Day 5 of #1000wordsofsummer 2022

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Hi friends.

Today you will write 1000 words. Because you are full of desires that can only be manifested in words. Today, perhaps, it is the desire to be consumed by something other than reality. To sink deeply into something so we can shut out the outside world. A place to conceal ourselves for the moment. In the safety of the words.

Writing has always felt like the most secure place on earth for me. Somewhere I can burrow into while I process whatever I need to process. When I spend time on those thousand words every day, it is like everything else disappears, and even when it is hard, even when it feels really real and emotional, I still feel protected within that landscape. The page is all mine.

Today’s guest contributor is Morgan Parker. Man, I love Morgan. She can write pretty much anything, including young adult novels, brilliant and moving essays, and, of course, poetry, including There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce and Magical Negro, which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. Her charitable donation goes to Loveland Therapy Fund.

Today she shares an affirmation with us, typed during a new moon.

Here are some June Jordan poems & the James Baldwin Art of Fiction interview.

Have a gorgeous day with your words.

Jami

You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on twitter and instagram.