at midweek

What are you watching/reading/listening to/eating today, January 5th, 2023?

I am about to leave for the first of two 2023 writer’s residencies — this one being at Barnswallow in Maine, and the next at Corsicana in Texas in April — during which I will be finishing my first complete draft of my next book, On Permission, which is coming from Godine Books in 2024. I’ve been finishing up some other projects including an anthology commission for an essay on shame and embarrassment, and in other news, have some workshops to announce:

I’ll be leading my winter memoir workshop for the online arm of Fine Arts Work Center, beginning on January 30th (it is asynchronous, so you can be located anywhere, in any time zone: last year I had one student in Malaysia and another in Indiana, in the same class). For more information and to apply, go here.

I’ll be leading a multi-day residential memoir workshop in August 2023 at the beautiful Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro, Massachusetts. Stay tuned for more information by going here.

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What am I loving during this first week of 2023?

1. I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions because, by week three, they tend to wither and die and make one feel like a hopeless failure. (I wrote about it here.) I’m far more interested in the small changes that people make, which are more likely to stick. As for me, I admittedly eat far too much meat during the winter — even if it’s grass-fed and in small portions. Right now, I am returning to fish-and-vegetable cookery, starting with this longtime favorite dish: slow-roasted harissa salmon. Leftovers can be formed into salmon cakes and pan-fried, or eaten at room temperature with rice or quinoa, or doused in lemon juice and spooned out of a glass container, deskside at lunch while you’re on a deadline (like I am, right now).