While I doubt anyone was worrying where the heck my newsletter was (If you were, please tell me!) I can explain my long absence and even turn it into a lesson for creativity.

Life Gets in the Way, or the Value of Forgetting

In my last post, I wrote that my novel-in-progress was the “The Draft that Won’t Quite End.” About a month later, it finally did. On April 28, I typed the last few words to instant relief. I was thrilled, hopeful, happy, looking forward to picking up the manuscript in about a month, waiting to give it space to breathe before I began again.

A month was optimistic, considering what I knew was ahead: my youngest son’s college graduation, moving him back home while my older son moved to his own place. There was packing and unpacking, cleaning and tossing accumulated clutter. There were logistics: who gets to drive which car where when and No, we’re not buying a new one. You’re an adult. Buy your own! There were jobs to quit and jobs to find, which meant cover letters to review and resumes to polish. There were also Writers Circle things to do with sessions ending and new ones to plan. One staff member left and I scrambled to cover her role while I brought in someone new.

In other words, life got in the way as life too often does.

Now, two months later (three since my last post), I barely remember the words I’d written, never mind what I thought or planned for my revision.

Is this good or bad?

In fact, it’s fantastic.

I always advise my students to take some time to step back and let the writing settle. Move on to other things. Clear your head. Forget what you wrote and even what you thought you wrote because, when you return to it you’ll be refreshed, clear-headed, open-minded, and ready to see what is working and what’s not before you start to revise.

After two months of family and business mania where my mind struggled to think about the manuscript for even a few moments before I slept, I have printed the entire thing on paper. It’s sitting on my desk clasped by a binder clip beside my project notebook (a fantastic Mon Carnet de Poche with lined, graph and blank perforated paper in sections, which are really hard to find). I have three stapled stacks of notes I took while writing which I will review only after I’ve read the whole thing. First, I will read it straight through with my notebook by my side and pen in hand. No computer to digitally drain or distract me.

For me, the revision practice is to go slowly. To read the words as if they are new—mirroring the experience of a dispassionate reader with no concept of where the story’s going.

Of course, it will be hard. I am pretty sure that, upon clacking open the clip, I will recognize the first pages with their optimistic blush, the maddening middle with all its knotty complications, the end with its inevitable rush. But there will also be bits I haven’t thought about since I wrote them. And that’s good. The less I remember, the more objective my reading will be.

In forgetting what I’ve created, I will see what I have neglected to create. And taking slow, handwritten notes, I will force myself to ponder and digest, rather than jump in to revise.

Revision should be a contemplative process. It’s not fixing or correcting. It’s not filling in gaps or trimming away what’s overdone. Well, it’s all of these things, but it’s also none of them. Revision is re-seeing. It’s considering whether what we’d imagined is really there. It’s assessing possibilities impartially and anew, ready, if necessary, to slash and burn. To start all over again.

Revision is allowing ourselves to be confused by our own writing. If we can’t decipher what we meant, readers certainly won’t.

It is with this recognition that I now descend into my story and hope that I discover at least a semblance of what I aspired to tell.

Deep Listening in Writing and Life

Anyone who’s ever attended my classes will know that I teach through “deep listening.” That means we don’t exchange pages or prepare comments in advance. We simply listen to each writer read their work aloud in class.

I know it sounds crazy. And I’ve had my share of students retort that people read on paper, not out loud. But it’s a tried and true method I learned from my first creative writing teacher. And though it’s uncomfortable for many at first, it really, really works. I always say that deep listening keeps the focus on what's truly important and allows the little stuff—especially grammar mistakes, fussy punctuation, etc., which all can be fixed later— slip away.

But it goes deeper than that. When we listen, we fully engage in the ancient act of storytelling, our species’ first and deepest act of cultural inheritance.

Imagine sitting around a fire in a tiny encampment in prehistoric days. The ancient elder sits in the place of honor enacting the ritual of disseminating lore imbued with history, heroes, ethics and beliefs. Later Norse skalds and medieval troubadours expanded this tradition with monumental memorizations of adventure and tales of love that were only written down when literacy became common, and only broadly enjoyed when lay folk were taught to read.

In my parenting life, I’ve also been practicing deep listening as my sons, both young men, find their way. Recently I’ve had to shut my mouth and listen deeply to their plans, options, and struggles as they decide which direction to choose. Even though I do this all the time in my classes, it’s been incredibly hard to keep my mouth shut, to reflect back what they are saying, and simply listen, letting them make choices that are right for them, not for me or my husband, not for our expectations or hopes for their lives.

As with my sons, I work in my classes to share what I hear, then point gently toward options and choices to be made. I work hard to respect my students’ visions for their work and to avoid directing them toward my personal choices or tastes. It’s challenging, but necessary if they are to find their own voices, if they are to discover the kind of writer they are meant to be.

I’m deeply invested in my students’ stories and success. Amplify that exponentially for my sons. But as this past week has shown me, the method works. Both young men have made fine choices that are right for them, which means it’s got to be right for me. As my students do the same, week after week, I watch with awe as they, too, come into their own.

Talking Writers’ Groups on the Watchung Booksellers Podcast

What a joy to share memories with my “literary big sister” Stephanie Cowell on the Watchung Booksellers Podcast. Watchung Booksellers—Publishers Weekly Bookstore of the Year—is right in my neighborhood and has long supported local authors, of which there are many! It’s been a lively hub of literary community for as long as I have lived in New Jersey.

Stephanie and I talk about how our first writers’ group in NYC supported us from our earliest days, and how we continue to support one another and countless other writers through the generous, patient, open-minded approach that we learned from our mutual teacher and mentor, Madeleine L’Engle.

Listen to the whole episode here or on your favorite podcast app.

Creative Health Cartography

I want to give a quick shoutout to Kathryn Vercillo whose Substack, Create Me Free, focuses on the meeting place between creativity and mental health. She was kind enough to interview me when AKMARAL launched. Now she’s got a new book, The Creative Health Cartography, a workbook for creatives wanting to “map the hidden patterns between your wellbeing and your creativity.” It’s beautifully illustrated, so you’ll appreciate all the thought and effort Kathryn’s put into this helpful publication. And it’s particularly geared to creatives struggling with mental health conditions, neurodivergence, or other disability. If you’re looking for a guide to help you iron out what’s getting in your way, no matter what type of art you’re making, check it out.

Creative Writing Prompt: Alone

Imagine for a moment that you are completely alone—or maybe you truly are alone in a room of your house or apartment. Everyone has left for their day and suddenly the house is quiet. How does it feel as you listen to the silence? As you consider that the only footsteps should… will… must be your own?

I’m experiencing this feeling at this very moment. Everyone is finally out of the house. It so rarely happens these days that I am taking a moment to acknowledge this odd experience. Aloneness that is solitude, not loneliness.

I am not lonely because I know they will return: my husband, who works these days from home instead of commuting to the office as he once did. My sons who are constantly in and out, with friends, bandmates, students, clients, even though only one of them technically lives here as of last month.

Only my cat Sylvester lends his presence, more as opportunistic guardian spirit than loyal companion. (Cats, unlike dogs, are never there for the sake of their humans. It’s always the other way around.)

Right now I’m enjoying the experience. But there is another side of aloneness which is its equal and opposite. Loneliness is crushing, fraught with emptiness and need. It’s a negative feedback loop embodied in the Old Norse serpent Jörmungandr encircling the earth, or the Ouroboros feeding on its own tail.

It’s said that loneliness kills more than cancer.

PROMPT: Take a moment to consider the feeling of being alone. Start with one aspect: either solitude or loneliness. Dive deep into the sensory experience of having no one else around and allow a causes for this state of being to come to you.

Where have they gone? Will they return? Is the experience a welcome respite or a devastating, even life-threatening emptiness?

Whatever aspect you begin with, shift to the other after several minutes of writing. Notice how the words and images you choose begin to change, as do the emotions within you or your character.

Emotions, whether subtle or powerful, are the impetus for all human action. What will you or your character choose to do to preserve or repel these feelings?

BOOKS BY JUDITH LINDBERGH:

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war - “A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly | “A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

THE THRALL’S TALE: 20th Anniversary Edition: three women bound by fate in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland - “Historical fiction at its best”—Philadelphia Inquirer | “Gripping and wholly original”—Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks

~ judithlindbergh.com ~

I could never really sing, a somewhat uncomfortable revelation from someone who once worked in musical theater. Yes, I can carry a tune and even harmonize a bit, but I never had the confidence to “belt out a song,” especially not solo.

And yet, just last night, I dreamt that I was singing. I was with my voice teacher and, for one clear moment, I let my sound flow. It was exhilarating and freeing, filling the air with glorious sound, as the teacher exclaimed, “You’ve got it!”

Then, this very morning, I was doing a guided meditation that unexpectedly included singing—not by a beautiful, trained voice, but sung simply, authentically in an unselfconscious way that met the meditative moment.

I remember singing that way just once. I was waiting for the bus to New York City after a long hike in Harriman State Park. I was tired, the kind of tired that feels gratifying and earned. It was warm, a late spring afternoon, the trees were in full leaf, and everything from earth to sky felt beautiful.

I started almost unconsciously, without forethought, tension, or care. The only one who could hear me was my husband who didn’t criticize or even comment on my lilting, unconstructed tones. If he had, I probably would’ve stopped. I’m that self-conscious! But he left me alone and I let the notes wander and float on the soft breeze.

My uncertain voice released without the pressure of performing. I wasn’t trying to impress. I was singing for myself. That was all. Enough. Everything that I needed.

It’s this very mindset that I am seeking—and in recent days, finding—in my writing. The effortless, quiet trust of following a thought wherever it goes, without worry or expectation that it will land well or at all. And it’s actually helping to free me.

I thought the same thing as I watched Alysa Liu win her women’s skating gold medal in the Olympics a few weeks ago. Her glorious free skate was apparently the product of stepping back and giving herself space and time to reclaim a sense of joy, freedom, and play.

This is a lesson for all creatives. Once we move our craft from joy to work, our relationship with it changes. But if we can find our way back to the naivete that helped us begin (and still retain our years of experience, of course), wouldn’t our work be that much freer?

I wish I could sing like that dream in real life. But as I write more often in this softer, more luminous mode, every word becomes another quiet note drifting on my mind’s gentle breeze.

The Draft that Won’t Quite End

This week, I’m happy with my writing, probably because I’ve been doing a lot of writerly self-care—meditation, kindness about the process—all to achieve the relaxed approach mentioned above.

With this release of tension, I’m inching much closer to the end of my draft. I can see it: that light at the end of the tunnel. But, like an old sci-fi movie, it keeps getting farther away.

I told a friend a few weeks ago, “I’ve got about twelve sections left.” (The book is organized in short sections, rather than formal chapters.) But every day, as I add to the manuscript, a new section appears, sometimes two or three. So while I’m making progress, the work is also expanding.

This is perfectly normal. In fact, it’s a good thing. This project has more to tell me. And yes, I do mean me and not the reader. This story isn’t ready for anyone else. But, with my quieter mind, I am listening better as the story speaks. And my writing no longer feels like the terrible slog it’s been in recent months. It’s feeling more like the journey I want it to be: sometimes still bumpy, at other times, smooth, but every word moves me along.

Books that Come in a Moment of Need

Sometimes books call to you when they are needed most. For a while now, Anne Michaels’ Held has been on my TBR pile. I’m not sure why I waited, but this week, I picked it up. It’s a short novel, but not an easy read. Spare, philosophical, written in breathes and pauses, it requires attention and frequent re-reading. There are still a few passages that I simply don’t understand.

Needless to say, it’s not for everyone, but for me, at this moment, it was exactly what I needed. It’s a novel about relationships and the passage of time. It’s about pain and comfort and loss. It’s about the nature of existence; and it neither pulls punches or attempts to answer the ineffable. It simply IS, as is life, as it invites the reader to follow its characters across the snow, into the woods, onto the battlefield, and into transgressions and chance encounters that somehow make sense of it all while leaving mystery and footsteps behind.

Here is a passage that spoke to me (There were many.) of the struggle of being or remaining human in particularly difficult and confusing times:

We think of history as moments of upheaval when forces converge, the sudden upthrust of the ground we’re standing on, catastrophe. But sometimes history is simply detritus: midden mounds, ghost nets, panoramic beaches of plastic sand. Sometimes both: a continual convergence of stories unfolding too quickly or too gradually to follow; sometimes, too intimate to know.

In another passage, “the long exposure of time” compresses the entire evolution of life on Earth into a single page.

Yes, this is my kind of stuff. And my WIP has some similarities in form, if not in poetic brilliance. If I can someday write like Anne Michaels, I will have reached the pinnacle of my craft.

It’s good to have a goal.

Creative Writing Prompt: The Museum of Broken Relationships

Derived from both Latin and Greek, a museum was originally "a temple or shrine of the Muses.” These days, even the most obscure concepts and themes can be the focus of a museum’s collection.

Among the most intriguing that have crossed my awareness is the Museum of Broken Relationships. It’s a real place you can visit the next time you’re in Zagreb, Croatia. Started by two artists whose own relationship fell apart, the museum collects objects of heartbreak and love lost, and is intended as a place of release and healing. Among the collection is a tiny bottle containing a woman's tears, but also an axe (used on furniture, not bodies), a taser gun, a variety of undergarments, and a prosthetic leg. The museum became so popular that there was briefly a Los Angeles branch and a coffee-table book published by Grand Central Publishing.

Prompt: Consider what sentimental object has become too painful or annoying to keep from a relationship that was once the center of your life. It doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship. Consider parents, siblings, even children or “best” friends. What object would you donate to the Museum of Broken Relationships? Write a revealing confessional about the object and what it represents from that part of your life, as well as why you are giving it away.

If you feel inclined, you can even post it on the museum’s website. If you do, please leave a comment so I can read what you shared!

BOOKS BY JUDITH LINDBERGH:

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war - “A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly | “A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

THE THRALL’S TALE: 20th Anniversary Edition: three women bound by fate in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland - “Historical fiction at its best”—Philadelphia Inquirer | “Gripping and wholly original”—Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks

It took me over a decade, two literary agents, and immeasurable persistence to find my novel, Akmaral, a home. (Why didn’t I self-publish? After launching The Thrall’s Tale with a “Big Five” publisher, I assumed my writing was worth something. Little did I know!)

In the interim years, I revised, queried, waited for rejections, revised, and queried again. At one point I grew so frustrated that I threated to go into my basement workshop to bind the book myself. It wasn’t a hollow threat. I know how to bind books at least well enough to create this:

I imagined making Akmaral a one-of-a-kind objet d'art like those I’ve admired at the annual New York Antiquarian Book Fair:

But those objet d’art aren’t for the many. They are for the one. And too often they sit on a shelf to be admired, but not read.

Celebrated author George Saunders, in a recent interview with The New York Times (gift link), discussed why we keep writing fiction in the face of our vocation becoming “an artisanal pursuit” (video at approximately 44:25).

The definition of artisanal is “produced in limited quantities through the use of traditional methods.” This approach to creating a literary work has more in common with the efforts of medieval scribes than modern publishers.

