September is a difficult month in the base case: new routines, new stressors, new activities, meetings, supplies, a sense that we’re still miles away from living the new normal. Big holidays for some of us add to our bloated calendars. (more…)
Author: 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.
Go Tell It on the Mountain of Post-Its
Every piece of writing advice ever swirled around my head this past week. Every story and article and essay I’ve read. Every movie and show I’ve watched. Every song, every conversation, every moment.
It’s terrible.
Maybe this is all a sign that I’m ready to stop getting ready and start getting started. (more…)
The Real Dealth, Bad Hair Weeks, and MIB
I do most of my prewriting by hand, and much of my work this week involved exploring the concept of “death” – which I keep adding the letter “l” to and writing as dealth. I looked up “dealth” and learned it is an obsolete word meaning “a share dealt out.”
Obsolete words are such a romantic thing, reinforcing the idea of language being a living thing. The word “obsolete” itself was the first vocabulary word-of-the-day (we called them “Super Words”) we had back in sixth grade. Tip of the hat to Mrs. Proctor, and no, I don’t remember what the other 179 words were.
Which is all just to say that I fell down a few rabbit holes this week.
Jackie Pick 