Starry Darling Ranges

I have been in love with Megan Nielsen's Darling Ranges dress pattern since the day it came out: it's got sweet feminine touches like a moderately-revealing neckline and gathered sleeves, and like all the indie sewing patterns I've used so far, this one was a breeze to follow... ...once I found the perfect fabric. This lovely starry cotton lawn is from Grey's, as usual. [EDIT: Out of business, alas!] 

 The neckline is finished with bias tape, so I used some of my vintage stash. (What do you think—1950s??)

My goal was to finish this dress in time for the Boston Book Festival, and I got plenty of compliments that evening. Having too much fun to remember to take any photos though. And at my friend Jason's night-before-Halloween costumes-optional party I told everyone I had dressed up—as a constellation.

Then I packed the dress to wear on my birthday in Dingle. (Photos by Seanan.)  

This is my new favorite dress out of everything I've sewn so far. I feel really pretty in it (even if I do look a teensy bit preggo in this shot.)  

It was a lovely birthday. We ended the night with trad at John Benny's and my pal Jedediah Berry's The Family Arcana (which is brilliant, by the way). 

Chickens are People Too

One of the very shiniest highlights of 2015 was the Boston Book Festival on October 25th: I got to do a panel ("The Kids Are Not Alright") with Jennifer McMahon and Rupert Thomson and moderated by the lovely Rachel DeWoskin. I read everyone's most recent novels to prepare, and all of them were wonderful in very different ways. Rachel's novel, Blind, explores the rocky emotional terrain and evolving relationships of fifteen-year-old Emma, who loses her eyesight in a fireworks accident. It is beautifully written, and (surprise, surprise) I particularly appreciated Emma's reasoning for going vegetarian:

...I actually stopped eating meat three years ago, after my parents took us to a farm and I saw some chickens snuggling each other and realized that chickens are actually just people, except bumpier and smaller and covered with feathers. They snuggle their family members, is what I'm saying, and that was enough for me—I could never eat anybody's body again, not even a chicken's.

It's the eating-someone-else's-body thing that really clinches it for me—the "if I weren't already veg, I would be now" moment; and this also reminds me that I must write a post on the concept of non-human personhood.

Thank you to Rachel for letting me share this passage from her work! 

Lincoln Pond

I just came across some photos I took during a weekend camping trip on Lincoln Pond in the Adirondacks with a few friends back in July. Next summer feels so far awaaaaaaaaay!  We rented two boats (a canoe and a rowboat) and paddled forty minutes to our island campsite (Lincoln Pond is enormous). It wasn't as remote as it sounds—there were plenty of people out fishing around our little pocket of woods, which was a bummer. But absolutely beautiful otherwise!  

Judgment and Complacency

(Here's another chapter from Can-Do Vegan.) 

“Don’t judge me. Eating animals doesn’t make me a bad person!”

How can I judge you, when I used to eat animals myself?

I’m going to say something that might sound mean at first. Hear me out, okay? (I did promise you tough love!)

You will believe whatever you need to in order to see yourself as a good person.

Now, I’m not saying you’re not a good person. I’m saying that we are all terribly adept at making excuses for our behavior. Being vegan certainly doesn’t exempt me from this; I’m as guilty of wishful thinking as the next person. It’s called being human, right?

That said, we shouldn’t let “being human” lure us into complacent decision making. If we can do better, then by all means, why don’t we? It makes no sense to say, “I’m a good person, I really am, but you know what, actually, I’d kind of prefer not to know where my food comes from. It’s too upsetting.”

Here are a few more things we try to convince ourselves of on a daily basis:

• “No one suffers so that I can drink this milk and eat these eggs and bacon.”

• “It’s what my parents and grandparents eat, and all my ancestors before them; it’s what I feed my children; therefore it’s the right and proper diet.”

• “A diagnosis of cancer, heart disease, or diabetes is a matter of genetics and good (or bad) luck.”

• “I’m just one person. There’s nothing I can do to help create a better future for this planet.”

Here’s the rub about complacence: by definition, we can’t see the thing we’re oblivious to. As the novelist Junot Diaz says, “We all have a blind spot around our privileges shaped exactly like us.” In the world we live in, not being born a cow, pig, or chicken is very much a privilege. Most of us were born into the assumptions I’ve listed above, and it takes a great deal of courage to question them.