I can imagine cooking up an artisanal literary brew bound in beautiful handmade covers. There is certainly pleasure and satisfaction in taking control of every aspect of creation, including hand-stitching the signatures (definition 3b) and gluing down unique, illuminated endpapers.

No, this is not exactly what I’d imagined when I began writing all those years ago. It’s certainly a huge step away from what I’ve been doing since. But when you consider the plummeting decline in readership and reading skills in the United States, this may be the future, whether we like it or not, especially for authors who aren’t “brand names.”

Most American adults barely read, and few children are tasked with finishing an entire book in high school. (See my thoughts on that below.) With so few consumers, why do we bother?

Saunders, a deserving modern literary light who has no trouble selling his latest work, (I’m excited to read Vigil which released this week.) answers honestly: that writing is what he does well, that it “really lights me up” and “If nobody was reading it, I think I might still be inclined to do it.” (~46:00)

I do find the gently inserted “might” revealing.

Books and Brevity

I still remember some of the books I read for my high and middle school English classes: Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Cry, the Beloved Country (a powerful novel about South African apartheid which I doubt many people read anymore), To Kill a Mockingbird, The Diary of Anne Frank, and many more, including L’Estranger in French, at least three Shakespeare plays: Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a good chunk of Caesar’s Conquests of Gaul in Latin. These are just the books I can recall. There were many more.

I went to public school in a middling, mid-sized city in Massachusetts, not to some fancy private prep school. Yes, I was studious. We didn’t have APs back then, but I was in all the advanced classes. Still, everyone in our school was required read at least a few books to graduate.

Today, even high-achieving kids that I work with through The Writers Circle tell me that they are assigned short stories, chapter excerpts, essays, snippets and bits. These kids read voluntarily, which is probably why they wind up in my classes. They love literature, love imagining, and want to create stories themselves. But there are plenty of other students right in their classrooms who are never challenged to engage deeply with the written word. (Gift link: Reading Is a Vice from The Atlantic.)

Clearly, shortened attention spans are a factor in academic expectations. Perhaps reading isn’t as important as other modern skills. But those long, luxurious reading sessions I remember so fondly are now lost in the fog.

As a result, or an enticement, there is a trend in publishing lately toward shorter books. (Perhaps it’s just my own casual observation. Tell me if you’ve noticed it, too.) Not in sci-fi or fantasy, which are notoriously voluminous—“a feature, not a bug”—but books that lean literary have been tightened and tautened within an inch of their lives.

Vigil, since I’m on the subject of George Saunders, is a mere 192 pages, just over five hours if you’re into audio. Lincoln in the Bardo, which I highly recommend, is almost twice as long, or nearly eight hours of magnificent listening. (It won the Audie in 2018 for its extraordinary full-cast production.)

I’m also fascinated with what constitutes a book these days. Last year, I rushed to the bookstore for Robin Wall Kimmerer’s new book, The Serviceberry, only to discover that it was barely more than a bound, illustrated essay. Beautiful, insightful, but a “book?” I felt the same way with the gorgeously reissued short fiction of Claire Keegan. Worth every word, but some were originally published, and are still available, in the archives of The New Yorker.

Perhaps, in this faster, less focused era, there’s opportunity in brevity. Shortened attention spans, as well as the economics of publishing, make shorter more appealing on all fronts.

My latest project, which is inching closer toward done, is compact but dense. I’m finding the challenge of compression just as harrowing as the long, complex narratives I wrote before. Along the way, I’ve been reading novellas and shorter novels, going backward to classics like Mrs. Dalloway for guidance in style and form.

The truth is, the exhausting prospect of writing another long, labyrinthine novel makes the challenge of shorter, and still gripping, work feel like learning a new kind of art. There’s always value in the process: from uncertainty and struggle to discovery and joy, that pushes me ahead no matter how difficult or distant the reward.

Leaving Greenland Alone—for now

Amid the innumerable horrors of the current political climate, my actions come in spurts: some days unwilling to even share on social media out of disgust, futility, or fear that I will draw retribution for my outrage. Other days, I repost and share in a fury, unable to accept that, as a native-born US citizen, I haven’t the right to shout my contempt in even such an impotent, frivolous, fleeting way.

But last week, Greenland—“My Greenland”—which isn’t mine at all, but because it was the setting and subject of The Thrall’s Tale, has been part of my psyche for thirty years—my vulnerable, remote, once-forgotten landscape where secrets and truths lie safely hidden in the ice. Its very unfamiliarity was what first drew my passion—obsession—to write. To try to embrace what I feared and did not understand.

Here are some photos from 1995 when I visited Greenland, long before most Americans knew where it was on the map:

Greenland may seem insignificant in the face of the Gestapo tactics of ICE agents in Minneapolis, court decisions that fly in the face of law and reason, and a deranged leader who seeks fealty or vengeance. But as we finally understood last week with the talks at Davos, Greenland is a linchpin in a much larger destabilization that could alter the world we have known forever.

Still, for me, it felt personal. I could not bear to say nothing about the sovereignty of a people so hearty and indomitable—not because of their Viking history, because the Vikings were vanquished by Greenland itself—but because of the native culture and traditions that the Inuit so rightly strive to preserve. For generations, they fought for independence from Denmark and everyone else. Now, I think they must be grateful for that victory’s delay. Their protests were vigorous and admirable, but their population is barely more than in the town where I live. All the people in Greenland could fit into my son’s university football stadium and still leave room.

Greenland can protest. It can try to negotiate. It can rely on its neighbors, its protectors. But it cannot fight. Alone, it is simply too small and the force against it too massive. Meanwhile, the bully in the White House will take what he wants and not care what he destroys. Yes, things are quiet again now, but give it time. When this administration’s ambitions and ire are piqued, Greenland will be in the crosshairs once more.

Creative Writing Prompt: Woven Song

When I posted my Greenland photographs, for whatever good they would do, I chose Ólafur Arnalds’ Woven Song as background music. This piece has haunted me with its echoes and indecipherable murmurs, creating precisely the feeling I experience whenever I reread the final chapter of my novel. Arnalds describes the work as “a metaphor for being embraced by something larger than yourself while exploring new territories.” Being in Greenland all those years ago felt exactly like that, and I can summon up that feeling simply by closing my eyes and listening to these sounds.

PROMPT: Take a moment to listen to Woven Song. Close your eyes as you do and feel yourself embraced by something mysterious and powerful. Then turn to the page to attempt to express that feeling—we’ve all experienced it—that the world and its troubles are terribly small and far less important than the greatness of the remarkable, infinite Eternal.

Especially in the face of everything we are witnessing today, the hope is that, after all of this is done, we will experience, as Arnalds continues, “the feeling of being held while you open your heart.”

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war - “A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

THE THRALL’S TALE: 20th Anniversary Edition: three women bound by fate in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland - “Historical fiction at its best”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“Gripping and wholly original”—Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks

On December 31, my business partner at The Writers Circle officially retired. I am now 100% in charge. I am terrified but also energized. We managed the transition thoughtfully over months, and have trained wonderful new staff to take on her responsibilities and fill some roles that could have been handled better when it was mostly just the two of us (and our fabulous long-distance administrator, Lisa) all these years.

I have also been shedding the essence of who I have been as an writer and working to find my voice again. No, not “again.” I am working to discover my new voice. I am not the same writer I was when I began, or a few years ago, or even yesterday. And while I am proud of the work I’ve created so far, it is not what or how I need to be writing right now.

As writers, our true selves cannot be separated from the work we create. In fact, I often discover who I am through my writing. And after the work is done, I am frequently transformed. Each story is a passage, a transition, a shedding. We change through the subtle struggles of our characters and words in ways that reflect in ourselves.

But we do not leave behind all that we once were. Birds, after all, were once dinosaurs who found it advantageous to get smaller and learn to fly. The snake sheds its skin multiple times throughout its existence; each time it is the same being, and yet somehow new.

Artists of all stripes retain our inspirational pasts in our creative DNA. We are, at our core, always ourselves, but somehow different: more mature or jaded, wiser or more confused. Whatever our personal evolution and state of mine, with each new creation, our new being will be reflected in our work.

But evolution is hard, risky business as we adapt to new circumstances and absorb creative change. Creative change can mean frustration and failure, but risk is necessary for growth. Any artist who tries to repeat the work of their past—even the work that brought them success—risks hollowing their inspiration to a dry husk. The question should not be, “Can I do it again?” but “What can I create that will be alive and new?”

Each day, we work boldly to discover the new within ourselves, even if that means we have no idea what we’re doing. We come to our creation as beginners again. Our first steps are uncertain. Uncomfortable. Awkward. Like learning to move in a brand new body.

As this Year of the Snake wanes—The Year of the Horse will begin on February 17, 2026—I finally feel the last itch of the loosened skin of who I have been. I will open myself to the new, not looking backward to be who I have been, not longing for something I cannot and should not reclaim. The snake cannot put on its old skin. It no longer fits. It is desiccated, cracked, torn. Rubbing on rocks, it’s been peeled away. The process is not painful. It is beautiful.

I am ready to release the struggles, triumphs, and everything in between. The past was not horrible—it was glorious! I am not shedding sorrow or pain or regret. It is simply the past. That was then. And what is to come? Now I lie resting, raw, but free.

Wisdom from Serpents

I am not particularly fearful of snakes. In fact, I find them fascinating. I have photographed many over the years including, somewhere in my old pre-digital slides, a baby rattlesnake that was as startled that I’d stepped on it as I was. (No one was hurt. We both scrambled off in opposite directions.)

Of course, the snake or serpent gets a bad rap for luring Eve to disobey God and tempt Adam in the first pages of The Bible, which sent them both out of Eden and into the harsh world. One interpretation of the story suggests that we must have the veil lifted from our eyes and learn to face the unprotected consequences of our choices. Instead of punishment, perhaps the serpent’s goal was to help us become truly human.

The ouroboros, the snake which eats its own tail, appears in countless cultures across history. It was found in the tomb of King Tut from 14th century BCE Egypt and in the imagery of the Greeks and Romans. In Norse mythology, it appears as Jörmungandr, the Midgard serpent, which rings round the world, both terrible and protective. It is reflected in the yin-yang principles of Taoism, and in the cosmic serpent Ananta-Shesha upon which Vishnu rests. In each case, the images and mythologies represent life’s duality, the eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, the inevitability of endings which are also new beginnings.

In this sense, perhaps we in the West think of time all wrong. It is not always just ahead of us, an out-of-reach future toward which we must strive. Perhaps time is really turning backward, upward, and in upon itself, giving us the chance to build on life’s countless lessons to find the strength and wisdom to go another round.

Sometimes a Wild God

I came across this haunting reading of a beautiful, folktale-like poem by Tom Hirons titled Sometimes a Wild God. Take a listen to this video version, gorgeously narrated by Naomi Maguire, and consider “Why the Wild God’s visit?” which, by the way, includes snakes and the “endless cycles of death and birth.”

As I researched the poem’s origins, I discovered that Hirons, who isn’t otherwise well-known, has built a sort of cult following because of Sometimes a Wild God. Also, pre-pandemic, he and artist Rima Staines created Hedgespoken, “a travelling off-grid storytelling theatre run from a 1966 Bedford RL lorry, converted to be a home and a go-anywhere stage.” The project received funding from the British government (Yes, I know, American readers—just imagine!) and traveled in the UK until the challenges of Covid-19 apparently shut it down. But their whimsical endeavor speaks to me of traveling bards, Romani caravans, and long-lost oral traditions. It is proof that artists create any way that they can, and sometimes their passions lead them down unexpected paths where magic still exists and ancient stories matter.

Creative Writing Prompt: You Then, or You Now

All this talk about snakes, circles, and ends that are also beginnings makes me think of a particular exercise I share with my memoir students.

Take a moment to consider which “you” tells the tale, particularly when you are writing a personal narrative or memoir. Is it the You Then who lived through the experience, relating it, moment-to-moment, exactly as if it were happening now? Or is it the You Now who looks back with perspective and knowledge of where the events eventually led?

The You Then voice offers immediacy and urgency, bringing readers into the action and letting them “live the scene” through an authentic, naïve lens. But the You Now voice can dig deeper, lending maturity and reflection. You Now knows why and how the moment mattered, while You Then can only feel the emotions, joy or pain.

Often the best course for your writing is a combination of both where lived scenes eventually open to deeper reflections, allowing the wiser you to consider and speak.

PROMPT: Pick a moment from your life (or your character’s, if you want to try this for fiction) that still feels fresh in your mind—perhaps a moment of high emotion or hard decision, a moment of deep loss or tremendous success—and write it first as if you are reliving it. Use first person, present tense, and walk step-by-step in your old shoes, trying to revive the experience as vividly as you can.

After you’ve written the “relived” version, write down the thoughts and observations of You Now. Let that voice express feelings about that memory, realizations and understanding of why it mattered, and where the moment took you that you didn’t expect, or perhaps did. Let You Now consider whether they would change anything, or whether their deeper understanding lends compassion or reconsideration that You Then never could. If time really is circular, what would you warn yourself about? And would your former self listen?

Good luck with it. And let me know what you discover in the comments, please!

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war - “A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

THE THRALL’S TALE: 20th Anniversary Edition: three women bound by fate in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland - “Historical fiction at its best”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“Gripping and wholly original”—Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks

When I first began writing, I would outline obsessively, certain that my story would only come together if I planned every chapter scene by scene, and then followed my detailed plan to the letter. But when I started the actual work of writing, my story simply wouldn’t cooperate. My characters kept taking unexpected turns, reacting to their circumstances in ways that I hadn’t expected, and basically messing up all my plans.

Now I am older, a little wiser, and a lot more experienced. I understand that writing is a matter of trust. Yes, it’s good to have a few key elements: a character or two, and maybe a cocktail-napkin sketch of a very basic plot. Maybe all you have is a scene that keeps playing on repeat in the theater of your mind. You don’t need much more than that, at least to get started.

But when you sit down to write, you must let go of expectations. The most interesting writing almost always comes from following your character where they want to go, even if it’s down a rutted, unmarked path where you’re certain you don’t want to follow.

In my classes, I use the analogy of a map without roads. You know your character has to get from their tiny, cliffside village on the rocky coast to the big, bad city, but you have no idea how they’ll get there or what they might encounter on the way.

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t plan at all. I dig deep again and again to figure out who my characters are and, more important, what they want or need. The better I understand their true desires, the better they can guide me. But notice: they guide me, not the other way around. Too much pre-planning hobbles your characters like a horse that cannot run. It wastes precious time and prevents them—and you—from being open to the magical unexpected.

In this wonderful conversation between Ezra Klein and composer/music producer Brian Eno, A Breath of Fresh Air with Brian Eno (gift link, The New York Times), Eno talks about the excitement and curiosity that comes when working with, and not against, the unexpected.

“When you are making something, it starts to come alive when you start to have feelings that you didn’t expect from it. You think, “Well, I’m going to make this, that, the other.” And as it starts to form, it starts to change. It starts to become something that you hadn’t imagined.

And you can either say, “OK, I don’t want that” — which is what a lot of people do. They shut that down and try to get back to what they’re supposed to be doing.

