1. Books I want to read: Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and Inciting Joy: Essays. I just finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and You Could Make This Place Beautiful and really enjoyed both.

2. My Taste Is Basic. So What? “In an essay from her new book ‘Quietly Hostile,’ author Samantha Irby explains how three simple words can stop judgmental friends in their tracks.”

3. How to be more creative, according to psychology. “From keeping dream diaries to using particular emotional regulation strategies, here’s the research on how to boost creativity, digested.”

4. Depth. “Personalized journal prompts to help you understand and navigate how you feel. Powered by AI, built by Reflection.app.” Y’all, I’m still so unsure about how to feel about AI. In related news, Professional human loser and AI as intern from Austin Kleon. Also this, Man Fakes His Entire Life for a Month With Convincing AI-Generated Photos.

5. The Benefits of TikTok’s Latest Really Good Idea, ‘Soft Hiking.’ Or an alternative title for me, “When What You Were Already Doing Becomes A Thing.”

6. Mary Ruefle on the joy of blackout poetry from Austin Kleon. Also from Austin, The thing that sticks out.

7. Keep Going: sustaining a creative practice. “Austin Kleon’s little books are packed with wisdom for creatives. Keep Going is about sustaining a creative practice – with kindness and fun.”

8. Rachel W. Cole’s latest newsletter includes a really great question to ask yourself: “If I didn’t need to take any action (maybe if action was prohibited), the hunger I would admit to having is…”

9. 12 Things to Remember When You Are Overwhelmed from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

10. The Story of Why I Decided to Become a Mom from Alexandra Franzen. I could write a similar piece about why I decided not to.

11. A Primer on Growth by Gretchen Schmelzer.

12. Maya Angelou on Writing and Our Responsibility to Our Creative Gifts.

13. Fight, Flight, Freeze, & Fawn Response: What’s The Difference?

14. Fresh, Solid, Calm, Free from Kaira Jewel Lingo’s latest newsletter.

15. “Trust Your Experience” from Robert Jones, Jr.

16. How Dare You, America: Bearing witness to the lynching of Jordan Neely in New York City from Frederick Joseph.

17. Patient Quick Guide To Talking About Weight with Healthcare Providers from Ragen Chastain.

18. How to respond to willful ignorance from Patti Digh. “A curated list of possible responses to choose from.”

19. Recipe I want to try: No-Bake Cranberry Oat Energy Bites.

20. The unlikely (but welcome) return of Everything But The Girl.

21. Here’s why you need to be cultivating awe in your life. “Research shows that people recently exposed to awe are kinder, more environmentally friendly, and better connected to others.”

22. Hyper-realistic vegan needle-felted animals by Elizabeth Perez.

23. The Plastic Horse.

24. Sculpture Honoring the Life of Freya the Euthanized Walrus Is Unveiled in Norway.

25. She ripped up her manicured lawn and challenged the norms of gardening stories. “In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, Dungy describes her years-long project to transform her weed-filled, water-26. hogging, monochromatic lawn in suburban Fort Collins, Colo., into a pollinator’s paradise, packed instead with vibrant, drought-tolerant native plants.”

26. Making People Uncomfortable Can Now Get You Killed on The New York Times from Roxane Gay.

27. How To Plant A Lemon In A Cup: Make Your Home Smell Fresh And Boost Your Mood.

28. Photographer Documents How People Live in Cramped Rented Rooms in Seoul.

29. Lyrical Illustrations Celebrate the Diversity of Wildlife and the Joy of Observation.

30. Perfectly Drawn Tattoos Look Like Stickers Placed on the Skin.

 

 

1. The Roots of Things from Jami Attenberg. In related news, For this poet, working on her garden is exploring history, race and sustainability, (“Poet Camille Dungy made her lawn into an eco-friendly pollinator’s paradise of native plants. Her memoir links diversifying the landscape and diversifying the voices who write about the natural world”), and Blooming How She Must: A Profile of Camille T. Dungy, and Soil Book Review, (“In her radical and vibrant memoir, Camille Dungy plants poems next to critical analysis next to environmental history next to African American history”).

2. The PEN Ten, PEN America’s weekly interview series. 10 questions asked of one writer a week. “PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.”

3. Let Your Heart Be Broken. “We spend our lives trying to anchor our transience in some illusion of permanence and stability. We lay plans, we make vows, we backbone the flow of uncertainty with habits and routines that lull us with the comforting dream of predictability and control, only to find ourselves again and again bent at the knees with surrender to forces and events vastly larger than us. In those moments, kneeling in a pool of the unknown, the heart breaks open and allows life — life itself, not the simulacrum of life that comes from control — to rush in.”

4. What Thieves Are Not Interested In from Robert Jones, Jr.

5. Why the Bud Light boycott represents a new phase in anti-brand protests. “The boycott has quickly morphed into a promotional event for ‘anti-woke’ brands.”

6. Kindergarten children dropped seeds in the crack of the sidewalk to see what would happen.

7. The One You Feed | Practical Wisdom for a Better Life: How to Embrace Life’s Paradoxes with Rosemerry Wahtola-Trommer. (podcast)

8. The Best Things I’ve Done to Cope With Anxiety.

9. 7 Simple Ways to Be Kinder to Yourself.

10. Creating a Culture of Slow: 8 Ways to Transform the Pace of your Home.

11. Study Tests the Validity of Weight Loss Research Claims from Ragen Chastain. 

12. Social Media Report Card: Time To ReSkeet the Blooski, Apparently? from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.

13. An Unwitting Consumer Finds Himself Out of His Depth in the Stop-Motion Animation ‘Five Cents’.

14. The Banana Diaries: Easy Vegan Recipes.

15. Love the child you have from Jena Schwartz.

16. Creative Peptalk 407 – Hit Creative Block Waiting for All The Answers? Listen to This Chat with Poet Maggie Smith. (podcast) “In this episode we will explore a different way to approach creative work, that by its very nature allows for creating in the space where yourself still confused and Maggie also delivers a creative career prompt at the end that is very useful for finding new opportunities to do more of what you do best!”

17. How to Have the Fat Talk. “Virginia Sole-Smith on the War on Juice, How Puberty Got So Anti-Fat, and Parental Terror.”

18. How to Be a Mindful Bodhisattva on Lion’s Roar. “Mindfulness is more than just a meditation practice. Mindfulness is life, and life is love. That’s why it’s the whole path of the bodhisattva, says Zen teacher Norman Fischer.”

19. The truth of where you are now.

20. Colorado governor signs 4 gun control bills.

21. “Swedish Death Cleaning” comes to life in new series. What is it?

22. Comedian Matt Rife on Not Being Hot and Wearing Socks With Flip-Flops. “The popular performer opens up about his international tour, stage style, biggest insecurities, and more.”

23. No, Really, I’m Awful. “In John Mulaney’s new Netflix special, Baby J, the comedian brilliantly destroys his likable persona.”

24. My Husband Asked for a Divorce After His Dementia Diagnosis.

25. Ceramic ‘Curiosity Clouds’ by Manifesto Celebrate the Natural World in Functional Organic Forms.

26. Absolutely stunning dresses and corsets inspired by butterfly wings, designed by Bibian Blue.

27. Proof of Life, a new album from Joy Oladokun. In related news, Fuse, the new album from Everything But The Girl.