Cruznotes | Strong starts, noteworthy links, and a 2 month recap!
Excellent episodes. Links of note. Creative chaos. Enjoy!
Hi friends,
I can’t believe it’s been two months since I last reached out! December left a lot of unfinished business so I wanted to wrap things up before sending a big email. So here’s what happened in December of 2022 and this January.
The Arts Calling Road to 100 Episodes™ began in January. We are currently at 93 episodes, and I’m still thinking of how to celebrate this milestone. In the meantime, I wanted to try a new format and highlight a few projects/releases from my guests!
#73 Rhonda Parker | Rhonda kicked off my conversations in December. She has excellent content on her YouTube, so be sure to stop by!
#74 Margarita Saona | Margarita’s latest short story collection, The Ghost of You, is now available for pre-order! I am so grateful to Laberinto Press for connecting us! Margarita and I will be meeting up again down the road to discuss her collection in detail, so stay tuned!
#75 Joseph Fasano | Had the absolute pleasure of reading Joseph’s remarkable novel, The Swallows of Lunetto, a powerful story about a young couple’s escape from fascism at the end of World War II. Now available here!
#76 Monica Macansantos | Check out Monica’s latest short story collection, Love & Other Rituals, a collection of stories about Filipinos at home and in the diaspora, out from the University of Melbourne's Grattan Street Press. Links here.
#77 Lynne Jensen Lampe | Talk Smack to a Hurricane, Lynne’s poetry collection, now available here from IceFloe Press!
#78 Tara Stillions Whitehead | The Year of the Monster available from Unsolicited Press, and They More than Burned, now available from ELJ Editions!
#79 Julia Duffy | Julia’s audio drama, Things Unsaid, now available here!
#80 Dominique Gordon | My dear friend Dom’s album, SANE, now available here.
#81 Camille U. Adams | Phenomenal time with Camille learning about the memoir form! Visit Camille on Twitter for more insights!
#82 Bri Stokes | Bri is a writer, curator, and journalism student, stop by her Twitter to check out her artistic perspective!
#83 Laury Leite | Laury writes novels in Spanish and they have been translated into English recently. Check out some of his works here. Special thanks to Luciana at Laberinto Press for connecting us!
#84 Zaphaniah Sole | A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands, the new crime novel by Zephaniah, is now available from Black Spring Press!
#85 Jim Clayton | Don’t miss Jim’s amazing musical livestreams on FB! More info at Jim’s website!
#86 Donna Spruijt-Metz | Donna’s poetry collection, General Release from the Beginning of the World, now available from Free Verse Editions!
#87 Samantha Silva | Love & Fury, a novel about Mary Wollstonecraft, now available for pre-order! Her previous novel, Mr. Dickens and His Carol, available now!
#88 Anuradha Bhowmik | Brown Girl Chromatography, Anuradha’s poetry collection, now available from University of Pittsburgh Press!
#89 John Becker | Check out John’s plays and video productions on YouTube as Jouska Productions!
December was a busy time at the coalition. We gathered poetry, short fiction, and visual art for coalitionworks issue number 2! I released it at the beginning of January.
This issue is chock-full of beautiful writing from all over the world, and I am really proud of the issue design. The reception has been so kind and inspiring: I hope you check it out too! Here’s a brief audio recording I made about putting together the issue.
After we completed the publication, I switched gears to finally conquer one of my audio play scripts. I am happy to report I completed a production draft of A Whisper to the Dark in January, and will be producing it with the help of friends sometime soon (fingers crossed)! Since then, I wrote a one act about drunk-driving in Wyoming and am working on my latest full-length. Hitting my stride.
I've been writing short journal entries on and off at cruzfolio.com to vent, document insights, and to share a few creative experiments. There, you’ll find The Writing Record audio journals as well. Here are the main ones:
We had a spell of about three days when our average temp was -30 degrees. We were at home fighting with our furnace. Before that, I made a quick video musical interlude. Here it is.
Oh yes and the album I made for fun at home during the pandemic sees the light of day.
Pedro Pascal interviewing Willem Dafoe. I can’t tell you how much I love Willem Dafoe and his courage as a performer. His old school approach to the craft rooted in experimental theatre is quite something after all this time. And of course, Pedro Pascal hell yeah!
I heard from Reddit that the massive Chinese adaptation of Three Body Problem is now available online for free (with subtitles). You know, if you’re into that sort of thing!
I’m sure a lot of other stuff happened, but I’ll leave it there. I’ll bug ya again sometime in March. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I commend you for all you’re doing to improve your life and that of your loved ones. May you be happy and free. Much love,
j