Wednesday, August 31, 2022

August '22 Madhouse Recap: Tattoos, Psychology, and Covid

 August ‘22 Madhouse Recap

Hello Friends and Fiends—

Just like that, summer is over and the semester has begun and started off with a bang, or should I say a headache/chills/fever/sore throat/ congestion/ and body aches? Yep, you guessed it. Dennis, Evie, and I all got Covid a few days before the first day of classes, but thankfully we’re all pretty much back to normal these days, even if I have some lingering symptoms here and there. What a scary, horrible thing though. It was the first time Evie was sick, and the fact that it was with the illness we’d all been dreading and fighting against the past few years certainly didn’t help. Thankfully, I tend to be an over-preparer thanks to my OCD (which let me clear–I’m not actually thankful for because it’s crippling at times), so I had tons of medicine, herbal supplements, vitamins, cough drops, ginger ale, etc. on hand and ready to go in order to fight this. I was the last one to get it in the house, so I’m happy that I was at least able to care for everyone else when they went down, but damn. 

Outside of that, August remained a transformative month for me. I got a fantastic tattoo to symbolize postpartum rage and all the changes I’ve been going through since having Evie, and I commemorated that by having my Aries warrior wear a Capricorn necklace to symbolize my little girl always being close to my heart. Shout out to Unique Ink and Brian Corely for always being amazing and exceeding my expectations. I always feel so confident and empowered after getting new ink. It's already changed the way I see and

As a family, we finally made it to the Asian Lantern Festival at the Pittsburgh Zoo. Dennis has wanted to go to this for years, so I’m happy we could finally make this happen for lots of reasons, and Evie had a blast. It was her second time visiting the zoo, and she just loves being outside and looking at the animals. This is great for me because something I want to do with her in a few years is a volunteer at a farm sanctuary a few times a year. I think this will be great in teaching her empathy, responsibility, and community, not to mention help her foster a stronger relationship with nature and the earth. Fingers crossed!

I’ve made some personal decisions and choices for the upcoming months that I’m really looking forward to, and the added positive in all of this is that I’m feeling my seasonal depression start to lift, so my mood and sense of well-being already feel unbelievably better. I’m teaching a bunch of graduate courses this semester and will finish up Witch Lit (LitReactor) this month, but I’m also taking two classes myself this time around as well. This time, it’s two psychology courses (Theories of Personalities and Psychopathology: Critical Perspectives). I have declared formally that I’m a psychology major quite yet, and I’m not sure that I will (unless it becomes stupid not to), but I am following my interests (along with the degree requirement sheet) to see where I end up. At the very least though, I’m having a blast following this thread of interest–something I’ve always had, to be honest–and I look forward to seeing how it will better inform my teaching and writing. 


To piggyback on that a bit more, I also spent this past month getting back to my roots in creativity and asking some hard questions. My boss told me she was listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s podcast Magic Lessons, so I listened to the first season and had some hard and honest conversations with myself about where I am right now as a creator. I have some projects coming out (some you know about, some you don't!) and I’m looking for my next *spark* so while I continue on, I’m also focusing on learning more about mythology and witchcraft as well (I know, you’re surprised). Regardless though, it feels good to be connecting with things and nature and all sides of my craft again and I’m excited to see what’s coming next as the weather changes, the harvest comes, and my energy returns. 


On the writing/teaching front:

  • We’re getting closer to the launch of Writing Poetry in the Dark this October! As such, I want to remind everyone that preorders are open and you can pick your copy of the book up here, plus we have the Writing Poetry in the Dark Event that you can sign up for as well! This three-day virtual event will feature poetry workshops, lectures,  networking opportunities, and more for writers of genre poetry. Guests are still being added and more info about the programming and schedule will be available soon. Featuring on-demand prerecorded content, live sessions, and for our Evergreen Lifetime Members recordings labeled (LT) from past events. I’m currently halfway through another iteration of Witch Lit with Litreactor. I remain so grateful to be teaching this class because it’s easily one of my favorite topics to lecture on and push myself to continue learning about. Lately, I’ve been reading about Slavic magic to get a bit closer to my own ancestral threads and I’ve also been reading Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women by Silvia Federici.