One of the most profound benefits of the vegan lifestyle is the rigorous intellectual inquiry it sparks. You start asking the uncomfortable questions so that you can align your behavior with your values. This process of opening your heart and reframing cultural assumptions may very well transpire over a period of years, but once you reach “critical mass,” as it were, your life becomes more joyful than you ever thought it could be.

* * *

In fact, you can be a very honest person and yet not be living a truthful life. And not even realize it. This matters because stripping away all the inaccuracies, misunderstandings, and untruths that surround you is exactly how you can overcome anything at all. Truth is accuracy. Without accuracy, you can’t expect to manifest large, specific changes in your life. It’s not enough to believe something is true.

—Augusten Burroughs, This is How: Surviving What You Think You Can’t

The Deprivation Myth

"Vegan food is bland and boring."Sometimes people will have a lackluster experience at a vegan restaurant and leave thinking that plant-based cuisine can’t be out-of-this-world delicious. Or they go to a coffee shop, order a vegan brownie that turns out to be dry and not that flavorful, and they say "Vegan baked goods are terrible."  But let’s be honest: you could say “bland and boring” about a lot of meals with meat and cheese in them, too, couldn’t you? I look back on my childhood and shudder at the sort of things my parents used to feed us. And yeah, I bet being vegan in the 1980s was quite the challenge.I feel really lucky to be alive and cooking for myself in the early 21st century, with so many terrific vegan food products, cookbooks, and eateries to choose from. The only time I have a “bland” or “boring” meal is when a chef at an ordinary restaurant doesn’t put much thought or care into the plant-based menu options. Going vegan gives you a terrific opportunity to exercise your creativity and get more adventurous in the kitchen (and in turn, this newfound willingness to experiment enhances your creativity in every other aspect of your life—more about this later.)The assumption underlying this “bland and boring” argument is that a vegan diet is a diet of deprivation—that to go vegan you have to give up all the most satisfying foods in life.I never deprive myself. As a matter of fact, I sometimes look at a dairy cheese platter at a cocktail party and think, “Do I want that?” And for the past four and a half years, the answer has always been “no, definitely not.” As my friend Zachary says, “It’s just not food to me anymore.” Because he has educated himself as to precisely how a cow suffers and dies, a hamburger can never tempt him again. He would no sooner consume a steak than he would a beach ball or a pencil sharpener.Of course, the most natural question now is: “What do you eat?” Here’s a very partial list of my favorite foods:

• Mediterranean tapas with sundried tomatoes, mushrooms with rosemary marinated in umeboshi vinegar, hummus and homemade pesto for spreading on seeded crackers, French bread, or focaccia

• Butternut squash “bisque,” roasted with garlic, onion, and sage and blended with almond milk

• A breaded seitan cutlet with mashed potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts (from my favorite restaurant, Veggie Galaxy)

• Roasted red pepper cutlets (you can use that recipe to make eggplant-faux-parm as well)

• Pasta with avocado “alfredo” (a super-easy sauce made in the blender with avocado, veggie broth, and fresh herbs)

• Kale chips baked in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper, and nutritional yeast (which gives whatever you put it on a rich, cheesy taste)

• Cashew chèvre out of Miyoko Schinner's Artisan Vegan Cheese (cheesemaking post coming soon!)

• Dark chocolate (my favorite brand is Taza, which makes awesome flavors like cinnamon, gingerbread, rum raisin, guajillo chili, and lots more) and schmilk chocolate, made in Vermont. The toffee crunch is unbelievable.

• Sorbet or coconut-based ice cream (which, by the way, doesn’t make me feel queasy afterward the way dairy ice cream used to do)

You’ll notice that many of these foods are analogs—you can often tweak your favorite recipes to create something just as delicious, as I did with a classic potato salad recipe my mom asked me to veganize for Christmas Eve dinner. (My version was even tastier than the original, and no chickens or cows were harmed in the making of it.)A very important fact to keep in mind as you transition to veganism is that our tastebuds take two or three weeks to reprogram. A big healthy salad might taste “too healthy” to you on day one, but by day twenty-one you’ll find yourself craving those greens with that yummy tahini dressing. Look back over the foods you’ve eaten a lot of in the past, and you’ll see how your tastebuds have already evolved. For instance, I’d rather have nothing but water all day than consume a Pop Tart or a handful of Doritos now. Eating a half dozen Brussels sprouts was a total chore when I was a kid, and now I can’t get enough of them—just roasted in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper.As you can see from the list above, I eat whatever I want, and savor every bite. Going vegan doesn’t mean giving up loving your food—it means growing to love new and better foods. 

