Fortitude (Video by Vine Leaves Press)

Two New Videos from Vine Leaves Press

"A warning to the men of Trump's America."

New Videos: The Crimes of Clara Turlington

Vine Leaves Press

Best of the Net Nomination (& Looking Back)

I found out last week a poem of mine was nominated by the publication Vending Machine Press for Best of the Net. You can read the piece here. Thank you so much to Vending Machine Press. 

I actually found out about it a bit late because sometimes I don't check social media for up to two weeks at a time. I know that's sort of a big gap, but it feels like a compromise to me. (Using some social media, but not letting it distract me too much. It still distracts me though.) The best way to contact me is email. meg4margaret@gmail.com

Finding out about the nomination made me think about the first time I was ever nominated for anything, which was a Best of the Net nomination in 2010. I was stunned. Then I was really excited. (You can currently read that poem here. It's the only place I could find it online.) 

I think it's good for me to reflect. I feel like I have too many days now of feeling dissatisfied with myself. A big part of this is because I still have serious fatigue after Guillain-Barré Syndrome, even though I technically made a full recovery. I found out this issue with fatigue a long time after GBS is incredibly common. The good thing is, other than motion sickness (throwing up in a plastic bag one time), recent travel has been great!

Anyway... I think I have my website fairly up-to-date. 

I think those are all of my updates for now. 

Photos: 31 Days in Fairhope, Alabama (Writer-In-Residence)

I'm back from my August residency. I enjoyed my time as a midwesterner in the deep south. Fairhope, Alabama is a bit like a southern version of Madison, Wisconsin, which I mean as a huge compliment. It's a great community that takes the arts very seriously. I felt drawn to experiencing the south because of southern literature and southern writers. The residency gave me time to work on a project that is very different from what I have previously written, which I won't go into detail about right now. Leaving Fairhope was bittersweet.

Thank you to Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, Friends of the Fairhope Public Library, Skip Jones, Margie Gewirtz, Randal Wright, Gil Wright, Tamara Dean, Nan Denson, Elsie Pritchard, bj Cooper, Linda Foster, Betty Bowdoin, Mary Streu, Patsy Napier, Deborah Pennington, Sonny Brewer, Convergence Book Club, Book Club Night at Page and Palette, and whoever makes the peanut butter fudge sold at Greer's.

There are a lot of photos in this post. Before August, I read various articles and blog posts about Fairhope and about the residency which really helped me prepare. I thought maybe this post could add on a tiny bit to all the helpful information online. I recommend bringing plenty of bug spray in the summer. 

The photos of different places are interspersed. Locations in the photos include Wolff Cottage, Fairhope Public Library, downtown Fairhope, Gulf Shores, Eastern Shore Arts Center, Panini Pete's, and Fairhope Municipal Pier. I didn't use any filters or edit the photos in anyway, other than cropping some of the pictures. I thought I would mention it just because there is so much over editing of photos now.