1000 Words of Summer 2026 - Day 9

Because you are at an an inflection point.

If you are just joining us, here is the FAQ. Yes, technically, you have missed the beginning but also you can absolutely start now, you can start writing whenever you like. It is never too late to begin.

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Hi friends.

Today you will write 1000 words. Because you’re at an inflection point in your life and you would like things to change. You long to stretch yourself, to shift, to push yourself into new territory. Your words can help you do this—but you have to want it. And you do. Now is the time. Today you, we, all of us write. To make our lives a little bit different than they were before. Let’s write our 1000 words right now.

Day 9, incredible, we’re nearly there. You’re all doing great. I have to say I woke up today excited to write. I can’t tell you why exactly, this day over any other day. But some kind of threshold was crossed for me and everything just feels full speed ahead. I hope you’re feeling this way too.

Today’s contributor is Ariana Reines, a person I believe in deeply. I think of her as a poet but of course she is many things: playwright, performance artist, and translator, too. A stylish, vulnerable, and open person, she is someone I could talk with endlessly because her brain never stops operating.

I first met her in Vilnius where we both were teaching and we took a memorable walk together one night through the city’s dark streets. We have run into each other in different cities for a decade since. Last time I saw her she was in New Orleans for our incredible annual poetry festival and we took another wonderful walk down to the stretch of the levee known as “The End of the World.” It was a sunny day and we talked non-stop and later on I noticed that I had blisters on my feet from all the walking.

Her debut collection, The Cow, won The Alberta Prize, and later A Sand Book was the winner of the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award. Her most recent collection is The Rose, which Bookforum described as having “an eruption of language from the depths of inchoate, chaotic longing.” She also runs something called Invisible College which I may never fully understand because I am not well-read enough and yet I feel it completely in my bones.

She has asked her contribution go to the Center for Reproductive Rights and today she speaks to us about self-loathing and writing for the thrill of it.