Hello everyone!

Do you ever try things out, not knowing how they are going to turn out? Those snowboarding lessons. The art class. Picking a new hairstyle at the salon. It’s a bit scary, and it can be challenging to decide when to keep going, when to turn to something else instead. But no matter what you decide, you always learn something from the experiment, right?

When I started this author newsletter in 2017 it was an experiment to share writer tips and creative expression with the larger writing community. At the time I had some queries from readers about an author newsletter, and I gave some long thought to whether it was something I wanted to try. I already had my five-year-long blog, Lab Notes, in which I posted a variety of things. In the beginning it was primarily flash fiction, as a way to connect with the larger writing community. Then it slowly evolved toward stories about writing and my own practice. I also posted some serialized stories, “Haunted by Wedding Dresses,” and “It’s a Local Production,”  and the feedback from readers on those longer stories was interesting and helpful for my own writing. At one point I did an essay series called “The Productive Writer;” and later I did another essay series on mindfulness called “Being the Moment.”

Photo by Theresa Barker.

When I started this newsletter it sprang from the desire to provide more information on how to write, and to share excerpts of my work. I also continued with the blog as a more informal way to engage with the writing community.

Fast-forward to this fall, November 2018, in which I re-thought my writing direction for Lab Notes and this newsletter. With feedback from fellow writers, I have shifted my focus slightly on my Lab Notes blog, so that it will include information which I would have written about in this newsletter. I’m feeling excited about the re-focus for Lab Notes, and as a result I will be discontinuing this newsletter for the time being.

I hope you will continue to enjoy my postings on Lab Notes. If you want to take a look, click here.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and your interest! Happy writing!