But I don’t do that. And I think a lot of artists don’t do that. We say, “Oh, I wonder where it’s going. I wonder where it’s taking me.”

Eno goes on to express what is at the heart of any creative act:

“Art is grown-up play. It’s a way of imagining things and imagining what they would feel like and imagining how they connect to other things that we know about and then feeding that knowledge back into our lives and into our relationships….

Even if you thought art was not valuable for anything else at all, you would have to say that this process […] must be a very important thing for human beings.”

From an evolutionary standpoint, as well as an artistic one, this is serious justification for spending a little time at play.

Thanks to Erin Madigan White for mentioning this wonderful conversation.

Patti Smith: Wise-Woman

Another musical great, probably more familiar to most than Eno, has been making the rounds in the media. With the release of her new memoir, Bread of Angels (her sixth!), Patti Smith shared some wisdom in this CBS interview. Whether you love her music, her memoirs, or both, these quotes show a woman of depth and humility, and acknowledge the struggle and purpose of making art.

“I’ve struggled for days over three paragraphs. For me, if I write, like, five good sentences, it’s like, I’m on a cloud.”

For those writers like me who slow-drip more than a flood, her words should give you tremendous comfort. And, perhaps even more important:

“If you don’t evolve as a human being, how are you going to evolve as an artist?”

which brings me to my final topic:

Evolution and Creative Devotion

I remember the day when I ended my dance career. I was walking to ballet class down West 49th Street toward Broadway, after climbing from the subway up a very familiar, very long flight of stairs. A lot had happened in the seven years I’d pursued my first love. Wonderful opportunities to study and perform, including jobs that actually paid so that I could call myself a professional. But I’d struggled with my body shape and weight, moving from ballet to musicals which were fun, but never my passion. I’d reached a point when I knew the road had veered and it wasn’t leading me where I’d always wanted to go.

I felt my footsteps faltering—rare, given my customary, determined NYC pace—until suddenly I stopped right there on the sidewalk. Stopped. Turned around. And went home.

I still loved dancing beyond anything I could explain. I still wanted to do what I’d worked so hard for since I was a child. But I’d avoid confronting the anguish that my enduring commitment had become. I’d just kept charging ahead, afraid to look too deeply.

Dancers are a determined lot. We train to ignore pain in our body, but unfortunately that can translate into ignoring emotional pain, too. For some reason, at that moment, I’d simply had enough. I couldn’t propel myself blindly anymore.

That’s not the end of the story, but it brings me to my point: Devotion without awareness can become obsession. If we avoid questioning our stated purpose for fear of admitting that it might be time to change, we can end up destroying the very thing that brought us joy.

I had attached my fervor to my identity: I am a dancer. I will dance and make my living at my art…, a belief so ingrained that it felt like a kind of death to recognize that my devotion no longer served.

It was inevitable that I would leave dance. It’s a young person’s art, and though I long to return to the barre, even to this day, my body will no longer cooperate. But each shift of focus that I’ve experienced has opened passage into something exciting and new. And at every stage, I have remained devoted to my core pursuit to express and create, no matter the form. Through theater, photography, and, of course, as a writer.

A recent article, Devotion Without Fanaticism, discusses a healthier approach to devotion: “The devotee… can acknowledge ambiguity without disintegration. They stay with the value, even when the path forward is uncertain. They see themselves as fallible, their grasp of the value as partial and revisable. That’s what makes devotion resilient. It doesn’t resist critique by denying it. It resists by integrating it—by holding fast to a meaningful commitment while allowing it to evolve.”

As with any act of faith, it is natural to doubt in the struggle to make art. Art is ambiguous, elusive, undervalued, and frequently misunderstood. But if we can embrace uncertainty and still follow the unseen path wherever it leads, we will continue to discover new truths in our work and ourselves.

Creative Writing Prompt: Ask Your Character One Question a Day

When you’ve been working on a project for a long time, you tend to take your characters for granted. But there’s never enough you can know about your characters, as is true about your spouse, sibling, or best friend. In fact, the more you believe you know them, the more likely that there is something you’ve overlooked.

While helping one of my students with an uncooperative character, I suggested that she ask one simple question, and then let the character monologue their answer on the page. I gave the entire class time to try it and, since I usually do my own prompts with my writers, I did it myself, only to discover something my long-familiar character had forgotten to tell me. What? I should’ve known that already! So I committed to doing the exercise every day that week.

Each day, before any other writing, I wrote out a question by hand in my favorite notebook, then let my character ramble on, telling me all the things that I didn’t understand about them, but should have.

PROMPT: Every day this week, ask your character a question. They can be open-ended, vague questions like, “Who are you really?” and “What do you want?” and “Haven’t you been through enough already?” Write down the question, and then let your character respond. Use first person for their monologues so that you really hear their voices, and not your own.

It might help to focus your question around a particular aspect or moment that you’re struggling with, but don’t count on your characters to cooperate. (Remember what I said above?) Sometimes mine would start answering, but then veer off on some wild backstory or subplot I didn’t even know was in them. It was weird and wonderful, and I realized that I should have been doing this all along.

Give it just ten minutes a day, every day this week. Then take what you’ve discovered and weave it into your story. Don’t try to control it. Just be curious and trust. Wherever your character decides to take you, follow.

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war - “A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

THE THRALL’S TALE: 20th Anniversary Edition: three women bound by fate in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland - “Historical fiction at its best”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“Gripping and wholly original”—Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks

THE THRALL’S TALE is back in print!

I’ve promised forever that one day I’d re-release my debut novel. Well, at long last, THE THRALL’S TALE: 20th anniversary edition is available wherever books are sold. There’s also an ebook for the first time ever. (Yes, that’s how long ago it was.)

This novel about “three women bound by fate in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland” changed my life. It allowed me to become a full-time writer while raising my sons, and it eventually opened the path to creating The Writers Circle which has sustained me through countless literary ups and downs.

When THE THRALL’S TALE was first published, most people knew little about Greenland. It certainly wasn’t mentioned as a political pawn in the news. As is my nature, I was drawn to this breathtaking, remote landscape to explore the Viking settlers’ formidable lives. Through my writing, I sought to experience what was, and still is, truly beyond me and to challenge myself, through my characters, to survive.

While I realize that imagination is not quite the same as experience, spending years writing about a particular place and its people make them completely vivid and visceral in your mind. Writing deeply can truly alter your way of being. Perhaps, by writing about an enslaved woman in THE THRALL’S TALE, I found the strength that propelled me to write about a warrior woman in AKMARAL.

At the moment, THRALL is on a “soft launch”—meaning I haven’t had a minute to promote it. (This post is my very first effort!) So I hope you’ll take a look, perhaps buy a copy, and share THRALL’s return to publication with others who might enjoy discovering it.

Getting to Greenland

When I was writing THRALL, I knew that I had to visit Greenland. (I longed to visit Central Asia for AKMARAL, but my kids were little and my husband rightly said No!)

Back then, getting there was no small feat. At one point, I considered hopping a freighter from Labrador to Nuuk. (As of this summer, you can fly there direct from Newark Airport in just over four hours.) But I did manage to find a rough-and-rugged cruise on a retired Estonian ice-class ship which sailed the same route that the Vikings took from Iceland to Greenland.

In both countries, I explored several Viking Age sites, from Breiðafjörður and Snæfellsnes where the Vikings set off for Greenland to Erik The Red’s homestead, Brattahlid, in modern day Qassiarsuk.

If you want to take a safe-from-your-screen visit, check out this virtual tour of Erik The Red’s homestead. And when they zoom in on the ruins of his farm, know that I spent a long time sitting on those crumbling stone walls, contemplating and planning scenes for my novel.

Climate Creativity

Twenty years ago, people did talk about climate change, but the impending inevitability wasn’t evident in day-to-day occurrences like the wildfires, floods, and droughts we’ve experienced lately. And while nature and the environment are always inherent in my work, the story of THE THRALL’S TALE doesn’t hinge on the natural world in quite the way it does in AKMARAL.

Lately I’ve been focusing more directly on the tragedies we are bringing upon ourselves through our unwillingness, way back then and now, to take the necessary steps that might have changed things.

Right now, the Arctic that I love is undeniably melting. There are countless studies but also photographic evidence, some that I have in my own files. The Greenlandic glacier where I stood, touching its great blue breathing, has receded beyond recognition.

Back in 2014, Iceland declared the great glacier Okjokull dead. Some years later, they laid a plaque of remembrance and warning:

Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.

August 2019

415 p.p.m. of CO₂

This quote is what propelled me to begin the novel I’ve been working on, on and off, for some time, trying to find a way to express more directly my helplessness and remorse about our species’ future on this warming planet.

As Andri Snær Magnason, an Icelandic writer and filmmaker, writes in this powerful essay in The New York Times, “When the glaciers are all gone, what do you call an island that used to be Iceland? Just … Land?”

Creative Writing Prompt: Living with Nature (Literally)

I’m still working through my Robert Macfarlane inspired prompts. Here’s one that I shared, to hysterical results, in an Eco-fiction workshop I taught this summer.

Here’s a bit of context for the prompt, from Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane:

“There is a total of four mud-daubers nesting with us now, I think. One of them uses the hole in an electric socket. Also, in the mirror cupboard in the bathroom there are three mud chambers built by a black-and-yellow mud-dauber.”

He opens a small floor-level cupboard. “Oh—and see down here!”

I stoop, then rear back. There’s a rucksack in the cupboard. It is fused to the side and ceiling of the cupboard by a chambered, ash-grey wasps’ nest. A menacing humming emanates from it.

“Got it. You can close that now,” I say.

PROMPT: What if a wild being was your roommate? What if pests and rodents were revered and invited to dwell in our homes instead of being thrust out or killed? In fact, your nature-based roommate it doesn’t have to be a creature. It can be any element of nature. For example, imagine living with a storm in the next room. We use these sorts of metaphors in our writing. This time, try making them literal by writing a scene of interaction and relationship with one of the diverse, wild co-inhabitants of this world.

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war - “A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

THE THRALL’S TALE: three women bound by fate in the first Viking Age settlement in Greenland - “Historical fiction at its best”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“Gripping and wholly original”—Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks

I’ve been haunted by a dream that I thought was real—just this morning and many times before. In my pre-waking hours, I find myself behind the wheel of my car, facing down the cloverleaf entrance to a very busy highway. It’s something that has always frightened me, that I’ve learned to confront with calm, focus, and confidence that I don’t really have. In the dream, every time, I struggle to see ahead: the dashboard is too high, the rear windows too small, the side mirrors positioned wrongly.

Just this morning, the struggle was worse: I was literally blinkered, fighting with the visor which flopped to block my sight, unable to see in any direction, steering by instinct around the sharp curve. At one point, I do see, just inches before me, the back bumper of a truck, mostly white with red and blue stripes. Perhaps a postal delivery truck or service vehicle of some kind.

I’m desperate and focused and terrified, but like every time before, I do not fail to navigate the curve. I don’t die. I don’t crash. I don’t awakened in fright. But I am conscious of my panic as I navigate blindly forward.

This week, I’ve finally returned to my writing.

I’ve been struggling. Some would say blocked, though I tell my students I don’t believe in writer’s block.

I lie.

I am struggling because the work that I’m doing is extremely difficult and so different in tone, structure, content, approach. I’m experimenting. I’m risking. I’m absolutely uncertain. I lack confidence that what I’m creating even makes sense. But I keep trying. I keep doubting. I keep wondering if I should stop. Try something new. Something easier. Throw in the towel and maybe just knit or do something I can do without worrying whether it’s worthy, whether it matters, or will be published, or simply languish in the cloud. Whether anyone will care. Whether I dare even show it to someone who might.

If I knit a sweater, I get the pleasure of wearing it or giving it to someone I love.

If I write a novel, I spend hours, days, months, often years, putting words on a page that perhaps no one but my loved ones, under duress, will ever read—and may not like. In the case of this particular project, may not even understand.

In this 2019 interview on ON BEING, Joanna Macy, author, Buddhist teacher, climate activist, and translator of Rilke, talks about the unknown path, the uncertainty of seeing where we are going. She quotes a Rilke poem that spoke to me particularly strongly this morning, reminding me of why I do anything—write, wake up in the morning, live:

Widening Circles by Rainer Maria Rilke

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

I am writing to figure myself out, to discover whatever it means to “circle God.” Letting go of the path to achievement and accolades and reaching for the amorphous walk toward greater understanding. Why else write? At this stage of my life, it is certainly not for money or fame. So does it matter if anyone reads it? Does it matter if anyone reads even these words? I am a blip of existence, trying to understand itself, using whatever means available. Using words, however inadequate and however inadequately. Discovering if I am a falcon, a storm, or a song.

Mentors & Teachers

I remember Madeleine L’Engle, the first writing teacher who ever really helped me grow, sitting at the head of a long oak table at an Episcopal convent on the Upper West Side, guiding a group of aspiring writers through their first attempts. She was always nurturing, not judging or diminishing even our most flimsy, uncertain literary thoughts. She wasn’t there to mold us into any particular vision of what a writer or writing should be, unlike some teachers I’d worked with before.

One professor I recall demeaned my early attempts at what today would be called eco-fiction; and another rejected my short story because it didn’t take place in an urban setting. These were just some of the limiting approaches toward writing that to me felt wrong. And though back then I was too daunted to speak up, I was still me… hurt, confused, and just a little appalled.

I knew what I wanted to write, even back then. And I knew that, with hard effort and time, I could make something worth reading. I also learned that, as a writing teacher myself, I never would put forward such limiting views. What is worthy should be judged in the effort and result, not by the inspiration.

Madeleine never tried to redirect our self-expression. She only tried to help us discover ourselves. I follow that same method, working with writers as varied as humanity itself, each with their own voices, obsessions, and characters floating around in their heads.

And look what it has brought me! A wonderful community of writers, young and old. Here’s a photo of just some of my students from this summer’s teen Intensives at The Writers Circle.

I’ve been blessed to have become part of the continuum of mentors, taking my first steps with Madeleine long ago, and carrying her lessons with me every day.

Historical Las Vegas

At the end of June, I was invited to teach a master class in narrative voice for The Historical Novel Society’s North American conference. I was honored, but also a tiny bit dismayed. The conference was in “glorious Las Vegas!” which is absolutely not my scene.

Whoever decided on Vegas for a gathering of historical novelists clearly had a great sense of humor. (In fact, I met her and she was lovely!) Sure, there is history there, but it’s rather hard to discover beneath all that fake gilding, flashing lights, and broiling concrete. Attendees and organizers alike shared full-throated critiques of Caesar’s Palace’s garish Romanesque statuary. (Historical novelists generally spend more time in actual museums in a year than normal humans do in a lifetime.)

While most of us avoided the casinos and absurd prices. (Starbuck’s coffee for $10 a cup! A glass of red wine? $30!), we spent priceless time sharing our unique historical obsessions from as recent as the 1970s and ‘80s (I’m sorry, but we’re all part of history now.) to 500 BCE Central Asia—yes, that was me!

