All posts by Jackie Pick

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About Jackie Pick

Jackie Pick is a former teacher and current writer living in the Chicago area. She is a contributing author to multiple anthologies, including Multiples Illuminated, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real about Motherhood, Here in the Middle, as well as the and the literary magazines The Sun and Selfish. She received Honorable Mention from the Mark Twain House and Museum for her entry in the Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition. Jackie is a contributing writer at Humor Outcasts, and her essays have been featured on various online sites including McSweeney's, Belladonna Comedy, Mamalode, The HerStories Project, and Scary Mommy. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, Jackie is co-creator and co-writer of the award-winning short film Fixed Up, and a proud member of the 2017 Chicago cast of Listen To Your Mother.

I’m in The Coachella Review

Creative non-fiction, Publications

There are a few variations (wildly attributed) of the notion that writing is sitting down and bleeding on the page.

The last 24 hours have been wild. The Coachella Review, a phenomenal literary journal, published my piece in its Summer, 2019 issue.

My somewhat-lyric essay is about the tiny monsters we grapple with as we walk through life, especially as a woman. It was inspired by my complex feelings that arose from attending the Women’s March and all the indignities, great and small, that I’ve — WE’VE — suffered and stuffed down just to get on with the business of living.

It was a cathartic, brutal piece to write, difficult to send out, and terrifyingly rewarding to have published.

I bloodied the page like I’ve never done before.

I’ve heard from a lot of readers, on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, both in public posts and privately. The piece is hitting home with a lot of women, which is wonderful and awful considering the topic.

Which means we need more of these types of stories told, shouted, whispered, sung, and cried.

Click here to read my piece, Into the Daylight, and the rest of the wonderful items in The Coachella Review. 

 

Surviving Summer Funtimes 2019 — Week the First

Gratitude, Humor, Parenting, Surviving Summer Funtimes, , 

The first in a series of posts that are supposed to be weekly but probably won't be because it's summer break and I will definitely be doing ALL THE FUN.  To both record the summer fun and to be considered fun at parties that I'm not invited to, I will share with you my family's dangdongdarnit summer Funtimes. Short notes, though, because I am too busy making sweet summer Funtimes to have much time do anything like hide in my office and write while they knock at the door and wail plaintively.  In fact, I would assume that the Funtimes will be so time-consuming that by early July, these entries will be but two words.

 

Summer break, where we again rush in where angels and folks with common sense fear to tread. Continue reading Surviving Summer Funtimes 2019 — Week the First →

My Indefatigable Weirdness Versus All the Small Talk — May 2019 Month In Review

Humor, Inspiration, Month in Review, Publications, Recommendations, The Belladonna Comedy, Writing, Writing process, Writing the first book, , , , , ,

 

This is the time when everyone is gobsmacked by the passage of time.

“Can you believe it’s June already?”

“A new month?”

“How are we almost half-way through the year?”

“I’m still writing 2018 on my checks!”

(“I’m still writing checks.”) Continue reading My Indefatigable Weirdness Versus All the Small Talk — May 2019 Month In Review →