I’m excited to announce that I will be reading some of my poetry as a Literary Artist at the Utah Arts Festival! Click HERE to find out more.
Initially, I was supposed to read poetry at the UAF in 2020, but the pandemic stopped that, and I’m glad. Staying home and staying safe helped to save lives. While staying home, I wrote, read, changed jobs, started freelancing, and prepared to move out of state. Over a year later, I’m living in San Francisco, advancing my career and brainstorming ideas for a new novel. I’m thrilled to be reading some of my poems at the UAF once again, and I can’t wait!
Check out my post about my first poetry reading at the 2018 UAF here.
slick cement steps rise from broken slabs slathered in stuck gum, garbage, and shit. a reek of piss from a stained corner, the edges are always dirty so it’s best to look up, but watch where you step.
I’ve been prepping for my upcoming Poetry Reading at the Utah Arts Festival. I’m not looking forward to leaving SF for a weekend but I know it’ll be a good change of pace to get out for a bit. While I prep, I’ve been taking long walks, trying out coffee shops in downtown SF, and reading more.
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crisp blue sky creases against skyscrapers. glass, steel, cement, wood, warped, twisted into visions of the future. a cry, fog horn bellow, sirens, and the rushing hush of voices, tires spinning on the pavement. a city, breathing, alive under a crisp blue sky.
It’s been a wild month. After a whirlwind of trips and apartment searching, I’ve moved to San Francisco. Now I’ll be a writer in San Francisco! At first, my boyfriend and I were planning on moving in 2022, but since rent prices were so low, we decided to move, and I’m so happy we did.
At the end of May, we took a week-long vacation to SF and visited all the tourist attractions. It was relaxing and indulging in our freedom after spending over a year inside during the Pandemic. We needed the break, and the change of scenery was an incredible relief. And as a writer, San Francisco is such an inspiring place full of the beautiful, ugly, and complicated.
When we went back to Salt Lake City, we were distraught, missing SF immediately. Thankfully, my boyfriend had been applying to jobs for a few weeks to see if he could snatch something up). And then, a few days after we got back into town, he got a job! We were stoked. I bought our plane tickets, and we flew back to search for an apartment. We were back in SF precisely a week since we left. During all this craziness, I wanted to flex being a new transplant, a writer, in San Francisco, but there was no time!
We moved into our new studio apartment a few days after that, and now we’re settling into our home. My boyfriend started his new job, and I can work wherever with my full-time remote job. Everything’s just effortlessly slipped into place, and I feel like the city has gently swallowed us up. I can’t believe that I’m a writer in San Francisco!
Compared to Salt Lake City, SF has more to offer us; it’s a better match for our lifestyles, interests, and the weather that we love (cool and overcast). Plus, for the first time, I’m finally living close to the ocean, something I’ve always dreamed about.
Are you a writer too? Are you looking for a beta or alpha reader to review your work? Learn about my services HERE.
After Moving I’m Back to Writing
It’s been over a month since I last published a blog post. Between moving and wrapping up my Internship, I haven’t had time to write and read my books. I’m aching to get back into the groove. And I’ve decided to break the ice with this introductory post to starting our lives in a new city. I can’t think of a better way as a writer in San Francisco to talk about our move than to blog about it!
What am I planning? Putting together my Pandemic Poetry collection that I will publish in a limited edition digital and print Zine. I’ll be mailing these to everyone who bought a personalized poem last year while I was unemployed. After this, I will open up the Zine for free downloads to the public. This is a lot of work, but I’m enjoying the process of putting it all together.
At the same time, I’m editing my novel and selecting poems for a reading at the Utah Arts Festival. I’m excited to share my work, see people in the flesh, and mingle with other poets.
San Francisco Re-opening After the Pandemic: A Writer’s Observation
We moved to SF right as its opening up. The city is busier than when we visited at the end of May, and the traffic is insane. People wear masks out of habit or preference, and some places still require masks and social distancing.
It’s comforting to be in a safer city since the Pandemic was taken seriously here; SF is one of the very few places in the U.S. to have achieved herd immunity. I feel safer and more relaxed here compared to Salt Lake City. Being fully vaccinated since early May, we can take advantage of SF and go without masks.
It’s weird to switch from being home all the time to going out and being around so many people. I missed going out; I missed meeting people in person and being out there instead of experiencing the world through the safety of screens.
There is so much change sometimes I feel like my head is spinning. But these are all welcome changes, and I’m ecstatic to explore my new home city, write, and meet other writers.
Poetry Practice: Choose a word and write a poem. Ideally this practice works best when you pick a random word every day and push yourself to write a poem.
Rolling thunderous clouds smother the tops of trees,
a brush of wind, a lingering electricity hovering in the
air. A crack, snap, as a wiry white finger touches earth.
A glittering of water, drops plunk, plop, tap tap tap
This past month has been something else. I haven’t been posting as much as I process what’s going on in the world and my personal life. Big changes are ahead even though the past year is still revolving in the back of my mind. The U.S. is opening up, some people are vaccinated, and the Israel–Palestine crisis is reverberating throughout the world. It feels like so many are scrambling to return to life pre-pandemic but the world is not the same and there is no going back. What happens to those of us stuck in the past? Stuck in our political ideologies? What happens as we split in two, one focused on the past and the other focused on the future? These are questions that keep revolving in my mind as I prepare to move out of state, fully-vaccinated, ready to handle whatever comes my way. I feel like a sponge that is still soaking up everything that’s happened; can I decompress, process, and clarify the various thoughts that swarm inside my brain? What’s next? My upcomingPoetry Reading at the Utah Arts Festival in August. See my About page for more details.
