Dear Reader, As a writer, one of the things I often think about is the power of language, which has the capacity to shape not only our vision of the world but also, as a result, the world we live in. The stories we tell shape our actions, and our actions in turn shape not just our society but also the very surface of the earth. We're living in a time of great change and challenge, but also of possibility. If you have spent time around me or on my email list/ in my community, you know that I...
19 days ago • 7 min read
Dear Reader, Happy Friday! Hello from Colorado, where, after a week of terrible air quality, it's incredibly beautiful and the skies are blue: Until today, the air has been full of smoke from multiple forest fires. As someone from the East Coast, I've mostly taken for granted being able to breathe fresh air, and though I've certainly been aware of the danger of fire in our changing climate, being up close has been a wake-up call. In Europe, there are horrific heat waves and fires. Around the...
26 days ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader My first real love as a writer was for poetry. And today, in honor of the spring, my son's 26th birthday (I started to write poetry seriously when he was born), and poetry itself, I invite you to join me next week for a free Poetry Masterclass. In the class, we look closely at poems by Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman, and Lucille Clifton and explore the ways poetry helps us pay greater attention to language, ourselves, and the world around us. The free class will be available for you...
3 months ago • 6 min read
Dear Reader, It's April; spring's here in Cambridge. The days are beautiful, and yet, I'm also aware of violence and injustice. I want to share a poem from my book I Say the Sky, a poem about coming to accept one's own story, while also seeing the ways in which none of us is separate. It can sound easy to say we're all interconnected, but being interconnected isn't easy. In my writing classes, one of the things students struggle with most is how to tell their own stories when their stories...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, I hope you're taking care. For those of you who celebrate Eid, Eid Mubarak. And for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, happy spring equinox. We've tipped into spring and longer days—the first blooms on the trees and the first bulbs are flowering here in New England. I was at a silent retreat last week, and this Saturday, Eric and I spent the day at the ocean, watching the waves crash in and out. In the afternoon, the clouds cleared, and the sun came out. We walked by witch...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, Happy solstice—the light is returning! In this dark year in our collective history, at this dark time in the year's cycle, it's good to remember other possibilities... I want to share this Solstice poem with you :) On the Shortest Day of the Year from I Say the Sky by Nadia ColburnEven if there is only the smallest doormade of stone,with no handle,bend low,put all your weight into it: it opens onto the wide expanseof where you’ve never been—groundless, blue, and untranslatable,...
8 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, Hello again from Spain, where I'm here with the whole family now :) And happy (almost) Thanksgiving! In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want, first, to thank you for being part of this community! I truly feel grateful and lucky to be connected with you! I also want to share my favorite Thanksgiving prayer: the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s Thanksgiving Address, a deep prayer of thanks for the earth, waters, plants, and animals. I first encountered this address in Robin Wall...
8 months ago • 7 min read
Dear Reader, Hola from Spain! I’m here visiting Simone (my daughter), who’s studying abroad in Granada. Eric and Gabriel will join us tomorrow, but I came early to see Simone and also have a little writing retreat for myself. From our weekend on the coast It’s been a nice respite in many ways, and it's been nice to step outside of the nonstop news cycle of the US. That said, I’m also watching from a distance...the release of the Epstein files (as a sexual abuse survivor, I'm particularly...
9 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, Revision is one of the most misunderstood and important parts of the writing process, and this week, in my Poetry of Attention Class, I'm teaching five different methods for revision. So I thought I'd share thoughts about revision with you here, too! The word revision can be thought of as re-vision: how do we both see and re-see? How do we meet our work with awareness and also be open to the possibility of change? How do we know what to keep and what to let go of? These are...
9 months ago • 4 min read