Friday Inspiration 485 Today is the last day to sign up for this session of my How To Tell One Story online writing workshop! As of my writing this on Wednesday evening, there were still a couple spots available. We’ll open registrations again in August, but this is it until then. If you’re curious about writing, or want to write and just need a framework and some “kind and encouraging lessons” (as a past student put it), you can read more about the course and/or sign up at this link:...
9 days ago • 2 min read
The Actual Size Of The Hill Is Irrelevant About twice a week, sometimes more, I ask myself if I am truly up for the challenge that day: The Hill. It’s always on my way home, in the final mile of my run, and I can avoid it by making a left turn during the second-to-last mile, going a different way home—the flatter route, the easy way out. Most days I tell myself a story about not taking that easy way, that the route to personal growth is always the difficult one: The Hill. Some days, though, I...
10 days ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 484 AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM ME: After 150+ people took my How To Tell One Story online writing course this past winter, we've decided to offer it only in limited windows for the rest of 2025. The first signup window is May 16 (today!) through May 23, and we're limiting the number of spots. Why limit the number of spots? Because of one big change: When you complete the course, I'll give you personalized feedback on the story you wrote during the course. That of course takes...
16 days ago • 3 min read
Friday Inspiration 483 This is a year old, but WOW, building a scale model of the timeline of the history of the universe in the Mojave Desert—in a day. (video) Anton Krupicka doesn’t write very often on his Substack, but the last piece he wrote about why his dad continues to shovel snow into his mid-70s, and about his longtime friend Joe Grant, and about singlespeed bikes, was a great read. I had a nice chat last week with Tyler Dempsey for his Another Fucking Writing Podcast show, and after...
23 days ago • 1 min read
A Regular Person's Guide To Surviving An Ultramarathon By the time I toed the starting line of my last trail race, I should have run about 500 miles over the course of the past 16 weeks—if I were following one of several online training plans created by respected running coaches. I had run about 320 miles. At dinner the previous evening, my sister-in-law had asked if I felt “ready” for the race, and I laughed, then sighed. I mean, kind of? I wasn’t really “toeing the starting line”—I had...
24 days ago • 11 min read
Friday Inspiration 482 This movie is of course not playing where I live but I am really excited to watch it when it becomes available. I love imagining them bouncing ideas for a title around, and eventually saying, “Eh, let’s just call it ’Secret Mall Apartment.’” (video) I don’t know what exactly to write to recommend this 45-second video of two NBA players (Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson) hugging each other before a playoff game (and after Love had just lost his father), but if you’ve had...
30 days ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 481 Music recommendation: This performance by Gallowstreet, a Dutch band composed of seven horn players and one drummer. (video) You really only need the headline of this story to know that these two ladies are rad, but the story is kind of touching too. Headline: Two women have sent each other the same weathered birthday card for 81 years (gift link) To balance out the many links to actual poetry that I seem to have been including in this newsletter lately, may I present...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 480 I bring this up in so many conversations about the idea of “adventure,” and I’m excited that it’s finally becoming a series of short videos: Several years ago, Alastair Humphreys and Tom Kevill-Davies decided to try to go to London restaurants from around the world, from A to Z—Afghanistan, Bolivia, Cambodia, and so on. This is the first in the series. (video) I signed up for the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day email a few weeks ago and I have zero regrets,...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Maybe Next Time. Maybe Not This is a photo of the southeast ridge of a mountain called Sentinel Peak, at the north end of Lake Hawea in New Zealand: The guy in the photo is my friend Martin. I took this photo on March 6 on our way down from the summit of Sentinel Peak, because, I mean, look at it. This is a photo of my brother-in-law, Tim: He’s Australian but has been living in New Zealand for eight years now, after he and my sister-in-law, Whitney, got married. When I got back to his house...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