Masada and the Dead Sea

"Don't worry, he's not gonna die.""It's not that. It's my camera I'm worried about!"

  Masada is an absolutely awe-inspiring mountaintop fortress with a sad history. We hiked up (Elliot narrowly missing a rockfall perpetrated by a bunch of a**hole teenagers), checked out the ruins up top, and then Elliot and Jill took the funicular back down (see photo in this post) while Kate, Spencer and I ran down the trail to see if we could beat them back to the visitor center. We didn't, but it was exhilarating. That's one of my favorite moments from this trip.  Later that day Kate had penciled in our one chance to experience the Dead Sea (jam-packed itinerary, as usual!), and we were really bummed when we saw that the beach was cordoned off for off-season construction work.But did we let all those DO NOT ENTER signs stop us?NOPE. Super salty, lovely and floaty. Totally worth clambering down a crumbling embankment, and scrambling back up again.  The next morning we visited Beit Guvrin National Park. It's an extensive site dating back to Old Testament times, with much of what there is to see being underground (although the caves are relatively new).    I got a little obsessed with doorways on this trip, and light shining into darkened spaces. This is the entrance to the Sidonian Tomb of the Musicians (above and below).  See? Beautiful. Next post: Jerusalem! 

Roasted Red Pepper Cutlets

This cutlet is healthier without the breadcrumbs—the combination of oats, cornmeal, and nutritional yeast offers a surprising amount of protein!—and it also works well for “breading” eggplant, zucchini, tofu, or seitan. Serve with marinara sauce over pasta, quinoa, or a vegetable stirfry, and the leftovers make hearty sandwiches with hummus, pesto, or vegan mayo. Or cut the peppers into smaller nugget-sized pieces to serve with a dipping sauce.

1 16-oz. jar roasted red peppers (four peppers)

¾ cup steel-cut oats

¾ cup cornmeal

⅓ cup nutritional yeast

1 tbsp. onion powder

1 tbsp. garlic powder

1 tbsp. dried herbs (any combination of basil, thyme, rosemary, and sage)

1 tsp. salt

black pepper to taste

½ cup flour

3 tbsp. Ener-G egg replacer + ¾ cup warm water (the equivalent of 6 eggs)

½ cup vegetable oil

Drain the water from the pepper jar, carefully pull out the peppers and halve them lengthwise to form cutlet shapes, and remove any stray seeds. To make the cutlets, you’ll dip the pepper first into the flour, then into the egg replacement mixture, and finally in the oat-and-cornmeal coating before frying. Pour out the flour evenly onto a plate, and in a medium-sized bowl whisk the egg replacer with water until fully dissolved and frothy. Put the oats in a food processor and grind for a minute or so, then add the cornmeal and seasonings and pulse until fully mixed. Pour coating mixture into a second bowl.

Heat the vegetable oil in the frying pan as you begin the three-part dipping. Once the pan is heated, cutlets will brown nicely in seven minutes, flipping halfway through.

Yields approximately eight cutlets (though size will vary). 

(I wrote up this recipe for a Bob's Red Mill recipe contest last summer figuring I could blog it regardless, and then naturally I forgot all about it!)

Blessed Are the Clean of Heart

 After a couple nights in Haifa, we made our way south toward the Dead Sea (next post!), stopping at Zippori National Park to admire all the mosaics.      In the afternoon we visited the Mount of Beatitudes for a little New-Testament refresher course.    There is a basilica and gift shop, of course. Jill and I enjoyed chatting with a nun who was hard at work on an art project for Christmas.  Does it say in the Bible just how beautiful the Sea of Galilee is?    

Shedding My Skin

You must follow the path that opens to you and you must never stop. And it will demand that you shed your skin, over and over and over again. Your skin must be shed for that skin is not the skin of a writer; it is the skin of whatever you were before.

