What’s Watering in Winter
Lots of tempestuous news, reactions and feelings abound these days, huh? What do we do when our foundations are rocked? For me, in times of personal, communal and global change, I’m finding it most important to first regulate my nervous system so that I have any chance to act in strength, compassion and mindfulness. Even while it’s winter, I’m paying attention to what is coming alive in my senses and in the world around me, watering what grows, what might grow…
As much as I can, I’m leaning into what brings me joy, to finding and claiming a sense of purpose and grounding into the idea of trust, even as I feel the shifts within and underfoot, even when it feels like I’m moving through miasma. How can I travel alongside the turbulence while inviting my inner compass to awaken and help me see through the fog into what’s next, on this precipice edge, entering the unknown?
One thing that is helping me navigate all this is taking part in a six-month creative learning journey with Imaginisma, a collective educational experience geared toward amplifying our individual aliveness on the path to locating our holy work and stepping into that. So is embracing intentionally small, communal acts of artmaking, like a living room reading of my latest play TrapDoor and a group reading at MING Studios where the invited writers were our only audience.
Meanwhile, here are a few upcoming flowers that are incubating, watering and blossoming for me this late-winter into spring (and an octopus I created in an Imaginisma class session, because cephalopods, am I right?):
Wolf/Girl at The Liberty in Hailey
Wednesday, February 12, my play for middle grade audiences (and older), Wolf/Girl, gets a staged reading at The Liberty Theater through The Liberty Theatre Company in Hailey, Idaho, thanks to International Wildlife Coexistence Network.
The reading is at 6:30pm and directed by Tiara Thompson. I’m so excited to team up with Tiara again and bring this play to the Wood River Valley. Tickets are Pay What You Feel and benefit The Wood River Wolf Project. Howl for that!
Check out a sweet article about the event from Idaho Mountain Express.
Take Me Away:
A train wreck with monsters at BCT
I first drafted this play in Andrea Lepcio’s class through the Dramatists Guild Institute. Personally, it’s my scariest to date. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to hear this two-hander (with monsters) in its first public reading through Boise Contemporary Theater’s 5X5 Reading Series, March 10 at 7pm. I get to team up with one of my favorite theater artists, Amela Karadza, who will lend her directing talents on Take Me Away, a play (for grown-ups) about what it means to be taken away from everything – including ourselves.
Something I Heard in March
If you live in Idaho and listen to public radio (long live NPR, CPB and PBS), you may have heard some of my favorite writers of this state read poetry and prose based on a monthly theme starting in October, 2024. I feel honored to be the final writer/curator of this six-month series (with hopes that there will be more of this series funded in the future) in March. I’ve been gathering works on the theme of Absence. On Boise Public Radio News (91.5 FM where I live), that 5-minute series airs Thursdays at 3:44 and 5:44pm; on Boise Public Radio Music (90.3 FM where I live), at 9:01am and 4:01pm. Check out the full series, including past episodes, at the link below.
12 Lifetimes: last copies, first print
Thanks to you fabulous reading humans, we are nearing the end of the first printing of 12 Lifetimes: A Century Cycle. Modern Mythographer has 5 copies remaining. There are a few more copies at Kuna’s Book Habit, at Flying M Boise (pictured here with Jessica Pallante), at Rediscovered Books and a few coming to Old Speak when that reopens (from the Lit Room’s stock). There may be a second printing in the works but there will be changes to that edition, including the cover…so if you’re attracted to this beautiful blue designed by Nick Jaina and want a copy for yourself or a friend, we’re down to the last handfuls.
A few kind words (thank you):
“gahhh this book is so good!”
T. Davis
“I have to say this seems like a book I really need right now.”
J. Mahoney
“I devoured it and truly loved the form!!” B. O’Hanlon
Take care and be well.
If you missed it, here are some of my reflections from 2024 and intentions for this year. Stay safe out there. Keep breathing. Keep leaning into what brings you joy (which in itself can be a revolution). There a few more flowers I’m watering right now that bring me lots of eager anticipation. I look forward to sharing them with you in my next letter, as those plants start to sprout.
Until then, know that I’m grateful for all of you: those I know well, those I met once and those who are all but strangers. Much warmth. Much light.
Much wintering love,
Heidi
As Austin Kleon says, these newsletters are free but not cheap.
The best ways to support this playwright/writer/human are to:
attend a reading / event when we’re in the same town,
order a book (or get at Rediscovered Books, Flying M Boise or Lit Room), leave a favorable review for that book,
read and recommend a play on NPX,
download an album of poem-songs
or throw a tip in my jar.
Many THX!
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