I hadn't exactly thought of "January 25, 2014"  in PAST TEN as an essay, though of course it is. It felt more more like a journal entry that I wanted to give some shape and depth to (read: an essay) by using the theme of "perhapsing" and the idea of the heart as literal and metaphorical. I had a due date, and I was in the midst of health problems and ER visits and hospital stay so I had hardly any time to work on it. And maybe that actually helped. At any rate I've gotten some very kind responses to the writing, some from writers I don't usually interact with. And not the barrage of medical advice I'd feared, just a private DM exchange from someone who's gone through the same medical problem themselves, which was very useful. I think my pub also generated a lot of interest in the journal, which is always nice.

And CURRENT accepted "Shoplifting," and will pay for it, and I greatly enjoyed publishing there before, even though they're not strictly a lit mag, or a place where friends publish. It was great being in a different sort of journal.

Bailey Gaylin Moore invited me to contribute to her cool site  PAST TEN, where writers answer the question: "Where were you on this day ten years ago?" There have been some great contributors, most recently Kathy Fish and Grant Faulkner.

My take on "January 25,, 2014" is overshadowed by my current health anxieties, but it was fun to take on a "perhapsing" challenge (since that's undoubtedly the exercise that my creative nonfiction students were engaged in that week). Nice to take my mind off my health, which nevertheless overshadows the piece.

Loved learning that Bailey teaches the collaborative essay that I wrote with Steve ("Imaginary Friends") in her nonfiction classes at the University of Missouri.

Literally, heart trouble. I have been having scary health issues since December 27. Four ER visits, almost a week in the hospital (I've never stayed in the hospital for more than a night that I can remember). Bailey Moore, editor at PAST TEN, solicited a piece from me on what I was doing on January 25, 2014, and against all odds I got it in by the due date, today. I wrote more about my current heart troubles than about what I was doing then (impossible to remember, though I should have tried to unearth my journals). It comes out on the 25th.

BULB CULTURE COLLECTIVE brought out a mini-interview today to accompany their reprint of my story "Raney's Imaginary Friend."

I got a really nice note from Robert Erle Barham at CURRENT praising "Randall's Commute" in some detail (and asking if I have anything else for Current, which solicited me a while ago and published "What Grows on Trees"). It's nice to be thinking about writing and not my precarious health.

A shock to cross over from the land of the relatively healthy to the land of the unwell. To suddenly come face to face with mortality like this. I suppose it's something I've been writing about since the beginning of the pandemic, but I've never felt it so keenly.