—Stephen Harrod Buhner

The last time I blogged about decluttering I mentioned getting rid of all my grade-school artwork, and how good it felt to photograph the drawings I was most proud of before dumping it all in the blue recycling bin. I thought I'd post some of my favorite old drawings here.

 I really love the quote above from Stephen Harrod Buhner (in Ensouling Language), although I keep swapping the word "artist" for "writer" whenever I read it. It may seem kind of weird that tossing old-old artwork should feel so momentous to me, but it does. I'm finally making space for new images. (I'm not done yet though—I have more artwork from my early 20s to sort through!) 

A Garden or a Slaughterhouse?

“Plants have feelings too!” is a joke men make so they can avoid addressing the problem of flesh eating in a substantive way. (Not to be sexist, but I have yet to hear a female omnivore make this joke. I imagine this is a direct result of our culture’s equating meat consumption with virility.)

There is scientific research to indicate that plants react to their environment in complex ways, but a plant is not sentient the way an animal is. A carrot does not have a nervous system; it feels no pain when you tug it up out of the earth. Animals, on the other hand, feel intense pain and fear and grief when they are imprisoned, forcibly impregnated and then separated from their children, and if you were allowed behind closed doors at the nearest factory farm you would not doubt their suffering. Make all the strained jokes you want about a zucchini screaming on the chopping board, but you’re not actually making a point—you’re just obfuscating the real issue.

You might want to consider it this way. A wise man posed the question in a recent Compassion Over Killing Facebook thread:

Would you rather work in a garden or a slaughterhouse?

(This rationale also appears on a Mercy For Animals list of The Top 12 Excuses for Not Going Vegan And Our Responses to Them. That post is pretty entertaining actually—check it out.) 

Your Miracle Is On the Way

Find someone you like on their good days and their bad days.

—Elliot's wise words on the occasion of their 10th anniversary

Oh boy, do I have a treat for you today. (Elliot might have said good days, bad days, and wacky days.) When we visited the mosque in Kampala we ladies were compelled to wear skirts and headscarves (which were provided for us), and we, being Western feminists, were NOT happy.

On the upside, my sister gave me the most amusing video out of everything we've recorded on our travels. Watch it after noting these facts:

1. We were confused by the signposts in a Rwandan town on Lake Kivu, which seemed to have two names: Karongi and Kibuye. (But now that I'm googling them, it looks like Kibuye is the town and Karongi is the district.)

2. Bilharzia is a disease caused by parasitic worms that live in freshwater.

 (I hope this video doesn't offend any Muslims who may randomly happen upon my blog. She mocks all religions equally, if that makes any difference. Just imagine all the fun she'd have doing a song-and-dance number in this getup!) 

The minaret has 272 steps. (Jill counted.)

One of Kate's shots from inside the mosque:

We also visited the Tombs of the Buganda Kings at Kasubi (ceiling detail above) and the Baha'i Temple (below).

A few last notes from my journal:

Kampala was originally built on seven hills [somebody had Rome in mind!] We did not see much of the city's opulence—my most vivid memories are of the usual dusty red roads packed with one-room stores or houses of simple brick and mortar, truck cabs stacked on corrugated tin roofs. "Beauty Parlor" or "Dry Cleaner" looks like a hovel. All the buildings very very crowded together. One of the guidebooks talks about tourists coming to see the wildlife but the people are just as interesting, and that is true. Friendliest children ever. ("A mzungu!", with delight.) Gorgeous women in vibrant wax-printed fabrics, perfect posture, carrying plastic water jugs or baskets of bananas or avocados on their heads.

We had a couple of lovely last meals in Kampala—Colin promised us wholesome traditional fare, and it was delish. We even had banana juice. (Banana juice!!)  

At our last lunch we all dared each other to eat these INSANELY HOT PEPPERS. WHOOOOOOOOOOOO. 

This concludes my Uganda-Rwanda-2013 recap (about time, right?!) Next week (or maybe the week after), back to Israel/Jordan!

(All Uganda/Rwanda entries here.)

The Top-of-the-Food-Chain Argument

(Here's another little chapter from Can-Do Vegan.)

* * *

"It's normal and natural to eat animals. We're at the top of the food chain."

