Don’t Wait To Start the Rest of Your Life Until Later

Because I am pretty sure everything is already happening right now.

Hi friends.

I haven’t done this in a while but I just wanted to acknowledge all the paid subscribers to this newsletter. You allow me to go out in the world and experience things so I can come back and share whatever I learn, but also you simply help me to keep the lights on over here so I can write. Perhaps most importantly your subscriptions support the #1000wordsofsummer charitable efforts—next week we’ll be sponsoring another Scholastic Book Fair for a school here in New Orleans and I’ll have photos of that coming soon. Anyway I appreciate you, I just felt like I should say that. Thank you for supporting me and this project.

On Monday in New York, I had breakfast with the funny, brilliant, glossy-haired Mira Jacob. Mira is a contributor to the 1000 Words book, and an inspiring and innovative writer who works both in the graphic and prose realms, including the stunning and much beloved Good Talk. She is at work on a new novel which sounds amazing and like it’s going to be a big hit. We love Mira!

She met me for breakfast before she went to work one morning and I headed off to The Frick. I don’t want to overuse the word “nourishing” in these letters, but that is what it’s like to spend time with her. One of the things we talked about was the value and increasing necessity of creating spaces and cultural events where people can come together and connect in real life as we all slowly lose our minds to our phones. I walked away from my time with her even more energized to keep hosting readings at my home and out in the world and supporting other people by attending their events, not to mention going to movies (matinees if you hate crowds, like I do), museums, galleries, comedy shows, musical performances, or whatever the fuck you feel like going to see.

Mira also shared with me this new project she’s excited about called Fall of Freedom, which is a series of art events happening nationwide on November 21 in protest of our current administration. It seems pretty loose and free-flowing and like anyone can just create an art event wherever they live. I really appreciate that it feels like something you can just make up. Maybe it’s just borrowing a corner of a bar for an hour during a quiet afternoon so you and your writer buddies can share your new work with each other out loud. (That honestly sounds like so much fun.)

I guess what I’m saying is if you’ve been waiting for a reason to make something happen in your community this is certainly as good a time as any. Don’t wait to start the rest of your life until later because I am pretty sure everything is already happening right now.

I’ll end this little note as I began it, with a “thank you.” I can’t tell you how much I appreciated meeting some of the 1000 Words folks who showed up at my event in Brooklyn this past Monday. I know I say this ALL THE TIME but also it is ALWAYS TRUE. You all are working so hard to make time for yourself and make your art and then also you make a little time to say hello to me? Amazing. The connection is always electric. Thank you.

Have a good weekend.

Jami

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