My master class went well, which was a relief; narrative voice is notoriously difficult to teach. Plus I joined a panel talking “HERstory” with bestsellers Kate Quinn and Madeline Martin. I read a battle scene from AKMARAL—which sold out at the conference bookstore! And I taught a second workshop on archaeological research, not as science, but as a source of inspiration for writing.

Best of all, I met some wonderful new writers and caught up with old friends, some I’d only met virtually, including the wonderful Margaret George whose brilliant historical novels were a formative influence on my writing.

Despite the incongruous setting, I was glad I accepted. It was a whirlwind weekend, so I was grateful for my quiet room and the very deep soaking tub where each night I’d gather my thoughts for the day to come.

In the Desert, Does It Ever Rain?

I once met a man who insisted that, in the desert, there is no rain.

It was the only other time I visited Las Vegas. My husband was going on a business trip and begged me to join him. I didn’t want to—feeling the same certainty that Vegas was not for me—and only agreed on the condition that, the minute I landed, I would go to the desert to ride horses. Which I did.

As we rode our rented horses across the sand, I chatted with this man who saw the Nevada desert only as it appeared. His assumption was understandable, given the landscape before us: spiny cactus, desiccated cholla twigs, bony buttes and distant mountains as shadowy and dry as the dust that kicked up on the wind. But I saw evidence that he was mistaken: contours in the sand that suggested wet gushes; sudden, rushing movements which had carved through the landscape and, just as at a beach, left deep undulations.

An arroyo, from Spanish, is a desert term meaning “a deep gully cut by an intermittent stream.” We’ve all heard news stories about flash flooding in the west this spring and summer. It is a natural phenomenon, though climate change has made it more extreme. Dry earth doesn’t soak up water the way moist ground does. When the rains come, they can be brutal and destructive. but they are also a gift, filling deep, underground aquifers and bringing the desert into bloom.

Perhaps, in this man’s experience, that desert has always been dry. The challenge is to comprehend and embrace the scale of time. What humans perceive as “forever” is as fleeting as a single breath for the planet on which we live. And yet, in just the past few centuries, our feeble human impact has transformed far more than the weather.

Creative Writing Prompt: What Would Water Say?

“Hold the map of your country in your mind. Imagine it now entirely blacked out except for the rivers and streams: these alone are present. Let them glow in vivid colors—blue and green, scarlet and violet. A new topography leaps to the eye. The land is suddenly intricately veined. Ridgelines show as dark, wandering absences; catchments gather fine filaments of water, braid them expertly into threads, ropes. Tilt—and zoom in. The pattern repeats, then repeats again with each scale-shift: a fractal branching of tributaries and channels, fronds and stems. It resembles the vascular system. It resembles a neural network.”

—Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

Indeed, is a river alive? Or an ocean? A mountain? What about rocks and boulders? (If you’ve seen the marvelous Everything Everywhere All at Once, perhaps you’ll answer affirmatively.) What about stars? And the Earth itself—herself? Is it coincidence or part of the shape of nature that the neurons of our brains form fractal constructs that look like waterways?

WRITING PROMPT: Take a moment to imagine the point of view of these “inanimate” life forms. What if even one entity were conscious and could “speak?” How would they express their feelings about our species, here and now? What they would say to us, if we could understand their language?

They have been here far longer than we have, and will outlast every single human on this earth. They have witnessed the demise of dinosaurs and the continental drift.

What would they tell us about our future?

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

4.6 stars on Amazon | 4.24 stars on Goodreads - PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN REVIEW!

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, GoodReads, and Bluesky. Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

After avoiding catching COVID-19 for over five years, both my husband and I assumed that we were among the lucky few who were immune. At least, until this latest strain hit us like a bus two days after Easter. We’re finally coming out of it after more than two weeks. I’ve barely done a thing except sleep! In fact, my browser is still open to the countless “to-do’s” from the day I came down with symptoms. Anyone else out there who’s escaped the virus until now, watch out! Several other “COVID virgins” I know have finally been bitten by the bug. It’s no fun, but at least now we have vaccines and Paxlovid.

How to Keep Writing in a Commodified World

A few weeks prior to my COVID collapse, The Writers Circle hosted an event with three esteemed literary agents. We started with a discussion of what the agents were looking for and how they work with their clients. Then came time to pitch—ten minutes each, for those who signed up, to talk about their creative projects with the agents one-on-one.

While several people had great responses and even requests for partial manuscripts or “fulls,” some received blunt, discouraging feedback. The emotional fallout of those conversations landed in my inbox over the following days. I did my best to encourage, support, and sympathize. I, too, have received countless rejections in my career! But some of these writers were brand new to the process. They lacked the thick skin necessary to protect their tender literary hearts.

In general, I try to discourage pitching too soon. First, industry norms require a detailed proposal for memoir and nonfiction, and a well-polished, completed manuscript for fiction. Even with all that, rejection is inevitable. The numbers speak volumes. Of all the manuscripts that a publisher receives, only 1-2% are published, and that’s after a writer has successfully landed a literary agent who can get that manuscript onto the publishers’ hands in the first place. (According to some sources, the odds of that are even lower.)

It can come as a shock when one starts trying to sell one’s creativity. Writing is a craft and an art, but publishing is a business—and a particularly brutal one, given that its core commodity is extremely personal work created by generally very sensitive personalities. We slave over our words for months and years. Our stories are crafted from our bodies and blood, as if they were our children. We see in them all the power and beauty that should move the world.

Even if your work truly is brilliant, the publishing world may not see it that way. It’s a business of trends and bottom-lines, like any other. Successful authors I know have shared their unexpectedly good timing and sheer luck with awe. For them, things fell into place. For countless other writers—many of at least equal merit—not so.

In a culture where value is measured by money and fame, even the very best writers and artists often fall short. Does that mean that we should stop working? Or, worse, adapt our work to meet the perceived parameters of what is hot, saleable, trendy? (For what it’s worth, the agents on the panel discouraged our writers from writing to the trends, since by the time you get that trendy story finished, the trend will likely have come to an end.)

In Hindu philosophy, there are six enemies of the mind. Among them, desire, ego, and envy are all evils that I suffer every time I allow my attention to drift toward success and away from my work on the page. So I try to tamp them down, try to shut out all distractions, and home in on the words before me until they become pictures and people and emotions in my mind. And subtly, suddenly, I am immersed in a life that is as alive in my imagination as the world that has faded away.

Those moments are why I started to write in the first place. To fully experience another life, another time, another place, another worldview, and to make it mine. Writing multiplies the one life we are given into countless more, and it gives us the grace to know that we have fully lived.

If you find yourself struggling with rejection, with fear of rejection, or simply with the human tendency to put the cart before the horse, try to come to your work with this objective in mind: Just write. Don’t worry about publishing or pitching. Don’t imagine your book on the shelves at your favorite bookstore or your big book tour or your rave reviews. Before any of that can happen—if it ever does—you simply have to write. In fact, the work of writing is the only thing you have any control over.

All you have to do is pick up a pen.

Refer a friend

Modern Greenland: Reclaiming Its Inuit Past

When I began researching The Thrall’s Tale, I found myself drawn strongly toward Greenland’s ancient proto-Inuit past, particularly the prehistoric Dorset and Thule cultures. There were many stories and legends that I longed to explore in my work, but I understood that living, breathing people in contemporary Greenland and elsewhere in the Arctic understood those ancient stories far more than I ever could. I had no right to tell their tales when they could and should speak for themselves.

In the sudden spotlight of today’s discomforting politics, this article about the reclamation of Inuit traditions, including facial tattoos, drumming, and shamanism, highlights the vitality of traditional culture in Greenland, even after generations of colonialization and cultural suppression.

I recall a demonstration of “traditional” Greenlandic dance and music when I was there which consisted of young people dancing in rounds to an accordion—cheerful, but clearly influenced by colonial Danish rule. It wasn’t until an old man came forward with a round, flat drum, a qilaat, that the performance echoed with authenticity.

In fact, the charming Netflix comedy, North of North, about a contemporary Canadian Inuit community, briefly mentions some of this. And it’s just been renewed for Season Two. Check it out.

Happy Book Birthday to AKMARAL

I cannot believe my novel is a year old. It’s been a very busy year filled with lots of celebrations. Here’s a little video of some of the wonderful moments. Thanks to everyone who made this book launch amazing!

Yes, I still long for more readers and reviews. PLEASE spread the word and ADD YOUR OWN REVIEW on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you share your favorite books.

Creative Writing Prompt: Write Your Own Obituary

I had the privilege of moderating a panel at the Montclair Literary Festival last weekend which included author John Kenney and his new novel I SEE YOU’VE CALLED IN DEAD. In it, the protagonist Bud is an obituary writer who, in a moment of personal crisis, compulsively writes his own obit and, because he can, clicks “publish.” Yes, the book is about death and dying, but it’s much more about learning to live.

I don’t usually read humorous contemporary novels, but this one deepened with every page. By the end, I had truly been on a journey with Bud that affirmed life’s most important aspects: friendship, love, and finding meaning in every day.

PROMPT: Write Your Own Obituary

OK, no one wants to think about dying, but we all know that, sooner or later, every one of us will. This exercise pushes you to imagine the words that will memorialize your life, hopefully at a ripe old age when all your hopes, dreams, and accomplishments will have been realized. If that feels too up close and personal, try writing the obituary of a fictional character—one of yours or one that you’ve appreciated in someone else’s work.

As the narrator in Kenney’s novel puts it:

“I realize, at first glance, that the idea of writing one’s own obituary while still alive may sound morbid. It’s not, though. I promise you. It’s a needed reminder of who you are, of what truly matters. Because it’s your life and there’s still time to write it. Before I have to.”

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

4.7 stars on Amazon | 4.27 stars on Goodreads - PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN REVIEW!

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly | “A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, GoodReads, and Bluesky. Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

If you’re like me, you pay attention to book awards—the Pulitzer, Booker, National Book Award, Nobel. While I haven’t loved, or even read, every prize winner out there, it’s an undeniable fact that these prizes push book sales for a particular kind of literary reader like me.

Needless to say, smaller press authors don’t generally get to swim in that illustrious pool. (In fact, authors can submit their books to most of those prizes—not the Nobel!—but the chances of being chosen are fewer than the Earth being struck by another apocalyptic asteroid. Yes, it could happen and probably will one day, but….)

There are smaller awards out there—legitimate and not-so-much. If you’ve taken my Book Marketing Boot Camp at The Writers Circle, you’ll have heard my exasperation over how many small book prizes prey on authors’ hunger for recognition, racking up submission fees without any true “award” besides a digital sticker.

For AKMARAL, I was torn between self-respect and my own desire for recognition. I culled the most egregious culprits from my list, but submitted to a dozen that seemed sound and offered some sort of prize. I mean, winning $100 isn’t much, but at least I’d recoup my submission fee… if I won.

I am happy to report that AKMARAL is a Finalist in the Foreward Reviews’ Indie Book of the Year in the War & Military category. It’s also been shortlisted for the Sarton Prize in Historical Fiction. Both awards have good standing. Foreward Reviews is the primary review publication for small, independent presses. And the Sarton is awarded by Story Circle Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to amplifying women’s stories. I didn’t get even a nod from several of my other submissions, and I’m still waiting for responses from a few more. While the recognition truly is lovely (and even for these prizes, the competition is fierce), I’m still hoping for that $100 win!

Science Meets Ancient Medicine in My First Novel

Among the towers of books on my reading stand is EVE: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon. This fascinating study of evolutionary biology focuses on aspects of the female body I had never even thought to question. I often ponder the path of cultural evolution (and have even been quoted on The History Channel’s series, MANKIND): how we developed agriculture, how we discovered that yeast made flour and water rise, how we survived in so many ways before the advent of technology, medicine, etc. But this book examines how human biology itself influences cultural developments and behavior.

One fact struck me from the very first chapter: cow’s colostrum, the secretion first produced by cows after giving birth, was used as an early antibiotic. This reminded me of a scene in my first novel, THE THRALL’S TALE, featuring a ritual performed against a deadly plague that included a soup made of milk from a “pregnant udder.” While I can’t quite remember where I read about this ritual, I can assure you that I didn’t make it up. Could the Vikings, or at least their wise women, have been aware of the medicinal power of colostrum? Were these rituals based on observational evidence that would later be proven using scientific methods?

Underestimations of ancient and traditional practices have resulted in the loss of valuable wisdom across countless cultures, not to mention the condemnation of those practitioners throughout history. At the same time, I am not going to go out to my garden to test out which weeds heal and which kill. Given our suddenly complicated relationship with vaccines and other formerly trusted medical solutions, scientific research is still critical to ensuring which “old wives’ tales” are actually true.

Greenland—Hands Off!

THE THRALL’S TALE takes place in Viking Age Greenland, a location that is much in the news of late. My connection to Greenland goes way back to the 1990s, well before the current administration’s threats to “buy” the largest island in the world.

A strong current running through the depths of my novel is a supernatural sensibility that I felt distinctly when I was there. I expressed this ominous feeling through the voice of the seeress Thorbjorg when she first arrives in Greenland:

It is said that this earth is made of the giant Ymir’s corpse, that, when he fell at the Norse gods’ hands, his spine decayed to mountain ranges. Stones and pebbles once had been his toes. The other giants fled defeat unto the farthest reaches, yet, within the crags and shadows, still the invisibles remain.

Older than the tree Yggdrasil, beyond rock and ice and soil and mound, beneath, within, these spirits lie and wait. Is it these I seek, Alfather? These whose pleasure I must make, whom I must trick with humble thoughts and bare a tinge of fear, to bargain and appease if we should tarry in this land?

While the spirits of Greenland’s landscape are today interpreted as something significantly less mystical, it remains a place that feels and truly is formidable. Beyond the small, snowbound villages and towns that cling to the rocky coasts, the great icesheet looms, breathing, dripping, creeping, portentous. It is a place that has always defied the hubris of humanity’s goals and greed. I’ve been in touch with friends there who share my thoughts: that those who trespass are rarely welcomed.

THE THRALL’S TALE Re-Release: Book Cover Critique, Please!

Why am I mentioning THE THRALL’S TALE so much? I’m finally taking time to reissue the paperback. The novel went out of print ages ago, and the rights reverted to me from my publisher—unironically—Viking. But now that AKMARAL has revived my readership, I thought releasing an ebook and a new paperback would be apropos.

Book cover design is always an issue, and not only for self-published and small press authors. My Viking hardcover was gorgeous: gilded, embossed, and serious, which suited the text, but the paperback was, in my opinion, … let’s just say, less so:

I’ve been working for a long time on the new paperback cover (basically any time my writing got frustrating, I’d open Photoshop and fiddle):

As for the novel itself, it’s fascinating to revisit a work I wrote before my youngest son was born. While I remember almost every word, I also feel like it’s someone else’s writing. The story is dark, difficult, and authentic to surviving in 10th century Greenland. And the language! I didn’t realize how much my legacy as an actor and my love of Shakespeare influenced the rhythms and imagery of this book. Did I really write that? No wonder it took me a decade!

After I published the novel, I promised myself I’d never write a book quite like it again. But I admire—and somewhat fear—the obsessive young woman who created this powerful tale.