Let’s look at the logical inconsistencies of the “food chain” argument.

We consider ourselves “above” the animals when it suits us—chickens can’t perform calculus, cows can’t speak in a human language, therefore we do what we like with these creatures—yet we are animals when it suits our various other purposes, as with the actual consumption of animals, sexual infidelity, letting young boys get away with aggressive and even violent behavior, and so on.

The “food chain” is a human construct. You are not a part of the wildlife cycle that involves the pursuit, capture, and consumption of another animal, as a lion or tiger will do. Look in the mirror and you will see you do not have the teeth of a carnivore, made for piercing the neck of a gazelle and masticating her thick muscle tissue. You have the teeth of an herbivore, intended for grinding down nuts, seeds, and vegetation.

This is the sad paradox of the human omnivorous diet: we are predators who do not capture our own food. Instead we rely on heinously maltreated and underpaid slaughterhouse workers to kill our dinner for us.

You may argue that you are a hunter, that you shoot deer in the woods and that this places you within that “food chain” after all. You may say that by hunting your own meat you are not a part of the cycle of cruelty and corruption that is the American factory farm. But answer me this: is venison the only sort of meat you eat? Do you ever consume anything you haven’t killed yourself? (Not to mention that you're still being cruel by taking an animal's life when you don't need to eat it to survive.)

Let’s be real here. If you’re driving down a lonely highway with a rumbling stomach, and McDonald’s is the only “restaurant” for miles, you are going to stop and order a hamburger. Flesh eating is just too slippery a slope to stand on.

* * *

(And in case you missed it, here's a little thought experiment on this subject by way of the Twilight Zone.) 

"But I love animals!"

My first ebook project, Can-Do Vegan, has been a long time coming, and it's still nowhere near ready to publish. Right now I have to focus on book projects that are actually going to make me some moolah! (The first-pass pages of Immaculate Heart arrived yesterday and are clamoring for my attention before the Ego Management editorial letter shows up next week; and there's the first chapter of my new novel to write, and The Boy from Tomorrow to revise...)

Some of the ebook chapters started out as blog posts—like Are You Addicted to Cheese? and What is "extreme?"—but many are new writing. It's only recently occurred to me that I should be blogging the new stuff!So here's the first chapter—the main section of the ebook answers the most common excuses and rationalizations I hear from people who are still eating animals.

* * *

When a meat eater talks about how much they “love” animals, perhaps they ought to say they have a particular affinity for dogs or cats.

If you love someone or something, you treat them as well (or better!) than you treat yourself. If you love someone, you don’t make them suffer in a cage before slaughtering and consuming them.

Here’s something else to consider: people in other parts of the world eat dog flesh the way we in the West consume pigs, cows, or chickens. How can you logically make a distinction between animals who are sacred and animals who are not?

Vegans believe that all sentient beings deserve to be happy and free. We want to treat pigs, cows, and chickens with just as much consideration and affection as we do “house pets.” (In general, vegans believe we shouldn’t “own” animals at all, but many people I know make an exception for rescue animals. They treat these dogs as family, not property.)

In vegan philosophy, each of these sentient beings has its own part to play in the great cosmic pageant. We humans don’t have an exclusive on the concept of a “life purpose”: each and every being wants to exist in a state of peace and harmony, to experience him- or herself moving through the world, to make full use of his or her senses to appreciate his or her environment. This is true of everything, every living thing. Lilies and daffodils don’t grow for our pleasure. Mosquitoes don’t exist to annoy us.

You may have noticed that I haven’t used the word “it” when talking about “non-human people.” When animals become people to you, you can see yourself as part of something much, much bigger than your own limited brain and ego. This shift takes some getting used to, but it’s so worth it—for the animals and for your own spiritual and physical health.I have an awesome T-shirt I got from Herbivore Clothing Company. It says, “I love animals too much to eat them.” 

