in a few weeks, I’ll be sharing them with a new crowd. Or, if it’s the same crowd, hopefully they have poor memories because I haven’t written a single new Christmas poem since.

Anyway, if you’re in the area, come join me! Details HERE. And if you’re not in the area, don’t come, because that would be really creepy for you to drive all that way to listen to me read my poems, when you could just get a copy of the book for yourself HERE.