Tim Manley

BRB in a few months. Going to revise a project I’m excited to share soon

Good-lookin bird!!

I frequently find myself looking forward to the next Kacen Callendar book. Whatever and whenever it will be, I will read it.

Today I will lead a storytelling workshop with some teens. I’ve done this a hundred times before. I am, of course, terrified.

I read Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School before bed this past week. I found it at the library, wandering the rows looking at spines, collecting a stack I’d always considered reading. I brought them all back to my desk and read the first pages of each.

Fuck this!

I totally believe it. I’m so jealous of all those words. I have no idea what any of them look like but they bring semi-fantastical images to mind

I really enjoyed reading this and now I’m going to check out Leafskin!

Soon all the green things I don’t know the names of will return for spring and summer, and it will be harder to walk to the big tree I’m trying to befriend. I already barely visit the tree. Next time I do, though, I bet I’ll enjoy seeing all the green things returning or returned.

(This experience happened for about fifteen seconds before it was time to do everyone’s dishes. I am trying to believe these in-between moments can be enough.)

On a misty morning I drink coffee and look out the window. Maybe I’m wondering if I’m supposed to be thinking or feeling something. I have an empty mind, but I don’t know if that’s a sign of wisdom or stupidity.

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On Saturday I’m taking @1demerith.bsky.social’s class on movement for writers. I’m always trying to discern how much of my work should come from deep in my body, and how much from my regular dopey brain. On Saturday, at least, we’ll try the body.

learn.slc.edu/courses/writ...

Far too easily. And thank you! I’m optimistic for the week ahead. Also pessimistic, but.

I love that book so much. Enjoy AWP!

This morning I was trying to quickly prepare everyone’s oatmeal and I accidentally knocked our French press into the sink. It shattered, and the coffee went down the drain. An inauspicious start to the day. Dark energy. I’m approaching the afternoon cautiously.

My mother would be enthused!

One night around this time last year, I was driving home and saw a frog in the road. Then another. Then another. Hundreds of spring peepers were emerging from their hibernation and crossing the road to get to the creek downhill. I had to drive very slowly.

Why Electric Literature Isn't Applying to the NEA - Electric Literature The NEA’s new compliance requirements are anti-trans, so we aren’t applying

The NEA's new compliance guidelines are anti-trans, so we aren't applying. Today, we're asking our readers to stand with us. Please donate to help us raise $15K to replace our annual grant by April 15.

Read the full statement from Halimah Marcus: buff.ly/PJ0P801

I am attempting a new routine. I must write two journal pages, drink a full glass of water, and stretch for fifteen minutes, before doing any work. I’d really rather get right to work, but the routine consistently improves my focus and decreases my anxiety. It’s very frustrating.

On the drive home from and back to my kid’s school, I’ve been listening to Micaela Blei’s Audible Original memoir You Will Not Recognize Your Life. It keeps us in scene, with just enough detail to experience what’s happening, and just enough backstory and reflection to feel the weight. I like it.

Two years ago I dreamed up a very strange magazine. Now it's real. I can't put into words what it's meant to me to conjure this thing, pack it with the fifty writers and artists I most admire, and put it into the world. I hope you'll get one, read it, love it.

Got one! This is cool

One night, after my five-year-old went to sleep, I wrote a letter to a friend. I found an envelope and even found stamps, and her address, and I walked the letter to the mailbox. She received it a few days later, and she wrote me back. What an incredible life.

Yikes

“Coming back to a level of real relaxation and ease in between working” is something I’m aiming for in my daily routine. I have a tendency to thunk my head against the wall for hours. I’m trying to learn to occasionally walk away from the wall. Thankfully there are always dishes to do.

It feels serendipitous to come across an answer I needed in this conversation between two artists I admire.

@esmewang.com talking with Andrew Garfield in @thebeliever.net:

I’ve been watching Tick, Tick… Boom! for the first time and this is the exact conversation I didn’t know I needed. Thank you for this.

My brother hangs out with my kid two afternoons a week, and stays over the night in between. This means he and I get to regularly go out for the first time since we lived together in Queens. We were in our twenties then, and I remind myself we are once again living inside what will become memories.

Last night while cutting carrots and sweet potatoes, I got lost in a memory of working in the woods in the winter. I wore my shirt as a skirt. But it was a scene from Stag Dance by @torreypeters.bsky.social. I know this even though it didn’t feel that way.