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“Fingers. Knees. Spine. Stomach. Purpose.” by Mariah Tyler Moore BEEP.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

I don’t open my eyes yet. Opening my eyes is a commitment and I’m not ready for commitments at 6:00 in the morning. Instead, I take inventory, the way that out-of-state doctor taught me to. Fingers? Swollen but functional. Knees? Jury’s still deliberating. Stomach? Already angry about something unknowable. Lower back? Screaming, but that’s just my spine paying rent in pain.

The dog is awake before me, which is a contest he absolutely invented and is very proud of...

The Arrow Points to Me? Yesterday morning I stood in the Paul C. Blau

Yesterday morning I stood in the Paul C. Blau Theatre at the Clark County Library and taught Write Like You Mean It: A Radical Resilience Workshop for Writers. My workshop. My slideshow. My workbook. My flyer on the library wall with a big arrow pointing to... me. To me?

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Two years ago, I opened a Google Doc and typed out a few goals. Number one on the list? I wanted my novels in at least one library. Longevity and all. Now? Six of my fiction books are in Las...

Writers Are My Tribe (And Other Things I Learned at the Quills Conference)

I just got home from the Quills Conference in Salt Lake City.

I wasn't a speaker or attendee. I was a volunteer and a chapter president, which lands somewhere in the middle of the official-capacity spectrum, and even that felt like more space than I was allowed to take up.

Let me tell you why...

The Reason I Didn't Enter the Contests

I didn't submit any of my work for the awards. I disqualified myself preemptively because I've used AI in my process. Here's what I mean by "used AI." I have never...

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Inaya Larson came home to Clover Valley to lick her wounds, not to blow the lid off of anything. One quiet reporting job at the county paper, that...