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Me, Ruby van Jangles, and You

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Thank you for stopping by this rolling desk. Jump in for a ride!

#Vanlife: The Ruby Years

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Disagree Strongly
aka the Sound of a Million Wings Flapping in Unison—It feels like magic, doesn’t it, a group of individuals becoming not just united but shapeshifter?
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Holly Starley
74
Poems to Carry in the Blood
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" as part of a community project by Tara Penry
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Holly Starley
72
Ghost Rider
aka You Can Be a Better Human—Muffled words dangle, inches from where my head lies. A voice? Sleep jumps off me. Why is there a voice?
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Holly Starley
65
Two Places, One Frigid, One Balmy
One frigid, one balmy. A reading from an interview on favorite places and more with London-based travel writer Tom Fish.
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Holly Starley
25
Dude, Where's Your Car?
The desert’s a trickster, the sun a perfect foil. In truth, desert needs nightfall to disappear something as small as a car like the fancy rigs to our…
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Holly Starley
53
11:41
When Holly Met Ruby
Listen now | I’m about to cross the bridge over Coos Bay on bicycle. After that, another 130 miles. All the time, I'm eyeing the lure of a red van, just…
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Holly Starley
46
Top posts

Travel by Foot, Bike, Bus, and Train

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Travel Is a Topo Map
aka, Waiting for the Gringa: The moment my “weightlessness” dawns on me, time goes haywire. I pull up my pants and do the only thing I can. Run.
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Holly Starley
33
You Can Be Here
My bladder recognizes walls that hold space for entire worlds. An exploration of who gets to say you can't be here and the love of public spaces where…
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Holly Starley
43
What I Mean to Say Is Gracias
The bus disappears in a haze of golden flecks. There's not so much as a signpost. And I have to decide. What now?
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Holly Starley
85
Empty and Full on a Northbound Greyhound
The weight of my pack was shocking. So was the emptiness of the Greyhound station in Charleston, West Virginia. Maybe the fact that this was no longer a…
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Holly Starley
28

Posts from a Progressive Diagnosis

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I Give You Otters
This week, a side effect of one of the medications I’m on sort of hit me from out of nowhere.
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Holly Starley
94
Disagree Strongly
aka the Sound of a Million Wings Flapping in Unison—It feels like magic, doesn’t it, a group of individuals becoming not just united but shapeshifter?
 • 
Holly Starley
74
Mourning Walk
Back in spring, I got all Buddha-eyed and accepted pain. Or said I did. A fantastic update and a heartbreak offered up on a scale.
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Holly Starley
59
Whales and Warblers and Human Hearts
What are we here for? What's enough?
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Holly Starley
77

Tales from a 7-Month Trek by Foot

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A Pig in the Woods and Other Outcomes
“A hog?” He was incredulous. “What’s a pig doin’ in the woods?” I laughed. “A hawk,” I said, like it rhymed with lock. “You know.” I held out my arms…
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Holly Starley
17
Of Bears and Ants
“Her head”—Jill made a wide oh with her arms—“fit like this.” She breathed as if to fill her nostrils with the musk of fur and sighed like a purr. I…
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Holly Starley
13
Walking the East Coast
A serial memoir. Can I tell you about the time I lived for half a year out of a backpack?Can you tell me about your own walks in life so we can shape…
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Holly Starley
28
Looking for Love in All the Places
A lake called Ghost, a watching hawk, and tiny frogs formed from soil and bark are pieces of the setting for the drafting of a letter. The draftee, a…
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Holly Starley
31
Mike D and the Exquisite Jade Lincoln
For two hundred days, I wore a turtle’s shell on my back. I walked, and I rode, and I walked some more. I slept in hostel bunk beds, in fields, and on…
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Holly Starley
17

Stories on the Kindness of Strangers

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Thank You, Jesus
A guest post on the kindness of strangers by Tom Fish: "Not that day, not at Toronto Pearson."
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Holly Starley
 and 
Tom Fish
32
Travel Is a Topo Map
aka, Waiting for the Gringa: The moment my “weightlessness” dawns on me, time goes haywire. I pull up my pants and do the only thing I can. Run.
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Holly Starley
33
Cabbagetown and the Coco Cola House
Guest post by Duwan Dunn: "Bertha has lived in Cabbagetown for a long time, long before it was sane for any African American to do so. ... At first I…
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Holly Starley
 and 
Duwan Dunn
43
The Night Vigil
Guest author, Marya Hornbacher: "So sometimes you’re jerry-rigging a box cutter when a tall, slender boy walks over and says, Ma’am, I seen you…
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Holly Starley
 and 
Marya Hornbacher
75

Interviews, Collaborations, and Profiles

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Poems to Carry in the Blood
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" as part of a community project by Tara Penry
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Holly Starley
72
Eleanor Anstruther's "In Judgement of Others"
Author interview. "Most of my books begin from a point of outrage. I’m really angry about something. Or I want revenge. And then as I explore, I find…
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Holly Starley
 and 
Eleanor Anstruther
31
What I Think of After
Sean Renshaw--I think of how our brains can’t tell the difference between sand between our toes and the spray of a turquoise ocean misting the face in…
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Holly Starley
71
Row Like a Mother
“It’s like the Iditarod on a boat with the chance of drowning, being run down by a freighter, or being eaten by a grizzly bear.” Meet the first…
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Holly Starley
50
Home is a Portal to the World
5x5 with Rona Maynard. "I was a woman in love—not simply with my dog but with my corner of the world. Everywhere we went was home because we walked it…
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Holly Starley
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Rona Maynard
28
Recommendations
View all 24
Substack Writers at Work with Sarah Fay
Substack Writers at Work with Sarah Fay
Sarah Fay
The Audacity.
The Audacity.
Roxane Gay
Going Solo at the End of the World
Going Solo at the End of the World
Marya Hornbacher
Dispatches From the Fringe
Dispatches From the Fringe
Seth Lorinczi
Mary Tabor "Only connect ..."
Mary Tabor "Only connect ..."
<Mary L. Tabor>

Recent posts

View all
Walking the East Coast
A serial memoir. Can I tell you about the time I lived for half a year out of a backpack?Can you tell me about your own walks in life so we can shape…
 • 
Holly Starley
28
Workshops to Usher Our Hearts' Imaginings to the Page
Based on 20 years editing, each workshop shares patterns holding works back and prompts and exercises to usher them forward. Enter the joyful, freeing…
 • 
Holly Starley
I Give You Otters
This week, a side effect of one of the medications I’m on sort of hit me from out of nowhere.
 • 
Holly Starley
94
Disagree Strongly
aka the Sound of a Million Wings Flapping in Unison—It feels like magic, doesn’t it, a group of individuals becoming not just united but shapeshifter?
 • 
Holly Starley
74
Thank You, Jesus
A guest post on the kindness of strangers by Tom Fish: "Not that day, not at Toronto Pearson."
 • 
Holly Starley
 and 
Tom Fish
32
Poems to Carry in the Blood
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" as part of a community project by Tara Penry
 • 
Holly Starley
72
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