Category: reflection
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Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
I don’t “doom scroll.” I got my first iPhone in 2009 to settle my anxiety. Everything I could need was in my pocket, accessible by a tiny computer known as the iPhone 3GS. I start my mornings and end my evenings by checking my email, studying dog training videos (as…
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Reflections on My Left Foot
I ended up reading Christy Brown’s My Left Foot this weekend. (The movie stars Daniel Day Lewis. I watched that also.) Christy, born in 1932 as a middle child in an Irish Catholic family of 22 children, had cerebral palsy. The only limb he could control was his left foot— and he even learned to…
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What I’m reading
Not including manuscripts we are publishing, I finished I’m currently reading I’m currently editing
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Life as a working writer
I dedicated myself to my publishing business more seriously when I was laid off in September 2023. I have not worked a full-time job since. In true working writer fashion, I accept freelance writing and editing and journalism assignments, teach college courses when they are available and even serve as…
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The year of five
You know what I’m going to say, right? Happy New Year and all that. Which… I think I’m going to give up on the New Year concept and focus instead on anniversaries and birthdays. Did you know… Parisian Phoenix Publishing released its first book— Manipulations, the first (stand-alone) volume of the Fashion and…
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Spreadsheet season
I found myself embarking on an annual adventure that speaks to end-of-year traditions: spreadsheets! I designed an inventory spreadsheet over the weekend to track what I have in stock without going to my supplies and looking. By the end of 2026, according to the production schedule we have now, we…
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A holiday wish for our intern
This semester, I had the joy of working with intern Emily Lichius from Eastern University. Internships are a necessary evil in our society— with young people needing experience and not having opportunities like apprenticeships for tradespeople that offer it. We have a ridiculously expensive educational system that doesn’t really provide much in the way…
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Taxidermy cat?
I noticed what appeared to be a sleeping cat on the roof of a house. The way its hair looked, I wasn’t sure it was alive. And I wondered: Did someone put a taxidermy cat on the roof? I came home and told my daughter. When I told her I wasn’t…
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A Business of Writing curriculum?
The other day— it was Gayle’s birthday and a big one at that— I met Parisian Phoenix Art Director Gayle Hendricks for breakfast, primarily so we could walk through my syllabus for PUBL102 at Northampton Community College this winter. (You can still register!) PUBL102 is their self-publishing course, the second half of their former…
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The evolution of Parisian Phoenix
In my travels recently, I’ve heard a lot of things that make my heart happy. Even though words are clearly my passion, my business at Parisian Phoenix Publishing focuses on people— and my staff, authors and the artists who all contribute support one another and share a sense of community.…
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