The Star – Tarot for Writers
But for the first time, I am sharing a card from a different deck – also by Rachel Pollack, in collaboration with Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean – called the Vertigo Tarot, which draws from characters from the Vertigo DC comics, including The Sandman. It is the antithesis of the Shining Tribe in its darkness; for a long time, I was actually afraid to buy it. But in the words of Gabrielle Roth, founder of 5Rhythms (and we’ll be doing some somatic practices and dance at the Grove which are very loosely inspired by her powerful creation), “There is no way in unless we embrace the dark.” As we are about to mark two very dark years of Covid, I am excited to share with you the the beauty and release that I have personally been finding from that embrace.
Ten of Stones – Tarot for Writers
My preoccupation, lately, has been about my path. What is it, really? The question comes out of rupture: just the latest in a list of personal and societal ruptures that we have all been dealing with, for much longer than just the no-good-horrible-very-bad year of...
Nine of Birds – Tarot for Writers
So I pulled a Tarot card today. This one, for us, in preparation for our virtual convening, The Grove. Honestly, I was hoping for something inspirational, something like The Star to indicate rebirth and a new beginning. I know – and I say it all the time – that...
WE CREATE OUR OWN MONSTERS, a conversation with Amy Danzer at The Rumpus
(September 24th, 2018) "I read Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s recently released novel, Shadow Child, in preparation for a panel I moderated at Chicago’s thirty-fourth annual Printers Row Lit Fest (PRLF). Shadow Child is a captivating mystery that centers around Lillie—a...
Once Upon A Time in Hiroshima
"When I was growing up, I knew very little about Hiroshima, and what I did know was typical of what many Americans knew: that the bomb was a marvelous weapon that saved lives and ended the war. When I was about 30, however, I interviewed my great aunt who had been in...
Fiction and the Chaos of Trauma
As a writer, and a woman, and a human, I've thought a lot about trauma. And in this cultural moment of #metoo, gaslighting, nationalism, disenfranchisement, and violence against just about every kind of human that is not a replica of those in power, and also our...
Hawaii vs. Trump
Hawaii’s fight against Trump’s Muslim travel ban has long roots of resistance In 1942, as the US president moved to exclude and incarcerate 120,000 people based on race, Hawaii chose to call B.S. My article on Salon.com details how the most decorated American fighting...
Gone Fishing
Fishing was everything to my father. It wasn’t the only thing — he was a math teacher, Dean of Studies, a college counselor and the head of the Lower and Middle schools at the Hawaii Preparatory Academy. He loved rowing and took Iolani’s crew to...
The Thriller in the Shadows
Have you ever been writing a story that you thought was “completely made up” only to find it has absorbed details from the world around you? Or that your plot is stubborn about the path it wants to take, and that that path, on second or third look, takes you in a...
Keeping the Faith – Tarot for Writers
I have been thinking a lot about the artists’ vision. I spent four days at the CraftBoston holiday fair with my partner, a ceramic artist, surrounded by incredibly beautiful handmade objects. Every artist had a different vision. Some found their collectors more...