Creative Writing Prompt: The Monster Within

“We are all monsters in our darkest hearts – and the monsters within us are powerful beings, protectors, harbingers, bringers of horror and strength and change. They are also harm-bringers, hurtful beings, creatures that lash out and destroy that which we love most… I love monsters because they represent the hungriest, most hidden parts of ourselves that we most often confine to exile. If I can love a monster, if someone can love the monster in me, then anyone is capable of loving and being loved… – Kai Cheng Thom, interviewed in Apt613

Consider the above quote from author Kai Cheng Thom. It makes me think about a character in THE THRALL’S TALE who is, in countless ways, a monster—not in a fantastical or mythological sense. She is human, but also the embodiment of anger, pain, revenge, and regret, made manifest in a fully drawn character. And her actions reflect the nature of her birth. (I hope you’ll read it and find out what I mean.)

Who is the monster in your story? Is there a monster within you? And how does that monster serve you? I particularly love that the monster within can be a protector as well as a harm-bringer. When a monster lashes out, perhaps they are only protecting what they love most. This thought, when applied to writing, provides deeply necessary complexity to the emotions and actions of our characters. And when applied to memoir and personal essay, perhaps this thought can uncover truths in the multi-faceted realities within ourselves.

PROMPT: Write about the monster within—how it motivates and activates within you or your character, and how you (or your character) struggle to control its worst inclinations. Remember that even the beautiful princess in the castle has a monster within her. And even the beast in the dungeon has something that they deeply love.

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly | “A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, GoodReads, and Bluesky. Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

Is it art if you utilize someone else’s work as source material? It’s a conversation I’ve had a couple of times this past month, as I fiddled with a video I took at MoMA to create my own installation-inspired art:

I truly adored the exhibition that inspired it: Otobong Nkanga’s Cadence, “an all-encompassing environment of tapestry, sculpture, sound, and text that explores the turbulent rhythms of nature and society.”

The exhibition was massive and overwhelming, with a deeply textured, seascape-like tapestry that hung from ceiling to floor and large, ceramic beads, or tears, or perhaps they were dense capsules of the very air we breathe, dangling throughout the three-story tall gallery on thick ropes. The juxtaposition brought to mind swimming underwater, or drifting in time-space, or perhaps floating eternally like a bit of man-made debris. On the gallery floor, boulders rooted the ropes, looking to me like gigantic chunks of coal, both honoring and warning of our (mis)use of nature’s bounty, while poems—word art—brought these very thoughts into focus.

I have an affinity for this particular gallery at MoMA where, years ago, the wall-high videos, strange music, and cushioned circular sculptures of Pipilotti Rist’s Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters) inspired an improvisational dance by my kids. Another time, my eldest sat face to face with Marina Abramović for her unforgettable work, The Artist Is Present. (He was little, but, yes, he remembers it still.)

This time I was contemplating not only the art itself, but also what goes into making monumental, site-specific work. As I considered odd angles of observation, I noticed how the ceramic beads created an illusion of singularity that stretched as I moved slowly away, looking up. This observation became my “art video” above—made monochromatic and then layered and cropped multiple times to enhance both the visual and audio effect.

I doubt I’ll be getting any commissions for my “art” in the near future. But as a writer, making this video fed my understanding of the characters I’m developing for a larger project. In this way, everything we experience becomes a rich resource and tool for creativity.

Doing Exactly What I Want

Throughout history, most writers have struggled to make a living. Not only writers, but artists of all sorts. How many stories have we heard of artists dying in poverty, in debt, and unknown, only to find success posthumously. (Gee, thanks!)

Despite those rare stories of fame and fortune that give us hope, it’s unlikely that we can beat the odds. This may sound discouraging, but lately I’ve found comfort by turning that truth on its heel.

This post from Leigh Stein’s Attention Economy shares the story of James Wilcox, whose literary career started with a bang back in the 1980s. But like so many promising artists, things didn’t go quite as planned. Instead of bowing under the strain of disappointment or market pressure, Wilcox discovered freedom in his predicament: “It’s so little money that I’m going to write this exactly the way I want,” Wilcox said. “I feel a burden has been lifted.”

At lunch a few weeks ago, an author friend and I shared more or less the same realization. With no one breathing down our necks for our next money-making manuscript, we had the freedom to write whatever we wanted, to take our time, and indulge the full breadth of our creativity.

At another lunch recently, I met a woman who wasn’t a writer, but who loved to read. “You know,” she confided, “some of my favorite writers get that one amazing book, and then their next books just aren’t as good. They start rehashing the same stories and get more bland every time.” She didn’t name names, but I have witnessed this degradation in quality with writers I once enjoyed, likely due to the pressure of bottom-line focused publishers contracting them to pump out and then publish half-baked words.

Here’s a last thought from the once-illustrious James Wilcox: “When I was getting the pages together, I was worried. Can Binky [his super-star agent] sell this? Now I know it’s never going to be a big commercial book. In a way, I’m much happier.”

The cautionary, sweet-lemony truth: while money would certainly change our lives, it might also change our writing.

Women’s History Month Events

It’s Women’s History Month and AKMARAL is taking the lead in this truly impressive roundup of fantastic fiction about women in history. A huge thanks to author Janis Daly for picking my novel to kick things off.

Follow #31titleswomeninhistory on social media for the full 2025 calendar of books. And if you want to buy any of the titles, check Janis’ bookshelf on Bookshop.org. Buying at Bookshop.org supports independent booksellers and keeps profits out of the hands of billionaires! I also have a Bookshop.org storefront, where I recommend all sorts of favorites, including some great books about writing and being a writer.

Goodreads Giveaway

In honor of the month when we recognize women’s contributions (though I argue that needing a designated month simply affirms female marginalization), I’m doing a Goodreads Giveaway. Register here to win a signed copy of AKMARAL.

And I’m still waiting for that 50th Amazon review of AKMARAL to give away a signed copy of Lisa Williamson Rosenberg’s terrific Mirror Me. (I do realize the hypocrisy of requesting Amazon reviews, given my “billionaire” comment above. Why doesn’t Bookshop.org have a review component? Does anyone know anyone who works there?)

I’m Famous in Kazakhstan…

No, really! Sort of….

“Akmaral” is a very popular name in Kazakhstan. It means “white deer” and is said to bring powerful spiritual energy and great blessings. So far, it has for me! Thanks to the my eponymous protagonist, readers and media in Kazakhstan have discovered my novel. Last fall, I was interviewed for Kazakhstan television. Last month, another interview appeared in Kazakhstan’s national news. The interviewer is a poet himself, and asked for my thoughts on a translated poem. It was a beautiful piece about the relationship between horse and rider that reaches deep into the history of the steppes. Now my comments are shared abroad.

After many years of research and writing, I am happy that I could provide a coherent, meaningful response. It’s an honor to be asked about a culture that is distant, ancient, and not my own. (So far, no one has even mentioned cultural appropriation, and the response to the book has been, “Yes, you got it right.” Whew!) What a world it would be if we all could fully embrace the unique experiences of other peoples, whether they be near and current, or far and lost in the past.

Is there a translation of AKMARAL in the works that would reach more Kazakh readers? We’ll see!

Creative Writing Prompt: The Teacher You Remember

This week, my students were talking about the teachers who made a difference in their lives. When I asked, “Is there a teacher you remember really clearly?” everyone raised their hands. Some described beloved teachers who made a positive difference, and some remembered more negative, even comical scenes. But teachers—love or hate them—make indelible impressions. (I can only imagine what my students think of me!)

My own memory was of Miss Casey, my third grade teacher who taught geography and, for the first time, the deep, fascinating history of Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. One day, she’d returned from vacation with a saree she had bought in India. I had never seen anything like it, but I remember distinctly her standing in front of the class, showing us how she put it on. And how glorious she looked—tall, dark haired, and vibrant—wrapped in that beautiful golden yellow fabric.

I realize now the cultural moment as I couldn’t have understood then. This was the early 1970s. Maybe she was a hippie and had travelled to India, following in the footsteps of The Beatles? She said nothing about any of that, but her off-curriculum lesson made a deep impression on me and perhaps seeded my fascination with other cultures that later blossomed into writing.

PROMPT: Part One: Think about a teacher or mentor who made an impression on you—or, if you’re writing fiction, try imagining someone like that for your character. Even if that memory doesn’t have anything to do with the story you’re working on, discovering that deep influence might reveal something about your or your character’s personality.

If you like what you discover, try Part Two: follow the mentor or teacher on a journey of their own, out of the classroom or other setting to a place or experience that gives insight into what made them memorable. Follow that chain of influence as far as you want to go.

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly | “A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, GoodReads, and Bluesky. Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

A study I read some time ago analyzed the psychological tendencies of conservative and liberal personalities. “On the whole, the research shows, conservatives desire security, predictability and authority more than liberals do, and liberals are more comfortable with novelty, nuance and complexity.”

A more recent study reveals differences in the size of the amygdala, the brain’s fear center: larger in conservative-leaning brains, smaller in liberal ones.

These studies are not conclusive, but the results beg for answers: What biological imperative created these differences? And how can we harness them to work together rather than to pull everything apart?

In truth, without order, security, and respect for authority, we cannot revel in the novelty and nuance that, for example, creates or appreciates art. But none of these desires can be achieved in the midst of chaos.

Why Is “Highbrow” a Dirty Word?

As a retired dancer of a certain age, perhaps it’s not surprising that anything Mikhail Baryshnikov does still takes my breath away. I am gifting my readers an article about what he’s doing now, Is Mikhail Baryshnikov the Last of the Highbrow Superstars?

The sad truth is that “highbrow” is a dirty word in much of America. Being cultured or intellectual is so out of favor that it foments social and political fury. But I have always been drawn to all things “highbrow,” long before I understood the word. Whether the literally breathtaking challenge of ballet, the multifaceted meanings of difficult literary works, or the ineffable power of visual art—these were and are the obsessions that fill my days and dreams.

Amusingly, the term “highbrow” gained traction when a late 19th century pseudoscience, phrenology, determined that people with large foreheads were more intelligent. While that seems ridiculous from a modern, scientific perspective, who is to say what future readers will think of the above-mentioned study of amygdala size?

The Work of Art

After almost a year spent promoting my novel, I am only now truly reentering my creative work. I have a novel in progress that I recognize won’t fit the current tastes of the publishing marketplace or what is truly popular in our culture. What I want to make now—what I have tried to make for most of my life—is something that approaches Art, with an intentional capital A.

In embracing that effort, I bought myself a gift: The Work of Art by Adam Moss.

Through its beautifully authored and illustrated pages, I am absorbing the inner workings of artists in different media and of varying degrees of fame. Some, like dancer-choreographer Twyla Tharp, I saw perform in their heyday. Others are completely new to me. But this collection of essays ponders the work of creation, that mysterious, often tedious, frequently frustrating urge to create “something that comes from nothing”—because that is what art-making is: creating something from an impulse, a vision, an inexplicable gut sensation. For some of us, that vision is relatable, communicable, even popular enough to interest the masses. For others, it is simply what we cannot help but make, even if it has value to no one but ourselves.

BOOK GIVEAWAY: Mirror Me by Lisa Williamson Rosenberg

Since I’m pondering psychological topics here, it’s apropos that I’m giving away a signed copy of a psychological thriller written by my friend—and another former dancer!—Lisa Williamson Rosenberg. Mirror Me is a suspenseful quest for self told through the perspectives of a biracial adoptee and a voice that “lives in his head.” Or does it? Here’s the official teaser:

Eddie Asher arrives at Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his brother’s fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. What has Pär, whom Eddie calls his Other, been up to? Can Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in dissociative identities, decode the truth of Lucy’s fate along with Eddie’s inexplicable memories of another man’s life?

I’ve received some truly wonderful reviews so far. My request for more is to trigger the Amazon algorithm which, the theory goes, will starting push AKMARAL to more readers once it hits the “magic number” of 50 reviews.

If you haven’t read AKMARAL yet, perhaps I can entice you with the news that my novel has been shortlisted for the Sarton Prize? I found out just today and I’m honored!

Ashland, Mass.: My Last Book Event for Now

Many thanks to Meena Jain and the Ashland Public Library in Massachusetts for hosting my virtual book talk last week. You can WATCH THE VIDEO HERE, which features a presentation with slides of my inspirations and research:

Creative Writing Prompt: History for Tomorrow

Given that we are living through a clearly memorable historical moment—perhaps we always are?—I am trying to focus on the truth that things will change. Perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worse, but inevitably the pendulum will continue to swing.

With that in mind, try this writing prompt: As dryly as you can (as if you are writing for a future history textbook or whatever Wikipedia will become), describe this period in history from the perspective of, say, 100 years from now.

Think about it: 100 years ago was 1925. The heat of Roaring Twenties. Prohibition. Jazz. Flappers. F. Scott Fitzgerald would be preparing his book launch for THE GREAT GATSBY in April. They would be arguing over teaching evolution in the Scopes Trial in July. And Malcolm X would be born in May.

It seems like long ago. Or perhaps it seems like just yesterday. We know what happened with THE GREAT GATSBY—students are still reading it in classrooms around the country. We also know that some people are still arguing over teaching evolution. And we know who young Malcolm Little became.

So how will the future look back at 2025? Who will be remembered? Who forgotten? How will the cultural conversation stay the same or change? Pick three key points to focus on, something from:

• The Arts

• Politics

• The Sciences

Remember that “History is written by the victors.” Or is it? And who, or what, will be victorious after our politically fraught, overcrowded, environmentally challenged now?

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly | “A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, GoodReads, and Bluesky. Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

But I should have known that it had been there—if I had recognized where life would take me. When I lived in the neighborhood, the former bookstore was a cafe where we’d grab coffee before heading off to auditions or temp jobs. Why didn’t I sense that something even more remarkable had once resided in that space? Who would I have been had I arrived a decade or so sooner?

Of course, I know that I wouldn’t have existed or been far too young to care, but that’s beside the point as I ponder the essences of those who have walked through the same spaces as I. Perhaps the force of time is spurring these memories, as always happens for me at the turning of a new year, but I can’t help but wonder at all the temporal elbow-brushing and almost-encounters that shape or don’t shape our lives.

The Book Is (Almost) Always Better Than the Movie

My son recently read DUNE by Frank Herbert, a novel that his father has adored for decades. (It was required reading when we were first dating—a mind-opening revelation for this literary snob.) “You’re right, Dad. The movies don’t capture it at all.”

You would think that actors, sets, and special effects would bring added dimension to the silent, page-turning experience. But there’s something that words on a page capture that few dramatizations achieve. The layering of carefully woven plotlines and deeply drawn characters are often flattened when fit into a multimedia package. We lose the philosophical complexities and rich interiority that make a novel so much more. Or maybe it’s simply that our imaginations are more powerful than anything that can fit on a stage or screen, no matter the size?

