Blowing on embers

A new year, a soft pace, and what's coming alive in Unfixed

Happy New Year, friends,

Whether you’re beginning the year imagining how you might fill a fresh calendar, or sitting quietly with the spaces between those dreams, I hope you cup those glowing embers and blow on them gently—holding intention, willfulness, and exhale in careful balance.

I’ll be doing the same: some days already marked in ink, others held in sacred spaciousness. It’s easy for our days to fill with to-do’s and tasks without noticing how constantly our inner lives are in receiving mode, taking in more than we ever metabolize. This year, I’m committing to kinder boundaries around that input—commuting, cooking, exercising in silence; protecting early mornings and evenings from digital communication; nurturing the analog; turning off even more notifications; trusting there is enough time to get it all done and still make room for an expansive exhale. Breathed gently, that exhale is what keeps the embers of your dreams alive, giving them enough air to glow, and, in time, to become fire.

From that openness, I’m looking forward to the mores that come from less: more reflecting and writing, more silent walks among moss-heavy trees, more stillness, more listening. More allowing what’s already alive to breathe. More attention to the non-human memoirs composing themselves all around me, their leafing arcs occasionally joining mine, if I’m lucky.

And speaking of memoir, Unfixed continues to reach hands and hearts far and wide. I’m still not quite sure how it’s possible, this babe of mine now with a life all her own, but I’m sitting back in gratitude, watching her blossom in this strange world. May the love and encouragement you’ve breathed into my journey return to you multiplied in the year ahead, for yourselves, and for all beings.

Here are some Unfixed happenings, past and future. In the spirit of more spaciousness, don’t indulge in all of them. Pick one, and trust it carries the message you need most.

LISTEN, READ, WATCH or JOIN

• For those who missed my conversation on The Rise Podcast with the luminous Sara Connell, you’re in for a treat. Sara’s good energy could power the solar system; I consider meeting her on my book tour one of my most fortunate moments of 2025. Tune in!

  

• In December, I spent a lovely thirty minutes with CBS anchor/reporter Emily Burris on KOIN Conversations discussing the Unfixed, the documentary work preceding the memoir release, and how we can feel gutted and sucky while at the same time know we’re on the right path.

• Read the feature story in Oregon Arts Watch, that ended with this doozy of a quote: “Grief to grief. Wonder to wonder. Journeys of the heart, seekings of the soul: Unfixed is what comes when a poet writes a book.” Thank you Fran Gardner!

  

• An interview with 1859 Magazine will hit the shelves January 2026.

  

• Shelves Bookstore selected Unfixed as one of their Reading is a Lifestyle Book Picks and I’ll be joining the group on 1/11 at 3pm PT. To learn more about their book-loving community, subscription service, or to join our conversation, visit this link.

  

• Unfixed is the I AM ALS Book Club January book club pick. If you’d like to join on 1/15 at 6pm PT, register here.

  

• DNA Surprises Podcast will air my conversation with host Alexis Hourselt on January 20th. Hands down, one of my favorite chats to date. Alexis’s genuine, empathic curiosity created a space where entirely new questions could emerge, questions I’d never been asked before.

  

• For Colorado residents, I’ll be at the Boulder Bookstore on January 20th at 6:30pm in conversation with Stanford board director Jane McConnell. Get your tickets today!

  

• At last! Writing the Unfixed Life begins February 2nd from 9:15-10:30pm PT. For four consecutive Mondays, I will be sharing creative space with an intimate circle of writers, new and seasoned, identifying the central ecosystem of our stories and befriending uncertainty as a catalyzing element in the telling and shaping of them. There’s room for one or two more participants. I’d love to share this space with you. Learn more.

  

• I will be speaking in-person at the Woodstock Book Festival next April so anyone nearby, mark your calendars! April 9-12, 2026.

  

• I was also invited to share in-person at the Open Secrets LIVE storytelling event in NYC on May 2, 2026. New Yorkers, I’d love it if you joined us!

  

• Next October 4 - 7 I’ll be teaching a 3-day seminar Beyond Resolution: Stories of the Unfixable at the picturesque Bjorklunden, Lawrence University’s North Campus.