Curiosity kills the writer

Eh, not really. Being a person who likes to learn is good for the writing itself. But curiosity about different literary spheres can set a lot of plates spinning in the air, sometimes more than a writer-teacher-editor can manage, especially if your body, caretaking responsibilities, or day job impose some unexpected constraint. For me, at least, those pressures are frequent.

I’m playing around with Substack, for instance, but I don’t have a ton of time to sink into learning it, so is it worth it? I have a little community at WordPress (my subscribers aren’t all bots). Double-posting across platforms increases the work appreciably. Should I just post a letter on Substack very occasionally, the big updates? I do want to transition out of MailChimp for the 3-4 newsletters I send a year–they’re charging me now, and Substack will let me import email addresses, apparently–but I suspect most of my subscribers don’t want a blog every 2-3 weeks, so I’m waffling on how to play it and feeling stressed. I’d love opinions.

I’ve been foraging for mushrooms some, although it’s been super-dry here, so I’m doing much more learning than eating. I’m also revising the poetry ms I put together in spring, which now seems further away from genuinely good than I originally thought, plus I’m now thinking hard about next year’s teaching. Dealing with AI isn’t my focus–the primary question is what I should teach my undergrads and how–but I confess to bolting awake, furious, early the other morning. I’d read the list of “Fall Academy” trainings and panel discussions my college is offering faculty during the last two weeks of August, and a really high proportion of them stress how to use AI in the classroom, without any counterpoint, even as my college touts its commitment to environmental sustainability–hmm. I am NOT curious about prompting Claude better. It seems obvious, as I follow the research, that while AI has valid uses, for example in managing large data sets, beginning writers shouldn’t use it for brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revision, or any of the other writing practices they need to develop to become smart humans with flexible skills and good judgment. Plus I really, really don’t want to spend my one wild and precious life reading any AI-generated text, as a grader or otherwise; I read for a sense of connection with other human beings. A “Fall Academy” session of genuine interest to me right now would focus on how, when, and why to recommit to the analogue. I calmed myself down, that morning, by overhauling my winter term syllabus for the first-year writing seminar. Here’s a draft of the course description:

Being Human: What can literary werewolves, cyborgs, ghosts, and fire-starting bears teach us about personhood? What does it mean to write in a human voice, with human help, for other humans? Why do these questions matter? Students in this class consider the boundaries of the human through stories and poems by Martha Wells, Stephen Graham Jones, Lily Yu, Stephen King, Jeannine Hall Gailey, and others. Note that this class requires physical books and old-school writing implements. [Not in the course description: HA! Take that, you corporation-brainwashed, data-center-building AI shills! I make policy exceptions for accessibility needs, always, because I am a human who wants to meet my human students where they are. Disability and neurodiversity will be course topics–the readings are fairly contemporary, and dehumanization of certain groups is definitely on writers’ minds.]

Added into my whirlwind of interesting preoccupations: I’m also prepping for travel to Colorado for some sightseeing and readings at the Telluride Mushroom Festival (seriously, check out the schedule, the event list is weird and amazing–what’s an “alchemical mushroom sound bath”?!). This means I’m unlikely to blog again until late August, with the mushroomy low-down. Here’s an up-to-date event list, not as crazy as a year ago but full enough, and I’m honest-to-god excited about each one.

• Aug. 12-16: Telluride Mushroom Festival, Telluride, CO
  • Thurs Aug 13, 3 pm: Fungi Poets Reading & Open Myc, Telluride Historical Museum Amphitheater
  • Fri Aug 14, 8:30 pm: The MycoLuscious MycoLiscious MycoLogical Poetry Show with Art Goodtimes & Friends, Sheridan Opera House
  • Sat Aug 15, 1:00 pm: Book signing with Art Goldsmith at Between the Covers
• Sept. 13, 2-4 pm: Stone Soup Books, Earthen Verse: A Celebration of Poetry and Place with Adrienne Brown (representing her mother, the poet Karenne Wood), Emily Hancock, Jeanne Larsen, J. Scott Price, & Sarah Ann Winn in Waynesboro, VA.
• Sept. 23, 11:50 am-12:50 pm: Chris Gavaler & Lesley Wheeler: A Celebration of New Books, Northen Auditorium in Leyburn Library, W&L University, Lexington, VA
• Oct. 4: Old Dominion Literary Festival, Norfolk, VA
• Nov. 12-14: “Mycelial: Inspired by Fungi” with Mildred K. Barya and Anne Haven McDonnell, Poets for Science Gathering, Kent State University, OH

Some pictures are below from a terrific reading I participated in last week in Charlottesville, VA, in the “Chain Letters” series. I loved the readings themselves, the format, and the space, an old stone church now mainly used for arts events.

Heads-up on a couple of other things, in case you’re contest-curious: This year I was asked by Art Goodtimes–poet, organizer of the Talking Gourds Poetry Gatherings hosted by the Telluride Institute, and poetry editor of Fungi–to judge the Fischer Prize, deadline August 31. He’ll winnow the entries down and I’ll choose winners from an anonymized pool of 40-50 individual poems, with results to be announced at the Book Cliffs Poetry Festival. The entry fee might pose a barrier for some, but it supports a good network of arts programming. There are no prohibitions about people I know entering, although it’s best not to send a particular poem I’d recognize from a workshop. Art is a great poetry performer with a big, bardic style, so seeing where our tastes intersect will be interesting! I enjoy those differences–keeps the poetic ecosystem lively.

I play the opposite role for Shenandoah‘s Graybeal-Gowen Prize, winnowing the pool (usually around 120 batches of 3 each) to 12 finalists, anonymizing them, and sending them to the final judge, this year Denise Duhamel. In this case, students and close friends of the final judge should not apply. Only people who’ve lived in Virginia for 2 or more years at some point in their lives are eligible, but it’s free to enter and the prize is $1000 plus publication, so if you fit the parameters, something to gain and nothing to lose. It’s open Sept. 1-15 via Submittable, and in this case entry isn’t a race against the clock–submissions will stay open for the entire two weeks, and you’ll know within a few more weeks whether you’re a finalist. I’ll read open submissions for the Fall ’27 issue starting January 15th, and in that case, yes, we’ll hit the cap lickety-split, probably on Day 1. There will be another submissions period in spring, though, run by a guest poetry editor.

All this means my work load will ramp up in early September, when my fall teaching and advising also kick off (plus I’ll be evaluating a small pool of poetry residency applications for Storyknife–but it sounds interesting…). If you run into me, please remind me to say no to stuff, even when my first thought is, hey, cool ask! Being a curious person gets me into a lot of trouble.