There are countless novels that I thought were far better than their adaptations, starting with THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, which I saw in the middle of reading the book, timing that ruined both experiences for me. I read PACHINKO recently enough to recognize some missing threads and convoluted chronology in the 2022 Apple TV production—not so well that I couldn’t enjoy the series, though I spent a lot of time explaining to my husband what the TV version missed, a habit he finds understandably annoying. I hesitated before starting ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE on Netflix this week because reading the novel changed my perception of how reality could work, not only on the page, but in life itself. Last night we watched the first episodes, which were well done and engaging. But so far the critical magic realism is lost except for a ghost who haunts the family in episode one.

There’s only one film that I honestly consider far better than the book. It’s a very old and obscure one called NEVER CRY WOLF. Based on a “true story” by Farley Mowat about a government biologist sent to the Canadian Arctic to study declining caribou herds, the book was widely criticized for spreading fiction as fact. But what I disliked about the book was Mowat himself, whose self-portrait was grumpy and arrogant in equal measures. The main character in the film, portrayed by Charles Martin Smith, was far more vulnerable and ultimately open to his humbling journey beyond science into spirit. To this day, NEVER CRY WOLF informs my worldview and my writing in countless ways.

READ THIS If You’re Trying to Figure Out Publishing

After almost a year of promoting AKMARAL, I have come to some realizations about the realities of modern day publishing. While I won’t belabor them here, I will reveal some of them in my workshop, Book Marketing Boot Camp, which I’m teaching again this winter. To reinforce my anecdotal experience, over the holiday, I read Michael Castleman’s candid assessment of book publishing, past to present, The Untold Story of Books: A Writer’s History of Book Publishing. For the uninitiated, as well as those in the trenches, it may come as a shock to learn that authors have never wielded the large end of the literary stick. We are the producers, busy bees whose long hours and deepest creative impulses go into ever word you read, but the sweet, golden honey of our labors has almost always been harvested to benefit of others.

The End of the Road for my Official Book Tour

I am grateful, but also melancholy, to put my book tour to rest. It’s been quite a year of events and adventures. From the official launch at the Millburn Library in New Jersey to my last in-conversation at the Miami Book Fair, it’s been breathtaking to see how AKMARAL has drawn so much praise, as well as interest in a place and time that few knew existed.

Some highlights:

• Finally giving my beloved Writers Circle community something to prove that I am a writer who writes as well as teaches.

• Amazing in-person events and podcast conversations, including with bestselling novelists Christina Baker Kline, Cathy Marie Buchanan, Caroline Leavitt on The Mighty Blaze, and so many more.

• Publishing lots of essays, including a piece about AKMARAL for the one of the Smithsonian’s academic newsletters—probably the smallest readership of any of my recent publications, but among the greatest honors of my career.

• Making new writer-friends who shared promotional efforts, emotional support, and a well-placed table stacked with only slightly damp books at the very rainy Brooklyn Book Fair, among them Carol LaHines, Kerri Schlottman, and Crissa Jean Chappell. And sharing this and more with my dear literary big sister who’s been beside me from the beginning of my writing life, Stephanie Cowell.

I got to meet people in person I’d only emailed or Zoomed with before, including Kathy MacKay who won my giveaway coaching session at the beginning of this newsletter. I spent a wonderful weekend in Vermont, hosted by my friend Bambi Koeniger who wrangled together a lovely crowd for my talk at The Norwich Bookstore, after which my husband and I went hiking, of course!

You never know what small efforts create ripples in your life. But meeting people and sharing my passion for writing, ancient history, and one particular powerful woman of the past, have been the most satisfying parts of my literary life.

My final event, until further notice:

January 28, 2025: VIRTUAL EVENT, 7PM ET: Author Judith Lindbergh on Her Novel “AKMARAL”, hosted by the Ashland Public Library, Ashland, MA

And the audiobook should launch on January 7. You will probably get a quick message from me when it goes live. I hope you’ll grab a copy and listen!

Creative Writing Prompt: Temporal Crossings

As I mentioned above, I’ve been thinking about my own existence in both time and space—space-time, but in a literary sense, if you will. As the sun sets on the second to last evening of a momentous year filled with joy, opportunities, successes, but also many ominous things (most of which are completely out of my control), I cannot help but wonder about the energy that I put into the world and where that burst of vitality goes after my passing.

THE PROMPT: Consider yourself or a character physically crossing the path of an important person or incident from the past. It can be someone who is historically significant or any person at all, whether connected to the point-of-view character or completely unfamiliar except for this temporal exchange. Think of this as more than walking in their footpath. Try to feel the other character’s presence as if they’re still there. I prefer not to approach this exercise as an encounter with ghosts so much as with beings still vital and alive in their own moment in time, if only we can sense them.

This prompt reminds me of NORTH WOODS by Daniel Mason, another book I finished recently. In that brilliant novel, a rural Massachusetts house is the container for generations of souls, living and dead. They interact and are “present” within the confines of the house, surrounding orchard and woods, maintaining a continuity that links the characters and occasionally allows for connection, intentionally, consciously, or not. Perhaps we are always walking through the shadows of those that have passed this way before. Does that affect the way we think or feel? Is there communication through those essences?

Food for thought and writing as we drift out of the darkness of 2024 and into the light of whatever is to come.

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly | “A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, GoodReads, and Bluesky. (I'm off of Twitter/X now completely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

We are a big, complicated country with vastly different lives, experiences, and views. Even the people in my own family see things differently, as do some beloved friends. Dialogue is how we find understanding. And dialogue has become sorely absent from our social discourse in the past years and decades. Yes, decades, if you think about it. I don’t remember wondering, when I was young, if someone was a Democrat or Republican when I first met them. I don’t recall being nervous to find out, dreading that the answer might color my opinion of them. While I have some theories about how we got here, I don’t have a suggestion about how to change the bifurcated paradigm in which we now exist. “Exist” but not live, not thrive, not unite and work together for a truly greater good. We are a body in pieces trying to move as one, and we clearly have reached a moment when that is no longer possible.

For the last two weeks, I have chosen to turn off the news. I have only started checking the headlines in the last few days. It’s not wise to play ostrich, but I needed to cleanse and recenter. To make room for my soul to wander and rest and hopefully return with renewed courage to face what’s ahead.

I have been fantasizing about the old days when families lived in small towns or isolated farms miles apart, back when news came only occasionally, as portrayed in the 2020 film with Tom Hanks, NEWS OF THE WORLD based on the novel by Paulette Jiles. Undoubtedly, the absence of information bred ignorance, just as the easy availability of false information does today, but it also invited a kind of peace.

As we doom-scroll through our news feeds or listen obsessively to whatever news source grips us, we invite anxiety over things we have little power to change. At least not any one of us individually. The anxiety poisons us. It fuels hatred and fear. Once upon a time, the 24-hour news cycle seemed an exciting new forum for information and awareness, but now it winds us up and grinds us down, keeping us panting and frantic instead of focused or functional. It’s voyeuristic and sensational. And it makes us all sick.

Perhaps it’s time for each of us to shut off and turn inward in search of healing, whether it comes through writing or making other kinds of art, walking in the woods or hugging our children. I’m not giving up—not for a minute—on myself, my beliefs, my art, or our future. But in order to create anything good—whether it’s a few paragraphs of decent writing or a better world—we have to tend to the soil that is ourselves.

AKMARAL Events and Upcoming Writing Workshops

I’m headed to the Miami Book Fair this weekend for the last big in-person event of my AKMARAL book tour. If you are in the area, please join me, in conversation with Crissa Jean Chappell, on Saturday, November 23 at 10 AM.

Thank you to Carol Cram for a lovely conversation on the Art In Fiction Podcast. You can listen here, or watch it on YouTube:

I’ll be teaching my hugely successful and seriously intense four-week Book Marketing Boot Camp again this winter at The Writers Circle, plus two multi-genre workshops (one IRL and the other online). And if you have kids or teens and are local, I’m teaching all day Saturdays at The Baird in South Orange, NJ. Join me!

And on December 5, I’ll be giving back some of the love I’ve received through my book launch with an in-conversation celebrating MIRROR ME by the wonderful Lisa Williamson Rosenberg.

Creative Writing Prompt: Difficult Dialogue

My husband and I have been married for a very long time, but we hit a rather hard bump in our ninth year together. The details are unimportant, but the solution was not. We had to learn to communicate better—yes, how to talk, but more important, how to listen.

Our couples’ counselling sessions centered on a basic technique: repeating back each other’s words. It was tedious, annoying, angering. It required a ton of self-control. It took patience not to dive in with our own arguments, but to simply reflect back how the other person felt. Neither of us were good at it or trusted it at first. And even after we’d ironed out that particular rough spot, we would groan when a disagreement resulted in someone demanding, “Can you please repeat back what I just said?” But it worked. Over time, we learned to hear each other better and to comprehend, if not embrace, the other’s point of view.

In this very broken world, maybe we need to do the same thing for and with those we disagree with the most.

No, I’m not asking you to knock on the door of your politically opposed neighbor and conduct a civil, measured sharing of views. Let’s take this slowly.

Here’s the prompt: Write down on paper what you would say to a friend (real or imagined) who disagrees with you on a particularly charged topic. Make sure you’re trying to communicate to someone you care about. (If you despise or disrespect someone, even in your imagination, you will likely spew hatred instead of meaningful communication.) Then try writing their response from their point of view. Do this in dialogue so that you can put yourself in their mindset and let their words speak for themselves. Whatever your views, try your damnedest to represent theirs authentically. You don’t have to change your mind or theirs to do this exercise. But you do have to twist yourself into a complicated pretzel of compassion.

If you get uncomfortable or even disgusted, just tear up the paper. You’ve probably done a good job. The goal here isn’t writing for readers’ sake, but writing for the sake of the future. We cannot find a way forward if we cannot even talk to the “other.”

I’m going to try it to, swallowing the bile of my disgust, anger, and anxiety. I know I’m not going to like it, but I am curious to see if my theory of complicated compassion works at all.

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

4.8 stars on Amazon | 4.4 stars on Goodreads - PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN REVIEW!

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, GoodReads, and Bluesky. (I'm off of Twitter/X now completely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

What is so glorious about the literary life? Is it being picked up by Reese or Oprah? Landing on the bestsellers list? Winning the Pulitzer Prize? Or is it simply the pleasure of sitting in your book-lined study deeply imagining and letting words flow like water from your fingertips?

If you’ve been writing for a little or a long, long time, you’ve probably realized that most of these are fantasies. It’s no easier to land on the bestsellers list than to write with the ease of a flowing stream. Writing is difficult. It takes time, discipline, skill, and creative energy. Many aspiring writers peter out before they ever type “The End.”

I don’t blame or condemn them. It’s a tall order to pour out heart and soul, alone and undaunted, for hours, days, weeks, sometimes years. If you have managed it, I applaud you, even if your words never reach publication. Trust me, publication is an entirely different beast: often frustrating in the best of circumstances, demoralizing in the worst. In either case, there are no guarantees of success, assuming that “success” means glory, fame, or funds.

But if you set aside those more tangible objectives, you will find that the work of writing is a reward in itself. During those precious, incubatory hours, you get to live many lives simultaneously, becoming intimate with other beings of your own making whose challenges and opportunities both reflect and differ from your own.

Writing’s power is in allowing you to step into another’s shoes. You become more compassionate, open and understanding through both reading and writing. You can experience things that terrify or edify from the safety of the page. And you grow from those experiences. Not only the writer. Perhaps even more important, your readers are transformed, too.

In this time of deep division in our nation and world, perhaps a bit more fiction in our lives could help us comprehend what repels us and embrace what feels foreign, strange, or threatening. While it may not always bring tangible, personal rewards, writing might just have the power to turn enemies into neighbors and friends.

Artifact of the Month: The Bayeux Tapestry ANIMATED!

Anyone who recalls my first novel, The Thrall’s Tale, will appreciate my amusement at this fantastic animation of The Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when William the Conqueror essentially put an end to the Viking Age. Dated to the mid-11th century AD, it is actually not a tapestry at all but an embroidery made of decorative stitches on existing cloth instead of woven into the fabric on a loom.

In this animation, you get a sense of the narrative in action, including an ominous comet, seasickness, and plenty of battle and blood. As has been the case with fabric arts through most of history, the tapestry was most likely sewn by the hands of women memorializing the triumphs and tragedies of men. Perhaps there’s a larger story to be written of its making?

Fun Times at Book Festivals

If you’re a reader, a book festival sounds better than a trip to Disneyland. So many books to consider, panels and conversations to attend with authors you love or have never heard of before.

For an author, book festivals can feel like fun or torture, depending on how you get involved. If you are a featured author and there’s an audience full of excited readers, it’s terrific. If you are standing in the pouring rain under a barely adequate tent, trying to protect your precious books from completely turning to mush while desperately trying to draw attention from the meandering crowd of seven who have braved the elements to purchase… not your book! Well, maybe not so much fun.

I’m describing a dear friend’s experience at the recent Brooklyn Book Festival. Mine was slightly better, mostly because I was with my fellow Regal House author friends. Each publisher had their own table and ours was protected on three sides by a waterproof tent placed, luckily, away from the wind. So while our feet got wet and tired and there weren’t as many visitors or sales as we’d hoped, we managed to have a good day.

What was the most popular item on our Regal House table? The free chocolate!

Brooklyn wasn’t my only recent book festival appearance. I and several other Regal House authors drove up to Saratoga Springs, NY, for their annual event. This time, while the weather was gorgeous outside, we were stationed inside at the far end of a large municipal hall. To find us, you had to navigate a labyrinthine spread of other authors’ tables, but not before you managed to dodge all the kids’ authors and their fun and games.

Strewn across the central space were banners, posters, and eye-catching displays including gigantic Styrofoam skulls and coffin-shaped bookshelves at some of the horror authors’ tables. There were gimmicks and giveaways and twinkling lights, with everyone hoping to draw attention to their particular passion project—that perfect book that would make the passing reader pause.

It was fun. It was exhausting. I would not have done it alone. If I haven’t mentioned this before in this newsletter, the very best part of publishing AKMARAL has been the powerful new friendships I’ve made.

We’re a rare breed—those of us who spend our free hours writing. And rarer still, those who make it to a published book. Rarest of all, those who have the gumption to promote and know how to do it. I’ve been blessed with several of these singular specimens. (Can several be singular? Hmm…)

I’m not quite done with festivals, with the prestigious and humongous Miami Book Fair coming up. There I’ll be featured in an “in conversation” with one of my Regal House friends, Crissa Jean Chappell. (What would I do without you?) Please join us at 10 AM on November 23.

Books Bring the World Together

While AKMARAL may not be a household name in the USA, in Kazakhstan, it’s as popular as Olivia or Abigail. The name means “white deer” and has powerful significance in the region. As my novel’s title, it has brought quite a lot of attention from the other side of the world, including an invitation last month to the Kazakhstan Mission to the United Nations to be interviewed by Kazakh media. Here I am with a very tall and charming journalist. (Or maybe I’m just surprisingly short?) Thanks to everyone who made the interview happen, including Dana Vasabova, the Kazakhstan Ambassador to the USA and his wife who apparently enjoyed the book.

PROMPT: Write a Happy Story

I love this quote: "Happiness writes in white ink on a white page" from French author Henry de Montherlant. I believe that he’s saying that you cannot write a story without some sort of darkness. I can’t tell you how many of my students apologize before they share work that “gets kind of dark.” For me, there’s never a need to apologize. Writing is an opportunity to revel in both darkness and light. Writing is all about struggle and challenge—both with the work of doing it, and with the stuff that makes stories worth writing at all.

