A few days ago I received an email telling me I’d been accepted into an excellent looking workshop/retreat, led by primo-supremo writer Dan Chaon. I’m floating a little right now, especially because this workshop takes place in Fairyland, aka the English Countryside. You can visit the website here: Word Theatre Writers’ Workshop & Retreat.

For a week in July I get to speed off to other climes for what I hope will be a rejuvenating writing experience. You can bet I’m over the moon about this one.

In other news, I had a phone interview on that same day for a dream job (aside from being a writer, this is perhaps one of the only other things I can imagine doing for the rest of my life). I don’t know how it went exactly–I lean between it went well and I destroyed my chances by babbling about it being a ‘dream job’ at the end. Sheesh. In any case, if I somehow am able to wow the forces that be and I actually get the job, it will be life changing. That’s about all I can say about it right now without freaking myself out again.

In less than three weeks now, we’re packing our bags and will be driving to Seattle. Most people reading this blog will know we decided to move, but just in case you didn’t, come Feb. 1, this girl will have evacuated the concrete land that is Dallas for a greener (literally) world. I really can’t wait. We’re leaving almost all our possessions behind and are starting over. A good friend of ours is renting us the bottom floor of her house. We’re ready to begin again, in the right place for both of us.

I’m also working on a story right now that must be finished before I go. I’d started it several weeks back, but now more than ever I have an impetus to finish it. On New Year’s Eve, a young woman who was very dear to several of my friends was murdered near her home in Austin. I didn’t really know her, but I knew who she was, and to know that violence is so close, so easy to ignore but always trembling beneath the surface, keeps working at me. So I’m writing this story, knowing she was murdered, trying to pull shards out of death and put them into some meaningful order. Very rarely can anything come of a death like this but pain and grief. I’m not sure what I expect to find in this story that says differently. The story is only trying to offer companionship to the ones who lose their lives, to ones who don’t get to speak back, who don’t get to smile or laugh and share with us again. Even if the words are only a whisper, I hope they can channel a reprieve from the chaos this loss brings.