My Daemon is the Zebra

 Okay, so I have a bunch of "spirit animals"—owls and foxes, definitely—but while in Africa, my daemon is the zebra. They're just so...improbable. Blend in? What for??  After our time in Rwanda, we braved the chaotic border crossing one more time and headed to Uganda's Lake Mburo National Park. This park (despite its accessibility) isn't as popular as Queen Elizabeth, Bwindi, or Ishasha because of its low "big five" count: there are no elephants and no longer any lions. (At least one pride was poisoned by local farmers for killing livestock.)  What do you find at Lake Mburo? A whopping 315 species of birds, plus:

7pm, 4 September 2013

Stayed behind at the Mburo campsite while the others went for an evening drive in search of hyenas...We saw zebras and impalas today! And I got a good pic of a vervet monkey and her baby suckling. Lots of baby animals. [Vervet sighting—Elliot talking about service monkeys instead of dogs.] Hippos grunting down the lake from the restaurant.

  You will also find some very ballsy warthogs, who drew uncomfortably close to our tents. The vervet monkeys, too, were hopping all over our Land Cruiser looking for nibbles. Gorgeous sunset that evening: 

Kate: "I'm going to have a kid just so I can be an a-hole to him." (After giving me a hard time for not eating the second plate of rice, and telling me it's the last thing I'll eat for a week.)(And yes, she actually said "a-hole.")

  

Fall Events and the Bones & All audiobook

I have a fairly busy month ahead of me! This Friday I'll be doing a Q&A with my pal Mackenzi Lee at the launch of This Monstrous Thing at Porter Square Books at 7pm. (Facebook invite here.)

On Saturday, October 17th, I'm giving a talk called "Private Writing for Public Impact" (followed by a mind-mapping workshop) at the #WhatIMake Conference in New Bedford, MA. Tickets now on sale! If you would like a sneak peek at Ego Management you should definitely come. My friend Cameron—vegan caterer extraordinaire—is doing the most delicious bagged lunches! 

Sunday, October 18th (3pm-4:30pm) is the SPOOKTAVAGANZA! at Tres Gatos in Jamaica Plain. I'll be telling ghost stories along with my friends Kendall Kulper, Marika McCoola, and Mackenzi Lee, all of whom have terrific new books out. You can show up early and enjoy brunch before the event (that's my plan!)

On Friday, October 23rd at 7pm, I'll be participating in a multimedia science fiction reading hosted by Joelle Renstrom at the Aeronaut Brewery in Somerville. FB invite here. (I haven't even written the thing I've promised to read, so I'd better hop to it...)

On Saturday, October 24th, I'm doing a panel ("The Kids Aren't Alright") at the Boston Book Festival with Jennifer McMahon and Rupert Thomson. (I think I'm supposed to hold off on specifics until the schedule is officially announced on September 1st.)

* * *

Oh, and one more thing (because I haven't adequately hooplah-ed this yet): the Bones & All audiobook is available for download!

Julia did an AMAZING job, right? 

Vegan Edinburgh

I have a guest post over on the Main Street Vegan blog this week, a sort of vegan love letter to Edinburgh. Hope you enjoy! 

Back to Kigali

When I am at the market, in the midst of a large crowd,I always think I might just find my brothers.—Rose, age 10

 This is the blog post I have been putting off for two years. As I type this I'm still not sure I'm actually going to write about the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. What can I possibly add in terms of response or commentary?I suppose I can talk about my feelings as we moved through the exhibit: horror, disbelief, disbelief, disbelief, and more horror; and then, whenever we encountered victims' faces or belongings (or video interviews with survivors talking about their lost loved ones), I felt sadness. I was thirteen when the Rwandan genocide occurred, and while we talked about it in our social studies classes, it always seemed so abstract, so thoroughly unbelievable. Genocide was something that only could have happened in the Bad Old Days, back when my grandfather was indirectly fighting the Japanese on a destroyer in the South Pacific. But the "Bad Old Days" can and do revisit themselves upon the present, usually with new faces and different governments involved.I took a lot of notes that day at the museum (because again, I thought I might be able to come up with some sort of intelligent response here):

Fire is a symbol of death + mourning in Rwandan culture. Elephants = memory, fruit trees = children.

Dogs eating corpses in the streets.

Fabric retrieved from a mass grave: a fitted sheet printed with the Superman emblem.

Children beaten and thrown into septic tanks. Women forced to kill own children before being killed themselves.

Catholic priests implicated in Rwandan genocide—told Interahamwe where Tutsis were hiding. WHY???????????

