The Things Not Named
A conversation with Joshua Doležal--come listen in
Won’t you please join Joshua Doležal and me
As we talk craft and good writing tomorrow—Monday, December 8, at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET—on the (first ever) live version of his podcast The Things Not Named. (First live, not first episode. A year’s worth of episodes, all brilliant listens, await if you haven’t yet dug in. So don’t miss them.)
And holy smokes, have I missed you
And I’m working my way back to you.
Sometimes that looks like me on the road in a whole new (for me) way—weaving in and out of cities and towns in strange patterns I want to draw out and read like tea leaves as I deliver food to people I rarely see. Sometimes, it’s walking out / waiting out a med adjustment here or there. Sometimes, it’s prepping Vivian the van for a return to the road familiar. Sometimes, it’s working on workshops I can’t wait to host. And often, and this is the part I love best, it’s my face lit by laptop screen, words spilling out in strange patterns I want to draw on your heart.
My heart jumped at the chance to talk writing
This thing that fills every moment I can spare. This thing that’s always filled the core that makes me me. This thing that’s guided the choices strung together like beads on a chain to make my life. That will form the beads not yet added. That’s opened me and gutted me in all the right ways. That’s brought me again and again to us, to you.
And Josh—have you “met” (read) him? you should—is the perfect conversation partner for the topic. A writer and award-winning teacher who made the difficult decision four years ago to resign from a 16-year tenure faculty position, he’s a scholar with heart. Though we’ve never actually spoken, we read each other here on Substack. And I know him to be sincere, deeply thoughtful, and soulful. I was delighted and honored when he asked me to be his final guest of 2025. Read his work here at The Recovering Academic or check out his memoir, Down from the Mountaintop: From Belief to Belonging (shortlisted for the 2016 William Saroyan International Prize) or his poetry collection, Someday Johnson Creek, which sits among the stack on Vivian the van’s equivalent of a nightstand.
Every night, I stand and look at the sky
And isn’t it wild to realize that, if another me were looking back from the stars, she’d be seeing a time before I existed?
I sometimes feel far away from the life a younger me expected I’d live. And sometimes, I want to look back and say, No, baby girl, this is the life you were always forging. You just can’t see the true shape of a thing from a great distance. And both are brilliant—the imagined and the formed. It’s like the resemblance between finished pieces (or as close as you can come to such a thing) and first drafts. It’s like naming a distance in years.
Here’s what to expect when I come back to you: Episodes from “DoorDasher Confessions.” Snippets from the two memoirs that have me in their grip, both pouring out of me simultaneously. A whole lot of fun in a series I’ve not yet named.
Once again, please join Josh and me on The Things Not Named. Just click this link to our live conversation tomorrow at 10 am PT / 1pm ET.
And before you go, in case you haven’t seen the latest with my other venture, Caravan Writers Collective, we’ve announced our next season. And you can find some wildly good deals here—for the next week (till December 12), 25% off on the entire season for everyone, plus some stellar bundles. We decided to go crazy low on prices as often as we can, cuz we know times are tough, and we just want to write with writers whose work is benefited by joining our courses and workshops and community. (If you’re a paid Caravaner or become one this week, you get 50% off. So make sure you use those links.)
Indulge me, if you will, in highlighting three of my favs: In January, On Travel Writing, a three-day bootcamp on journeys exterior and interior w/Marya Hornbacher and me, will be lively & super generative. Paul Corman-Roberts and I have a four-week series in Jan/Feb, Submission Sweatshop—for me, the be-the-class-you-wanted-to-see offering. It’s us who’ve been sweating—compiling everything you need to know about getting your work into the world (literary journals, contests, fellowships, residencies, & more). Then in March, I’m debuting Braiding Truth to Power. The braided from is a fantastic vehicles for resistance, writing that speaks to social justice, climate, and political issues without being didactic or simplistic. And we need that right now. (My [introductory to braiding}, Braid It! is back [though different each time] by popular demand, as well as a series on getting your own work ready for print, Self-Edit Like a Pro, and a fun one on hermit crabs and more, Get Weird.)
Join us every Saturday (9am PT) for a Free Write-In with prompts and guided exercises. And like I say, I know times are tough. If there’s anything here you’d love to be part of that’s not quite in your budget, hit me up. We can work something out.
And won’t you please, if you haven’t yet
So great to see your name in my inbox!
Sending love your way, and huge appreciation for the many ways you show up in this life, especially in these symbols we call words.