Cave Paintings

January 30th, 2023 One of the fun aspects of documenting memories and recording our own personal histories is the potential that you can inspire yourself. Scrolling through your past from your present, sometimes you come across the right time at the right time. In high school, I decided to create a mural. I didn’t knowContinue reading “Cave Paintings”

Popina Academia

January 15th, 2023 After a very eventful and exhausting week, I wanted to get back to the January theme of Origins. This essay asks: how has working in a restaurant for most of my life affected me as a writer? Let’s start with my restaurant history. Growing up in Faribault, I worked as a cornContinue reading “Popina Academia”

The Triumph of Never Growing Old and the Spirit of Never Giving Up

January 10th, 2023 “Dennis, Steve and I think you will be as great as Walt Disney but you need to know all the big WORDS! We hope this will help. Be creative?” – Inscription from a thesaurus I received in the early 90’s, from my Aunt Jan and Uncle Steve My obsession with Walt DisneyContinue reading “The Triumph of Never Growing Old and the Spirit of Never Giving Up”

Splish Splash

January 6th, 2023 I grew up taking baths. This is a weird way to start an essay, but I’m going somewhere with it. Our first house in Minneapolis had a tub (pictured here). The A-frame in East Bethel had a tub (which was disgusting, like the rest of the place). And when we moved toContinue reading “Splish Splash”

SKP 2023: Origins

January 2nd, 2023 Happy new year, friends. I decided to start this month on the second to give you all a day off from my bullshit. Every month this year I’ll be sharing posts based on a theme, with most of those themes being a creative project of mine. January’s theme is simple: origins. MyContinue reading “SKP 2023: Origins”

Sleeping Kitty Productions 2023

December 31st, 2022 Hello there. 2023 is a big year, as far as celebrating my (lack of a) creative career goes. It marks both 10 years of publishing books (a novella called Them, on April 1st, 2013), and 20 years since I released my first EP under the name The Next Step (Tangled Cords, onContinue reading “Sleeping Kitty Productions 2023”

Take A Picture

December 30th, 2022 I can’t get over this photo. It might be my favorite one of her. So, we made it? We survived another year? Survival is subjective, and not everyone makes it out alive, including the live ones. Parts of us we used to find essential rust or fade away; we discover new partsContinue reading “Take A Picture”

New Interview With Landon Shepherd!

December 28th, 2022 Gosh, I love this so much. I reached out to my friend Jennifer to see if her son Landon, an extraordinary young artist who I featured in Brushfire: Wave 1, had any questions to ask about the series or creating art in general. Boy, did he ever. I was hoping he’d haveContinue reading “New Interview With Landon Shepherd!”

Creator of Cooties

December 28th, 2022 “Sometimes I think the goal in writing a book is to ‘create energy’ – God save us from a raft of tepid reviews or (very possible in today’s publishing climate) no reviews at all.  If people are talking about a book passionately, that’s a good thing – we might even use thatContinue reading “Creator of Cooties”