"Education is part of the answer to denial." (re Holocaust survivors speaking in schools)

  Human beings do unspeakably evil things to other human beings, and I can have no intelligent response to that fact. I can only renew my commitment to a peaceful life, which means not responding to anger with more anger, but with compassion; and easing the suffering of others wherever and however I possibly can. I can also pray that anyone who is engaged in conflict, as a victim or as a perpetrator (or who might fall into both categories) will somehow be able to find peace and clarity out of suffering and confusion. 

Big Announcement: Ego Management!

[Edit, 9/28/15: We have a new title! It's Life Without Envy: Ego Management for Creative People.]

I've been sitting on this top-secret project for awhile now, and I'm SO HAPPY I can finally tell you about it! Here's last week's announcement from Publishers' Marketplace:

This book started out as a guest post, "The Laughter of Sanity" (my favorite phrase from Eckhart Tolle), for Nova's blog back in February 2012. You can also see a glimmering here. The provisional subtitle is Tough Love for Creative People.

You know what they say about making lemonade out of the bitter fruit you've been handed (and a cliché is a cliché for a reason)? Going out of print turned out to be the biggest gift for me in terms of personal growth. I came out of that squirmy, frustrating-as-hell period with a firm grasp of what's truly important. Now I know I can be joyful and content with my life and work even if my novels never hit the bestseller list—that my happiness is entirely up to me. I no longer stake my sense of fulfillment and self worth on factors beyond my control.

Have I successfully managed my ego? Heck no! It's a daily process, and it will be a daily process for the rest of my life. Ego Management offers practical strategies for pulling yourself out of that mental and emotional quagmire of jealousy and frustration, not just once, but whenever you feel yourself sinking. We are only human, after all.

I feel so very blessed that I get to work on this book with my fiction editor, Sara Goodman. When you have an off-the-wall project like this you generally send the manuscript to your primary editor just as a courtesy, but in this case she really wanted to be able to publish it, so she made it happen. Again, thanks to that frustrating experience with Crown, I feel even more grateful for the enthusiasm and support I've received (and will continue to receive) from St. Martin's Press.

If you live in the Boston area and would love a sneak peek at Ego Management, get yourself a ticket for the #whatimake Conference in New Bedford on Saturday, October 17th! My presentation, "Private Writing for Public Impact," draws on several of the most crucial points I make in the book, and there'll be a complementary workshop afterward called "Mind Mapping for Self Discovery."

I can't WAIT to see this little book out into the world!

[Edit: I didn't mention a pub date because I don't have more than the roughest idea at this point—2017, realistically. I will know more after my first editorial phone call, which is hopefully happening next week.] 

Food is Love

I'm not excited about blogging this week. It might be the holiday, or it might be because so many other projects are vying for my attention. So I'll just show you something I cooked up last week out of Denis Cotter's Café Paradiso Seasons, a stew with eggplant, fennel, tomatoes, potatoes, and thyme:  This recipe is a bit labor intensive—you've got to cook the fennel, eggplant, and potatoes (each) separately before adding them to the pot—but the result is deliciously comforting. It reminds me of şakşuka, the eggplant-and-tomato dish we savored as often as possible during our time in Turkey. (The recipe also includes goat's-cheese gougeres, and I might attempt a vegan version at some point.)Last Friday I went to visit Eric at Brandeis, and brought a large Ball jar of the stew with me. The next day he emailed me the loveliest thank-you, and it got me thinking again about why I love to cook for people: it's the most fundamental way to show I care.At some point someone gave me the idea (at Sadhana Forest, probably!) that chanting (e.g., lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu—"may all beings everywhere be happy and free") as you cook infuses the food with your intention. I need to get back to that, even when I'm "only" cooking for myself. I don't want it to be the case that I eat really well only when company comes (and for a day or two afterward—leftovers are the best). A question I want to ask myself before every meal is, am I eating to nourish myself, or am I just eating to feel full?Food is love, people! Ideally, anyway—but as is the better part of this blog's raison d'être, living up to our ideals can be as pleasurable as we want to make it.(And with that, I'm off to cook up some breakfast.) 

Retreat rescheduled: May 2016!

Hooray! Stephen, Anne and I have decided upon new dates for our yoga and writing retreat: Friday-Sunday, May 20th-22nd, 2016. Details here. Early-bird price is still $300. Email me with questions or to register!