Hugh Hollowell

Podcast Appearance: Soul + Practice Kathy Escobar and Phyllis Mathis interviewed me on their podcast Soul + Practice: Raw Conversations, Real Practices, and it went live yesterday. Kathy was an early role model as I carved out this weird life I have now - she is one of perhaps 5 folks whose work changed my life. I think I've known her for 19 years now.

Podcast Appearance: Soul + Practice

Kathy Escobar and Phyllis Mathis interviewed me on their podcast Soul + Practice: Raw Conversations, Real Practices, and it went live yesterday. Kathy was an early role model as I carved out this weird life I have now - she is one of perhaps 5 folks whose work…

RIP, Harry In the spring of last year, we ended up in the kitten rescue business. It started innocently enough - a stray cat had given birth to kittens in our backyard, in the hollowed out stump of an old pear tree. My wife, who does not do things half way, swooped into action.  In the 18 months since, nearly thirty kittens have passed through our house, and 10 adult cats have been spayed or neutered and then released back to their colonies, so they can live out their lives while not increasing the feral kitten population.

RIP, Harry

In the spring of last year, we ended up in the kitten rescue business. It started innocently enough - a stray cat had given birth to kittens in our backyard, in the hollowed out stump of an old pear tree. My wife, who does not do things half way, swooped into action.  In the 18 months…

Bio statements

Before the pandemic happened (correlation, not causation - at least, not directly) I spent a lot of time as a c-level speaker at festivals and symposia and conferences. I was often mentioned on the program under the phrase, "...and other exciting speakers!" As in, "Come hear Brian…

Maintenance work "In August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and---from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere.

Maintenance work

"In August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It…

In that kitchen

In that kitchen I learned about alchemy - the practice, if not the word. If I close my eyes, I can see the light filtered through the handmade green gingham curtains over the sink that move with the breeze. I can hear the news being read over the small radio to the left of the…

I love words, whitespace, and earth tone colors.

Maybe, in retrospect, I am not the ideal person to be designing this presentation deck.

Goodbye, affiliate links

If you google "best wireless printer", the whole first page is full of weird sites that have endless lists of printers listed, with links to Amazon or Best Buy or wherever. They are all affiliate links - you click a link and the website makes a percentage - often not just…

Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people but to offer them space where change can take place. - Henri Nouwen

1095 days sober is no small thing. Congratulations.

Whenever i have lots of open space on my calendar, I am deeply suspicious that I forgot to write something down.

No Relation, by Paula Carter

As I said yesterday, I'm playing with flash writing. I struggle, because I love words. But that is probably because the writers I have been most informed and shaped by also loved words. I love a good story. In other words, I need to read more writers who tell stories…

If the Shining had been placed in the South, it would have been in August.

Flash writing

In 1964, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, when attempting to define obscenity, that while he didn't know how to define it, he knew it when he saw it. I've been playing for the last week with Flash writing, specifically Flash Nonfiction, and as I've attempted top explain…

Kottke shoutout

My work on the web has always owed a lot to Jason Kottke. When I first started blogging at the end of 2003, he was my age, but already an elder on the blogging scene. A lot of my thoughts about blogging, the open web, owning your content, and publishing on your own site were shaped…

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglas

I'm considering a graduate certificate. They asked for a copy of my transcript from college. Found out I have a financial hold from1996. I have to call tomorrow about it. Probably have an overdue library book fine that has been accruing interest for 29 years, and is now $9674 dollars or something.

Hulk Hogan Dead at 71 Wrestling legend Hulk Hogan has died at 71 years old, TMZ Sports has learned.

Large?
Orange?
Racist?
Yells a lot?
Rose to fame in the 80's?
So close, Grim Reaper. So close.

www.tmz.com/2025/07/...

No takebacks.

The late afternoon light streamed through the large windows of the Starbucks. We were here to euthanize our relationship. We had not spoken to each other in weeks. “How are you?” she asked. She smiled, paused, and then looked down at the table to break eye contact. “I’m fine.” I…

Jacques Pépin Celebrates Turning 90 The beloved chef, who brought French cooking skills to the American masses, is celebrating his upcoming birthday with 90 parties around the country.

How I just love Jacques Pepin!

www.nytimes.com/2025...

The power company just sent me an email saying I could save a lot of money by setting my thermostat at 78 degrees, but I don't think they are factoring in the cost of divorce attorneys and alimony.

That's how you know it's bad.

This week's newsletter is in inboxes.

In this issue - some thoughts on realistic selfcare, as well as links to five things I thought were beautiful.

eocampaign1.com/web-...

Selfcare is…

In this week's newsletter, I wrote about walking, and humidity, and self care. I hate the term self-care, not because it isn’t important, but because it’s been co-opted by the marketers and the capitalists. But walking - even when I have to do it at 6am to avoid heat stroke - is…

We must learn to love each other or die. My neighborhood in Jackson, MS is lush and verdant year-round, which is one of the best things about living in the humid subtropics. The birdsong is constant, and the symphony of katydids rises and falls, and has at times arisen so loudly I had to go inside to be heard on the phone. I walk the same 2.5 miles most days - the dogs along the route know me, and I in turn know the trees where the cedar waxwings can be found, and the pine tree where the hawk that terrifies my chickens lives, and the house where the angry man who voted for our President lives, and the house where the bougie bohemian folk live, and the house where the man who came here to live from the Caribbean decades ago lives, and the house where the prominent Civil Rights activist lives, and I love that my neighborhood is big enough to hold all of them safely.

We must learn to love each other or die.

My neighborhood in Jackson, MS is lush and verdant year-round, which is one of the best things about living in the humid subtropics. The birdsong is constant, and the symphony of katydids rises and falls, and has at times arisen so loudly I had to go inside…

Program notes

I'm sharing my personal writing in three main places these days. I have a weekly newsletter where I write a short (~500 word) introductory essay about where I found beauty that week. The newsletter also includes links to five things I found that week I thought were beautiful, as well…

More influential than successful

I had a busy day planned to clean up my very overgrown yard, and spent about three hours doing that, when I was attacked by some sort of stinging insect and took two Benadryl as a result. This led to a 4 hour nap, and a hangover that is leaving me melancholy with…

The Gas Station | LISB Poetry, murals, and jellyfish.

This week's newsletter is in inboxes. I got blessed in a gas station.