Yesterday was officially the last day of summer, although for me summer ended six weeks ago when my kids returned to school. I miss having them home, and I miss long sleepy mornings and indulgent late nights filled with movie marathons, sprints to the 24-hour donut shop, and endless reading.
Now mornings begin with an alarm clock and evenings end with math homework and ten-minutes-till-lights-out warnings. But there are definite advantages to the school year: it’s easier to meet my writing goals, stick with a healthy diet, and schedule time to work out. I love walking my son to school every morning. And, of course, the weather eventually turns, like it did earlier this week.
Fall is here—jeans and sweaters, autumn-spiced candles, fresh-baked pies. Halloween displays in the grocery store and the return of cool evenings that melted away in June. Soon they will turn cold, and that’s fine too. There will be more movie marathons—first scary ones, and then Christmas ones. There will be more books. And there will be more writing.
Although I’ve been quiet on here, I have kept busy this year, drafting new short stories and essays and making pretty good progress on a maybe-novel (I’m calling it that until it reaches the 50,000-word mark—too often my novel ideas end up long short stories).
One of my new pieces, called “From Autumn to June,” was accepted at YARN magazine for publication next year. And one of my short essays, or maybe it’s more of a poem, was published this week in Mothers Always Write.
That piece, called “Sometime After Thirteen,” is a tribute to my now 15-year-old daughter; I read it aloud at a Mother’s Day reading in May with my daughter in attendance, and I was honored to have it appear in such a lovely magazine so that I could share it with you, too. I hope you read it, and I hope you all had a wonderful summer and are looking forward to fall as much as I am!
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