But seriously, try to imagine a story that has nothing difficult it in. What comes to mind are those soothing children’s books where every cardboard page turns to another reassurance about how much the child is loved. But if you dig more deeply, even there is hidden darkness. Why would the child wonder or ask or need to be reassured if, deep down, there wasn’t some fear or anxiety? Life is all about “growing up,” of course. And anyone who’s done it, even for a handful of years, will attest to the truth that life isn’t always easy.

But life’s challenges also bring joy and hope and triumph, which is the very stuff of narrative. Our characters search and struggle for their greatest wishes, desires, or goals. Along the way, if they keep their objectives in sight, they can overcome almost anything.

So, here’s my writing challenge: try to write a happy story, one in which nothing terrible happens at all. This is an exercise in inverse thinking. The goal is to demonstrate that we need conflict to write. As a dear friend loves to say, “Put your character up in a tree and throw stones at them.” Metaphorical stones, of course! (Though I’m thinking now of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery.) If you give this a try, see if you can make a compelling story without any strife. If you do, send me a message. I’d love to read it!

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

4.8 stars on Amazon | 4.4 stars on Goodreads - PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN REVIEW!

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and GoodReads. (I'm also on Twitter/X, but rarely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

I have always embraced the concept of feeding the lake, derived from Madeleine L'Engle's beautiful contemplation on creativity and faith, WALKING ON WATER. In it, she describes how every artistic act "feeds the lake" of our human search for meaning. As we work at our desks or canvases, we may struggle and doubt. How can we express with eloquence and insight? Will we make a notable contribution? How can we compete with the great flood of impact made by Shakespeare or O’Keefe or Taylor Swift?

But everyone's offerings feed the lake. The small trickle that flows down the mountain where I hike finds its way to the reservoir below. As I stand observing, taking out my phone for a quick photo, I memorialize its quiet beauty and honor its impact. The same is true for our efforts toward art. Whether our audience is one or thousands, our work lends itself to the great purpose of witnessing being.

Sipping from Its Waters

Through these past weeks of late summer, I have made time to drink from inspiration’s lake with visits to Edith Wharton’s home, The Mount, in the Berkshires, to the Morgan Library’s Ballet Russe exhibition (which closes this week, if you haven’t seen it yet), the glorious Storm King Art Center upstate, and with hiking and nature—of course. I have been in a state of incubation, slowly stepping back into my creative mind now that finally my book promotion is slowing down (but not over—see below!).

To contribute to the lake’s gentle flow, we must also sip from its cool waters. We must make time to take in the beauty and complex essence of existence. Artists cannot create without inspiration in the true sense of the word—the act of breathing in, filling the heart and mind with possibility.

The Body Never Forgets

I may have mentioned that I started my career as a dancer. I longed to perform in ballets, but my body’s natural shape evolved—let’s call it “uncooperatively.” I danced for several years in musical theater, but being in the chorus simply wasn’t enough. What I realized years later, after retiring at age 25, was that I should have pursued a different kind of dance entirely—one that was more experimental and pushed the boundaries of body and mind like the dance companies and choreographers I only wish I had discovered when I could still do 200 degree splits and quadruple pirouettes.

In the 1990s, I fell in love with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company when I saw the classic work in memory of Jones’ partner, Still/Here, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I delighted in the inventive playfulness of Mark Morris’s choreography, and saw him, too, when he was still young and lithe enough to perform.

Back then, though I no longer performed, I regularly took a ballet class for retired dancers like me. There I met some of the most important friends in my life—women who understood the depths of commitment and passion that come from dedicating your life to an art that is fleeting both in execution and longevity.

Just the other day, I was with one of them sharing the discouraging truths of our aging bodies. While we still remember well how to perform the movements that once brought us such joy, our bodies no longer have the strength to comply.

Any dancer will tell you that it never leaves you. Martha Graham, the modern dance icon, once said that “A dancer dies twice.” We die first when we can no longer do what our bodies ache for. “This first death,” Graham rightly claims, “is the more painful one.”

Even if you’ve never done a single plié, you’ll appreciate the dedication, insight and self-awareness of prima ballerina Sylvie Guillem who looks back on her life as a dancer and, now retired, still does a barre every day. (Thanks to my dance friend Dorothy, mentioned above, for the recommendation!)

It’s Book Festival Season!

Yes, it’s the fall book festival season. I’ll be starting in Brooklyn on September 29 where I’ll share a table with some wonderful authors who have become dear friends: Carol LaHines, Stephanie Cowell, Kerri Schlottman, Crissa-Jean Chappell, and others. There will be signings, giveaways, and great conversations about books and late 20th century Brooklyn when I lived down the block from the Festival!

September 29: Brooklyn Book Festival, Brooklyn, NY at Booth #225

In Saratoga Springs, NY, on October 5, we’ll be a smaller group of friends and authors, but just as much fun.

October 5, 10 AM – 2 PM: Saratoga Book Festival, Saratoga Springs, NY

Huge thanks to my beloved student Bambi Koeniger for setting up this solo event at the Norwich Bookstore in Vermont, perfectly timed for leaf-peeping season!

October 10, 7 PM: Norwich Bookstore, Norwich, VT

My last festival stop is a big one—the Miami Book Fair. It’s one of the most prestigious book events in the USA. Getting invited was sort of a miracle, thanks to a dear friend and fellow author, Robin Bachin, whom I only get to see when I’m visiting my son at Frost School of Music at University of Miami. (Yes, I have already told him to bring ALL his friends.) I’ll be in-conversation with Crissa-Jean Chappell, a Miami native who promises to show me where the real people go. And I’m really hoping that one of my son’s bands will have a gig that weekend—at least one that moms are allowed to attend!

November 23, 10 AM: Miami Book Fair, Miami, FL, in conversation with Crissa-Jean Chappell

Creative Writing Prompt: A World Without Sense.

I met a woman not long ago who could no longer smell. It wasn’t a COVID thing. Her olfactory awareness had simply faded over time until she could not smell at all. “It’s tragic,” she told me as I had invited her to write, starting with the sense of smell to call up memory. At first she was reluctant, but as the words began to flow, I witnessed a flowering of feeling that was transformative.

For the prompt, simply imagine taking one sense away. Your (character’s) world is suddenly silent or odorless or….

I rely heavily on my sense of sound, particularly when I’m out in the woods. I’ve learned to identify certain birds by their songs. I can distinguish a chipmunk from a squirrel running through underbrush. And I can tell when someone is coming up behind me. What if that world were silent? Would I find myself lost, even if I could still see?

Be bold on this one and remove a sense that isn’t easy to imagine. For example, what if you lost your sense of touch? Could I even be typing this sentence if I couldn’t feel the keys? What about something so simple as being able to feel the ground beneath your feet? It’s terrifying. Try it—through the safety of writing.

Happy Autumn Equinox, everyone. May the cooler days bring you inspiration.

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

4.8 stars on Amazon | 4.4 stars on Goodreads - PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN REVIEW!

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and GoodReads. (I'm also on Twitter/X, but rarely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

If you noticed that I missed last month’s newsletter, I’m sorry! I should’ve warned you—warned myself!—that July would be nuts. All the book-tour craziness came to a sudden halt as I focused 100% of my energy on The Writers Circle’s teen Summer Creative Writing Intensives. This was our 12th season, so I know by now that everything else in my life stops during these hectic weeks of creative madness. Below is a small glimpse of me teaching, at the mic, working with students in class and one-on-one, and even dusting off my actor’s cap to play Lady Macbeth (with my co-director Michelle Cameron who played the Nurse from Romeo and Juliet for a Whodunit writing activity.) and “Mason, the Evil Jar” in our really nutty Dungeons & Dragons event. No, I’m not kidding!

Starting on The Way

As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.—Rumi

How I long to start on The Way again. The Way—capitalized because, for me, writing is more than a profession or a craft. It is how I understand myself and this life’s journey.

This reminds me of a wonderful little film called The Way starring Martin Sheen as a grieving father who takes a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Spain. For him and others who walk that particular path, it is a deeply spiritual and transformative peregrination. For me, writing is that, too. More than an act of creativity or entertainment, writing is a work of discipline and faith that brings me closer to myself and whatever force drives us all to live and breathe.

It’s been a long time since I have allowed my mind to drift deep into the creative haze. While I have been writing over these last few months, almost all of it has related, one way or another, to promoting AKMARAL. And while I’m going back on the road for the fall book festival season (I’ll be in Saratoga Springs, Brooklyn, Vermont, and Miami. Here’s my schedule with more to come.), it won’t be the full-time focus that it’s been since the spring.

There’s always more to do when it comes to promotion (My Book Marketing Boot Camp this fall will reveal exactly what I mean. See? I’m still promoting!), but at some point, I want to accept that I have done enough. While I enjoy tapping into my extroverted self to talk with new people about my book and take center stage, I have also felt a visceral ache for silence, solitude, and the solace of my own thoughts. Right now, I’m clearing up my office and checking off my final summer program to-do’s. Then I will set off in search of The Way.

Childless Cat Ladies and Climate Responsibility

There’s been a lot of talk lately about birthrate collapse, the reluctance of younger generations to have children, and the value or lack thereof of childless cat ladies (I’m a cat lady, for sure, but I also have two lovely grown sons.) which all brings to mind a book I read earlier this summer, THE QUICKENING by Elizabeth Rush. Among the many complicated questions her book poses is the challenge of responsibility. Is it right to add to the burden of our over-stressed planet by bringing a new child into the world?

She frames her conundrum within the context of an extraordinary adventure—a trip to Antarctica to observe and report on the melting of the massive Thwaites Glacier. If you have no idea what that is, you can learn about it and some bold efforts to save it—and us—in A Wild Plan to Avert Catastrophic Sea-Level Rise by Ross Andersen, published in The Atlantic in June.

Some of the plans outlined in the article make it pretty clear how absurdly incapable we humans are of undoing the climate mess we’ve made. One plan involves moving equipment and manpower to Antarctica equal to the population of Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, then drilling at hundreds of sites, installing pumps that gush water that will “likely” flow and “with luck” cause a cooling feedback loop to freeze the “nation-size glacier” in place. All those qualifiers (not the mention the cost) just emphasize my point, especially when you consider that Thwaites is situated in the most treacherous and remote location on planet Earth.

Unlike some who discuss declining birthrates in the news, Elizabeth Rush isn’t talking about economic, social, or political outcomes in THE QUICKENING. She is weighing far bigger concerns, those of sheer survival and quality of life for us all. What is a child’s fate—what is every child’s fate—if we fail to protect and repair the planet that we have so thoughtlessly abused?

I ascribe to the belief that there is no Planet B. As Neil deGrasse Tyson has suggests, we have it all backward. We keep worrying about saving the Earth, but the Earth will be fine. We should be focusing on saving ourselves.

Creative Writing Prompt: Remove One Thing

In my workshops, I often share an exercise that involves taking away one single sense—sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch—from one of your characters. The prompt forces us to embrace a character who interacts with their world in a completely different way.

But what if that character as the Earth itself?

Try imagining living in a world without one essential element—clean air, fresh water, fertile earth, the warmth of fire or of the Sun itself. What becomes of our world and the living creatures on it if we remove or destroy one essential element that makes our existence possible? If those huge elements are too much to consider, try removing a more specific planetary essential, like melting the polar ice caps (as above), or killing all the bees, or stilling the gravitational pull of the Moon on the oceans, or shifting the flowing warmth of the Gulf Stream.

Since all of these are actually quite possible, if not already in the works, this prompt may seem like a direct path to dystopian fiction. But this kind of writing can also open us up to new possibilities and ideas. In my Eco-Fiction workshop this summer, I talked to my teen writers about how eco-fiction (or “Cli-fi”) isn’t all about doom and gloom. Like science fiction, which has imagined some of our greatest and most terrifying technological advancements, eco-fiction opens us to thinking about the possibilities of what we want for our future on Earth.

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

4.8 stars on Amazon | 4.4 stars on Goodreads - PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN REVIEW!

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and GoodReads. (I'm also on Twitter/X, but rarely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

It’s a Major Award!

I can now call myself an award-winning author! AKMARAL was a finalist in this year’s Next Generation Indie Book Awards. (Scroll down the long list to GENERAL FICTION/NOVEL OVER 100,000 WORDS.) I’m particularly pleased that it won in the General Fiction category, which means that it was competing with a broader range of novels and still rose to the top. I am also pleased to find another Regal House author, Leah Angstman, whose novel, FALCON IN THE DIVE, placed in the same category.

I’m still waiting to hear results from several other awards, so please send your positive thoughts out to the universe for me and AKMARAL.

Some Sweet Fruits from All My Labors

Getting attention for a small press novel is no small feat. But my efforts (and those of my beloved publicist Laura Marie) have been surprisingly fruitful. From New Jersey Monthly’s Summer Beach Reads Roundup to podcasts and interviews with some truly insightful hosts and writers, I’ve been amazed and utterly grateful. While I won’t bore you with the entire list (which I’m trying desperately to keep up-to-date), here are a few highlights:

My all-time favorite literary podcaster Caroline Donahue and I chatted on her fabulous The Secret Library Podcast: Moving from a Big 5 Publisher to an Indie Publisher with Judith Lindbergh.

I am thrilled that Maggie Freeman of the Nomads, Past and Present podcast on the New Books Network, invited me for an academic deep dive into my research.

It was super cool to be featured in the Friends & Fiction newsletter. There’s a paywall to read 5 Questions with Judith Lindbergh, but they have a huge reach and many loyal readers. I hope a few of them picked up AKMARAL!

This interview was published in a small, local news site, but it’s one of my favorites. Interviewer Kristin Wald asked some wonderful questions that challenged me to think harder about my own work. Check out Judith Lindbergh’s ‘Akmaral’ Takes Readers on a Journey Back in Time.

I also published a few pieces of my own this month, all in service to getting the word out about AKMARAL, but I believe they are valuable in their own right. Check out From Slave to Warrior: Discovering Myself Through Writing Historical Fiction, in Writer’s Digest, about the internal growth that is reflected in, and sometimes evolves from, writing fiction.

And, because the literary economy is all about giving back, I wrote a quick roundup featuring some of my own book recommendations: The best books of historical fiction with unfamiliar eponymous titles on Shepherd.com. Yes, my dear friend Laurie Lico Albanese’s HESTER tops the list.

The Reviews Have Been Seriously Stellar!

I made this review recap video a week or so ago, but my numbers are holding steady even as the reviews and ratings pile up. Whew! I really do love the first comment below: Akmaral has an essence similar to nature. It’s a wild, brutal, beautiful and magical thing. Whoever you are, Netgalley Reviewer, you completely got it. Thank you!

For an author, these enthusiastic responses are invaluable treasures, because there will inevitably be readers who feel differently. No work of art or entertainment can please everyone. Writers have to develop a thick skin very early on—from the first gentle critique to the countless, heartless rejections. But we are still human beings with sensitive souls. So when you share your thoughts about any book you read, please phrase them with as much honesty as compassion!