  • I’m so excited to be participating in Winter Haunts this year, thanks to the ever-kind Alex Davis. This is an online day of workshops, panels & talks on ghost stories, gothic and supernatural fiction, and I’ll be running a workshop on How to Write the Speculative Poem and then appearing on a Baba Yaga panel to talk about all things feral and witchy.
  • I got a beautiful piece of mail the other day from Carina Bissett, Hilary Dodge, and Joshua Viola letting me know that Shadow Atlas won the Colorado Book Award. I’m so incredibly proud of this book and I was honored to have my poem “Blood, Like Chocolate” included inside it!
  • I recently had a guest published with TImber Ghost Press. I wrote about the speculative poetry community and a few organizations that support it. You can read it here.
  • My essay “On Becoming Nightbitch” was published with LitReactor last month. This was an emotional essay for me to write. It's about the importance of books, unapologetic women, and embracing the dark goddess archetype within. At the same time, it's also a reflection on postpartum depression, therapy, and female rage. I hope you'll consider reading it.
  • My interview with Stephanie Parent about her recent poetry collection, Every Poem a Potion, Every Song a Spell debuted last month. you can check it out here, and trust me, fans of fantasy, fairy tales, and feminist retellings won’t want to miss this!
  • I have an interview with Stacy Kingsleyon up on her blog. We chat about all things speculative poetry, horror, and writing. Check it out below, and be sure to preorder your copy of Writing Poetry in the Dark, coming soon from Raw Dog Screaming Press.



This month, I read:

  • Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

  • Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel

  • The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

  • Every Poem a Potion, Every Song a Spell by Stephanie Parent

  • Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky

  • Eve by Annie Finch

  • The Body Wars: Poems by Jan Beatty

  • Over My Dead Body by Sweeny Boo

  • House of Slaughter, Vol. 1 by James Tynion IV

  • Sheets by Brenna Thummler

  • Presto by Josh Malerman 

  • Soaking in Strange Hours: a Tristan Grieves Fragment by Erik Hoffstatter. My review can be found here.

On the media front:

  • Lake Bodom (2016), Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018), Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019), The Black Phone (2022), They/Them (2022), So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993), X (2022), Hello, My Name is Dorris (2015), The Bob’s Burger Movie (2022).

  • American Horror Stories: Still watching this. I don’t know why, but I just am. The last episode “Facelift” just made me so mad. I’m so sick of this focus on aging as being horrible or grotesque in horror. It very much rubs me the wrong way and considering that the focus is almost always on women, it frustrates me even more.

  • What We Do in the Shadows: This show just keeps getting better and better. The episode with the house reveal was one of the best yet. So funny.

  • The Sandman: I’m thoroughly enjoying this show, even if we’re only slowly making our way through it (Dennis and I are watching it together). We’re currently on episode 4, and I seriously cannot wait to go to Hell. I’ve been waiting for this episode since I knew the series was in development. Onward!

  • She Hulk: I’m enjoying the show so far, and I’m also enjoying how mad it’s making people, specifically men. Sexism is certainly alive and well in comics! No getting around that. Nevertheless, I like the conversations happening in the show so far, and while I wish we were seeing new female characters that are unique and not female counterparts of an already existing male superhero, I keep telling myself that change isn’t going to happen overnight. Deep sigh.

  • I bought Girl A by Abigail Dean a little while ago and it appears to be loosely based on the 2018 case of The Turpin Family. Because I somehow missed that (?), I watched a 20/20 episode on it titled “Escape from a House of Horror.” I hope to find time to read the book soon. 

  • Dennis and I watched Uncoupled together and I loved it so much. I feel like when gay couple-focused shows or movies come out, it’s usually always a younger couple and in some ways, it becomes a coming-out story of sorts; I appreciated that this showcased an older, long-term couple and that it showed, quite honestly, that all relationships are the same and we all go through the same things. It was really beautiful and humbling and funny (at times) and I just adore Neil Patrick Harris.  More shows like this, please. 

  • We randomly watched Friends from College, and it was a quick two seasons, but I wasn’t really invested in any of the characters and they all felt like pretty horrible people, yet I couldn’t stop watching for some reason. I don’t care that there isn’t a third season, to be honest. 



Podcasts:

Best,

Stephanie
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