Cold Snaps, Planning Ahead, and SolarPunk and MythPunk

Painting of Fennec Fox by Dewi Plass

Cold Snaps, and Lots of Sleep (and Movies and Books)

Well, as in much of the country, we spent the last two weeks shivering through a very cold, cold snap—we even had snow and ice enough to close down schools and roads for a couple of days. We had to cancel our winery book club on Wednesday because the roads were too dangerous. Glenn has been sick, so we haven’t been up to much here. We’re just now starting to clean up from the holidays, if you can believe it.

Seattle Snow with fox

Needless to say, this means I watched a ton of movies. I particularly enjoyed The Marvels—space cats! Beastie Boys “Integalactic!” Rap Battles! Space Jump Rope!—but I went into it having watched Ms. Marvel—which is a delight, if you haven’t seen it—and WandaVision—more serious, but also great—I laughed so much through the whole movie! I also watched Killers of the Flower Moon, whose main actress, Lily Gladstone, is phenomenal in her role, but I also bought the book by Linda Hogan about the same story called Mean Spirit. It’s a fascinating story of evil and murder in the Osage tribe in Oklahoma. I also watched Oppenheimer, which you would think was perfect from the number of nominations it got, but I know the story pretty well and thought it was too long, too talky, and didn’t focus enough on the destructive force of the nuclear tests and the dropping of bombs on Japan. (For instance, the Trinity site test killed a bunch of teen girls who were out camping and got caught in the fallout—but no mention of that! But sooo much boring politics!) A lot of great blink-and-you-miss-them cameos from really great actors in that movie, though.

In terms of reading, I also finished my re-read of Isak Dinesen’s Winter’s Tales and am starting a re-read of Wit’s End by Karen Joy Fowler for book club next month.

Towhee on bird fountain

Filling Out Paperwork and SolarPunk and MythPunk

So, one fun thing to look forward to is a brief writer’s residency in the Palm Desert—I’ve already started packing mini-sunscreens! In the unfun time before that, though, I’m applying for some unfun medical stuff, doing my taxes, and applying for the NEA Grant. The medical stuff is discouraging, and taxes are never fun, but doing the NEA prep work actually led me to an interesting discovery of new genre descriptions.

So, while I was working on my project description, I came upon a discussion that some of you might find interesting. There is a term that describe science fiction that has an optimistic outlook on both social and environmental issues called SolarPunk, and a type of science fiction that looks through the lens of mythological characters called MythPunk, My next manuscript, besides having poems on plagues and disability, actually has both SolarPunk and MythPunk aspects. I’m tired of writing futuristic dystopias that come true (see: Field Guide to the End of the World, published in 2016, and see how many things I uncannily described in advance! Eerie!) The next manuscript does deal with difficult issues—like disability, and our four-year plague, and the environmental crises—I’m not into denial, but more thinking about how the path to better things happens.

Dewi Plass winter scene with snow leopard cub

Anyway, I’m trying to pick ten poems for the NEA sample, always so difficult (as I haven’t won an NEA grant yet, I’m apparently not great at picking out poems for their readers!) I’m looking forward to having a writer-friend date this week, getting back into normal routines (it seems like 2024 has had an inauspicious beginning so far, but hopefully it gets better), and hopefully I’ll get enough done on the grant application and taxes to not feel guilty taking a week to focus just on my work.

But I’m going to set my intentions for 2024 as being a year to restore—my health, my relationships, and my hope, even in the midst of war and chaos. More joy, less handwringing over things I can’t control. Less fear, more taking steps to live life as well as I can while I can.

I included these two paintings from artist Dewi Plass because the first reflects this time of hibernation (sleeping Fennec fox on book about dragons) and the other an abundance of winter wildlife, arctic owls, ermine, and snow leopards. I am wishing you lots of good hibernation times, hopeful dreams, connecting to nature, and also to our levels of hope for the future.