That said, please feel free to share your honest review of AKMARAL on Goodreads, Amazon, or wherever you share your bookish thoughts. Every review helps trigger the algorithm and lifts AKMARAL out of the shadows and into the light!

Supporting Writers and Friends Through WISDOM & WORDS

My dear friend and occasional hiking buddy, Darcey Gohring, just launched a terrific new Substack, WISDOM & WORDS. Her goal: “In this algorithm-driven culture we live in, a story can’t find an outlet because it isn’t based on a trending topic or it doesn’t fit a certain formula. I wanted to give writers and readers a space where well-told stories could have a home.” Darcey is a wise midwife to many writers in our community and beyond through her memoir classes at The Writers Circle and through her role in Zibby Owen’s Writing Community.

WISDOM & WORDS features one essay a week and the stories I’ve read so far are beautiful. If you’re writing (and I know many of you are because you came into my life through The Writers Circle), consider supporting Darcey’s wonderful new project and submitting your own words. If your story is accepted, please reach out so I can cheer for you!

ARTIFACT of the Month: The Herlaugshaugen Ship Burial

This week, The New York Times published an article about an ancient ship burial discovered in Norway. No, I am not harking back to my Viking Age roots. This one goes back even farther.

The storied Herlaugshaugen burial mound was supposedly the scene of a mass suicide, and artifacts uncovered in the 18th century included, among other things, animal bones, a bronze cauldron, and a skeleton, seated and holding a sword. New evidence places the ship in the Merovingian period, from 550 to 793, give or take, which connects it to the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial (Watch the wonderful movie about its discovery, The Dig.) and provides continuity to later ship burials like the Gokstad and beautiful Oseberg—my favorite!—from the Viking Age.

All this is to say that, while history is in the past, our understanding of it is ever unfolding. New discoveries, and new techniques to analyze and interpret them, are constantly shifting and deepening our understanding.

The joy and challenge of writing fiction about the ancient past is in imagining what we don’t yet know while respecting what we do. When we are successful, novelists create a vivid window into times and lives long gone with as much authenticity as possible.

One last intriguing fact that makes my novelist’s mind start to churn: the artifacts originally dug up in the 1700s went missing in the early 1920s, including the seated skeleton. And rumor has it that the bronze cauldron was melted down to make shoe buckles. That sounds like a great premise for a mystery!

Creative Writing Prompt: Time

There is so much of it, and then it is gone. Time stretches and shrinks. Time is relative.

Humans have been taking note of time since earliest pre-history, as evidenced by ancient Egyptian sundials, Greek clepsydra or water clocks, Mayan calendar stones, and Neolithic European stone circles that align with the solstices. We are obsessed with time—with using it well or wasting it. And truly is there ever enough time?

Human life, even at its most generous, is fleeting on an astronomical scale. Remember that if the history of earth were represented as a twelve-hour clock, human evolution would take up only the last nineteen seconds.

Write about time—how you feel about it right now. Are you squeezing in your writing time? Or are you blessed with the luxury of hours to create? Do you long for days gone by or obsess about the future? And how hard is it to be present, in the here and now, and just be?

AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior of the ancient Central Asian steppes must make peace with making war

“A crackling novel”—Publishers Weekly

“A gripping saga”— #1 bestselling author Christina Baker Kline

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and GoodReads. (I'm also on Twitter/X, but rarely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

If you haven’t got your copy yet, you can buy AKMARAL wherever books are sold. My favorite place is your local independent bookstore, of course, or Bookshop.org which supports indie booksellers with every purchase. Here are some purchase links:

• Bookshop

• Regal House Publishing - the only place you can order the hardcover special edition

• Amazon

• Barnes & Noble

• Books-a-Million

• Apple Books

Meanwhile, I would be immensely grateful if you’d help me spread the word.

Please post to SOCIAL MEDIA! Each post has a cumulative effect and can really make a difference.

Please review AKMARAL on GoodReads, Amazon, or wherever you share your book thoughts. Of course, I would love a 5-star review!

Thank you everyone for your support through this intensely personal and deeply satisfying journey. I started AKMARAL when my children were babies, and now they are in college or off in the world. Now I can finally say that all my children have launched—at least until the next book is done.

—Judith Lindbergh

Thank you, everyone, for your support. And to my paid subscribers, you are ANGELS!

On Writing, History, Creativity, and Life is a reader-supported publication. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and GoodReads. (I'm also on Twitter/X, but rarely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

Podcasts

I had some great chats with some wonderful podcasters, starting with Amy and Carrie from The Perks of Being a Book Lover. (Their favorite word from our conversation was “fascinating.” My favorite word was “refreshing!”)

For those interested in the more “nerdy” nuances of my historical and archaeological research, check out my episode on Nomads, Past and Present.

Also coming up is a great conversation with Caroline Donahue, host of my favorite writerly podcast, The Secret Library Podcast. I’ll keep you posted when that one goes live. And I have at least a dozen more interviews and podcasts coming in the next few weeks.

Reviews are coming in!

Here are a few quotes from my favorites on GoodReads:

“This book is a masterpiece to say the least. Lindbergh really nailed bringing this book to life with descriptive character and world building. This book is one of the first historical fictions that I truly fell in love with.” - FIVE STARS from Adreanna King

“Historical fiction at its best - an emotional and inspiring story about a strong woman and her influence on a whole tribe.” - FIVE STARS from Nix

There’s also a wonderful review on Reading the Past from Sarah Johnson, librarian and book review editor for the Historical Novels Review. She knows historical fiction, so her positive words mean the world to me. She says AKMARAL is:

“A saga both lyrical and fierce that evokes the spirit of its heroine”

“Rooted in conflict and betrayal …Yet the story also exudes amazing beauty.”

More official reviews are in the works… at least I hope so! And of course, I pray that they’re good. But you cannot please everyone—trust me, I’ve learned that. I’ve been working hard to thicken my skin for whatever criticism is ahead. But if I can keep getting mostly four and five stars, I’ll be thrilled.

Events! Book Tour! Festivals!

Like a rollercoaster, I’ve been chugging slowly up the steep slope. I’m nearing the top now and the thrill of the ride, with all its wind-blown hair and slight tinge of nausea, is just moments away.

It started with an informal signing event at my beloved Watchung Booksellers. (Don’t worry. You haven’t missed my real book launch event there on May 16.) “Our Moms” virtual Book Bingo hosted by Adventures by the Book is tomorrow night at 7PM (virtual and free!) The Montclair Literary Festival Historical Fiction panel is Saturday at 11AM. I’ll be talking with Vanessa Chan, author of THE STORM WE MADE, and moderator, Kim Foote. And then there’s all this:

And so much more.

“Please, sir, may I have your help?”

As I’ve said before, no author can launch a book without the support of their friends, family, and community. So, if you’re willing—and I truly hope you are—here are a few things you could do to help me spread the word!

Take a photo with the book, post to social media, and tag me.

Tag other people who might like it, too. I’m on Instagram, Facebook—my personal page, Facebook—my author page, Threads, Twitter/X. I’m barely there, but maybe you still use Twitter?

Post a review of AKMARAL:

If you read it and enjoy it, please write a review on Amazon, GoodReads, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you like to share your book thoughts. Be honest, of course, but the more reviews I get, the more AKMARAL will reach readers who might love it.

Spread the Word:

• Ask your local librarian to get a copy for their branch.

• Ask for AKMARAL at your local bookstores. (Yes, I went to many of the local ones, but I’m sure I didn’t hit them all.)

• If you’re in a book club, suggest reading AKMARAL. (Yes, I’d love to join your group for a chat.)

• Just tell people who might enjoy AKMARAL.

Word of mouth has always been the strongest pitch for any novel. Thank you for anything you can do to help. Every little bit of support helps!

Artifacts of the Month

As I look toward next week, I’m really wondering whether anyone (other than Martha Anne Toll) will mention how Russia and Ukraine have been fighting over their right to Scythian cultural claims and heritage. I’ve been following this news for a long time, of course, but this article that Martha shared with me really points out the complex issues. Given the devastating war in Ukraine, I find it tricky even to drop in on some of the very best virtual galleries at The Hermitage in St. Petersburg. That’s where some of the most critical artifacts from my novel are currently housed.

Here’s a quick peek into the gallery that holds the famous Pazyryk rug, the oldest know carpet discovered in the world, which I buried in Akmaral’s grave. (In my fictional interpretation, of course!)

Creative Writing Prompt: A Rollercoaster Ride

Because I’m using this very apt metaphor for the crazy ups and downs of my book launch, I thought it appropriate to use the same idea as my final pre-publication writing prompt. (Yes, there will be more prompts in the months to come.) Whether you love rollercoasters or hate them—I hate them!—they are an experience in thrilling weightlessness and a simulation of tempting death.

Write about the feeling, the experience, the thrill, or nausea that you (or your character) experience on a truly crazy rollercoaster ride like this great 3D rollercoaster where the tracks actually disappear. OMG!

And remember that life is a rollercoaster—not just during a book launch, but really, all the time. We go through ups and downs every day. It’s how we handle them that makes us stronger, wiser, and more resilient.

AKMARAL pubs on MAY 7!

Thank you, everyone, for your support. And to my paid subscribers, you are ANGELS!

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and GoodReads. (I'm also on Twitter/X, but rarely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

with a Little Help from My Friends

I know a thing or two about battle. At least it feels like I do after writing Akmaral. But the task of promoting a book is a uniquely challenging uphill charge, especially with virtually no marketing budget. The effort requires a lot of sweat equity, persistence, and skills that, luckily, I’ve learned running The Writers Circle for almost fifteen years. But even with a broad skillset and all the energy in the world, no author can do it alone.

I am deeply grateful to countless friends, colleagues, family members, and my amazing community—both my “IRL” literary network and the ever-widening Writers Circle world. With all your support, and the priceless help of my terrific publicist, Laura Marie, it feels like Akmaral is getting a little bit of buzz. Perhaps it’s just a tiny honeybee exploring a small wildflower and not a swarm released to take on the world. But I hope you’ll add to that gentle humming through the last few weeks until Akmaral finally hits bookstore shelves on May 7, and I hit the promo road.

Book Tour As Community Effort

Yes, there is a book tour! And, yes, you are invited! (Official tour invitations go out tomorrow.) And yes, most of it I put together myself. But not alone. Each of my events is thanks to someone (sometimes several people) in the wonderful literary community that has supported me over many years.

Most of my events are in-person in New Jersey. But there’s one virtual event with bestselling author Cathy Marie Buchanan on May 21. And if you’re in NYC, you must join me for a fantastic conversation with #1 bestseller Christina Baker Kline on June 18.

I even have a couple of pre-pub events. Check out The Tipsy Bee: Adult Spelling Bee & Book Fair in Jersey City on April 14. This crazy idea (Yes, there will be spelling; and, yes, there will be booze!) is the brainchild of author Kerri Schlottman, who is also my “in-conversation” partner at Big Red Books in Nyack, NY, on May 15. This lovely bookstore is owned by author Richard Fulco who taught for The Writers Circle a few years back.

Novelist Laurie Lico Albanese, who read Akmaral when it was still called Pasture of Heaven, will be talking with me at the beloved Watchung Booksellers, a true literary community hub that just passed ownership from mother Margot to daughter Maddie. And one of my newest literary besties, poet and novelist Colby Cedar Smith, will be talking with me in Princeton on May 19. We met at the Chester Book Fair hosted by The Writers Circle not long ago.

Oh, and the official book launch, at the Millburn (NJ) Library, is an in-conversation with Dorothy Kelly, art historian, president of the Friends of the Millburn Library, and a very dear friend. We met in the changing room at Peridance in NYC where we took ballet classes together during our post-professional years. And there will be music provided by some brilliant musicians, my very talented younger son Cooper Davis & Friends.

As you can see, each of my events is a gift from a friend, and I hope that I can return the kindness by bringing out a big, enthusiastic crowd.

PLEASE JOIN ME—no, make that join US! Come to whichever event you can.

The Eclipse Foretells Doom

My older son is heading north this weekend to witness the total solar eclipse on April 8. By now I hope everyone has heard about this rare celestial event. Humanity has long greeted eclipses with awe, but also as harbingers of doom. Consider the ancients looking up as a great darkness swallows the life-giving sun. How could they not be terrified?

Countless books, from Homer’s Odyssey to Shakespeare to contemporary novels, have used eclipses as a sign. In Akmaral, too, an eclipse carries foreboding, as does the coming of a blood-red moon.

In this time of historic unrest in our country and around the world, I pray that this celestial wonder will only bring us together for a moment of awe.

If you live in the path of totality, I envy you. While I won’t be joining my son—I’m not invited!—I will be watching the partial eclipse from New Jersey. Be sure to wear protective goggles, everyone!

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Akmaral Giveaway!

What do you think of my Akmaral-inspired flying deer printing project? I had a blast making them—experimenting with color and layering, but finally coming to the realization that less is more. Isn’t it always—in writing, in art, and in life?

I’m offering a print along with a signed ARC in a new giveaway. All you have to do is:

1)   Follow me at @judithlindbergh on Instagram, Threads, and Twitter/X, or @JudithLindberghAuthor on Facebook

2)   Post about #AKMARALnovel and TAG ME in the comments.

Tag one of your friends or a favorite book influencer for extra chances to win.

I’ll choose a winner when I hit my goal to finally reach 1000 followers on Instagram or my Facebook author page—whichever comes first! (US addresses only due to shipping restrictions.)

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Creative Writing Prompt: Letting Go of Things

One of my favorite poems is Storage by Mary Oliver:

When I moved from one house to another
there were many things I had no room
for. What does one do? I rented a storage
space. And filled it. Years passed.
Occasionally I went there and looked in,
but nothing happened, not a single
twinge of the heart.
As I grew older the things I cared
about grew fewer, but were more
important. So one day I undid the lock
and called the trash man. He took
everything.
I felt like the little donkey when
his burden is finally lifted. Things!
Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful
fire! More room in your heart for love,
for the trees! For the birds who own
nothing — the reason they can fly.

In plain but graceful language, Oliver writes about something many of us struggle with, the accumulation of things. Our consumer culture is driven by acquisition, and we often feel lesser if we don’t have what others have. But our endless hunger for more often leaves us wanting.

What if we lift the weight of possessions, as Oliver does in her poem? What if we let go of our clutch and grasp so that we can learn, as the birds do, to fly?

Try writing about all the things you (or your character) have acquired. Imagine letting go of them one by one. Do you feel bereft? Or do you feel a weight lifting? Whatever you feel, write it down in the voice of transition and transformation, as Oliver does.

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AKMARAL: a nomad woman warrior on the ancient Asian steppes must make peace with making war.

NetGalley Reviewers Love AKMARAL:

“Historical fiction at its best - an emotional and inspiring story” - Nix C.

“Shimmers with authenticity .... an incredible historical fiction novel” - Elyse W.

“Dazzling” - Tucker L.

Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and GoodReads. (I'm also on Twitter/X, but rarely.) Or visit judithlindbergh.com.

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