For my upcoming show, Rooted, I have the honor of working with dozens of inspirational performing and visual artists. Over the next few weeks leading up to the show, I’m going to use this space to tell you more about them and their craft. You can check out my first interview with Niff from last week.

Today, I’m super excited to share an interview with Haley Harmon, a longtime friend and creative schemer. I am always inspired by Haley’s approach to creativity and how she really follows her gut when it comes to exploring curiosities and bringing ideas to life.

She’s created album artwork for a variety of projects I’ve done in the past and I knew I wanted to have her make the covers for both the singles and the final image for my Tree EP (out on September 4th!!).

I asked Haley to share more about her work as an artist and the process she uses to create. Enjoy my interview with her, and please share your takeaways in the comments! Also, if you’re not subscribed to her substack yet, it’s time.

Haley’s designs will be available for sale at my show on 9.11 and 9.12. You’ll be able to grab her “Love me like a mangrove” tree and other prints from the album artwork she created!

1. Tell us about yourself. How did you get started as a visual artist and what is inspiring you these days?

I have always loved beautiful and weird things, I was a tiny tchotchke collector (hoarder) as a kid. I was never in a position to be able to afford all the treasures I wanted, so I got creative and learned to make my own.

I also won a coloring contest in my Daisies girl scout troop when I was five and I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.

My early creative influences were the small lovingly curated boutiques in the little beach town I grew up in. The yard sales my single mom and I would peruse on weekends. The TV show Trading Spaces, and my aunts who were avid home magazine readers and expert crafters.

I went to college for graphic design hoping that I would be able to make both art and money, fell into textile design, and got to spend the first part of my career designing home products for Urban Outfitters housewares department.

I am currently most inspired by folk art. I love to see what people made pre-social media, not for performance and without clear instructions. I love people who made beautiful things because it fulfilled some innate desire within them. They had to rely on their intuition and not youtube, they had to use the materials available to them, and the only real point was to surround themselves with beauty. I love the quilters of Gees Bend, the mind bending work of Howard Finster, and Fraktur art of the Pennsylvania Dutch.

2. How do you approach commissions for your art versus other projects that you are designing?

I look at commissions as collaborations. Hopefully folks are coming to me because they have seen something I have made that makes them happy and want me to solve their problem or translate their idea using my visual language.

I look at my personal projects as a practice of putting things that I wished existed into the world. I make the t-shirts I wish existed. I mean why don’t the mummers or Ina Garten have merch? I love to make patterns. I taught myself to paint after I accepted an invitation to be in an art show. Personal projects are all about exploring the beautiful bits of my heart and tossing them out into the world to share and hoping they connect to some little beautiful bits in someone else’s heart.

2. How did you approach this project conceptually? What inspired you?

The first thing I did to tackle this project was to listen to the beautiful music you made! It felt really honest and heartfelt. I knew you wanted each single to have its own artwork, but that they also needed to work together as a set so when I came across this image in my favorite book America’s Traditional Crafts I knew it was the direction I wanted to go.

Picture Block Table Rug: Artist Unknown c. 1845 Region Unknown

You were clear about which themes you wanted to emphasize for each song whether it was mangrove, cherry tree, roots, or branches so I explored each of those themes visually with simplified cut paper illustrations that reminded me of the appliques on the quilt.

I also wanted them to feel a little weird and surprising, not trite and overly polished. I wanted it to feel familiar-ish, like your grandmother’s quilt but from another dimension. lol. I added a clean modern font to juxtapose with the crafty paper cuts. Then I sent them to you and hoped it was what you were looking for.

3. How did you approach this project practically? Can you share your step-by-step process?

I start every project by pulling images and sketching from them. Illustrator Tom Froese calls this “drawing in o mode” or observation mode. When you are drawing from observation your brain gets to download information about your subject. It’s just exercising your noticing skills. You’re saying to yourself, “What about this visually makes it a mangrove tree?”

Then I start simplifying the shapes by cutting them out of paper, this is also a way to play with scale to make things look a little unnatural, like the size of the flowers on the cherry tree. You just play and exaggerate and see what feels right.

Then I scanned the papercuts and brought them into Illustrator. I turned the shapes into vectors so I could easily play with the colors and lay out the text.

4. How did you land on the final version of the album artwork?

Anne Lammott has this phrase that rings in my ears, “trust your broccoli”. It’s what she says to herself instead of trusting your gut. I don’t know why but I find myself saying “trust your broccoli” in my head all the time. I’m still learning to trust my broccoli, but the more I relax into it the better my artwork becomes. I think I followed my broccoli to the final version of this art.

5. What are you working on currently and what is one thing you’re excited about outside of visual arts?

I’m currently working on a painting for your sister and brother in law (lol), a series of paintings of mermaids and my newsletter.

One thing outside of visual arts that I’m excited about is the youtube pilates channel Move With Nicole. I am someone who has always felt very disconnected to their body, and to be able to practice movement by myself in my basement for free is a really big gift. I was so fascinated by your interview with Niff because she looks so grounded and fully embodied, like she really enjoys playing around in her meatsuit. Maybe I’m disconnected from my body because I call it a meatsuit. Anyway, it’s got me really excited to see the show!

Thank you, Haley, for sharing your wonderful self with us! I had NO IDEA that she cut shapes out of paper to make my album artwork. I love, love seeing behind the scenes of my friends’ processes. Share what resonated in the comments :).

Inspiration

🎧 It’s my first week of the semester and GAH, I love my students so much. Music education majors may be the most weird and wonderful brand of humans that exist. At 7:15 AM on my first day, one of my second years found me in the parking lot and wanted to mutually celebrate her callback for the top level choir. They bring so much energy to the table and it can’t help but make me feel excited about possiblity, too.

🎧 I’ve been working with the aerialists for Rooted at rehearsals and their acts are truly awe-inspiring. A rope loop act where the rope itself is twisted and twirled like the roots of a Mangrove tree! A partner act where someone holds their partner in a neck hold using the rope! A spinny lyra moment that is quiet and expansive all at once. I can’t say enough, and I hope you’ll come and be inspired by it, too.

Creative

🌟 We’re in release season, friends. “Roots” (my favorite song on the album) comes out this Friday and the full EP comes out next week! Eep!

🌟 There is so much going on with this show that it’s all I’m thinking about/working on in my free time. It feels good and so creatively fulfilling to have a project with many arms. This week, we’re:

• Designing lights (and possible projections) for the show

• Nailing down music cues and arrangements

• Hosting our final open practices with the aerialists

• Coordinating craft vendors, food, and drinks (Shout out to Donna for helping with this!)

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you trust your broccoli.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

For my upcoming show, Rooted, I have the honor of working with dozens of inspirational performing and visual artists. Over the next few weeks leading up to the show, I’m going to use this space to tell you more about them and their craft.

First up: Niff Nicholls. Niff is an aerialist and owner/director of Secret Circus, the venue for our show. I’ve known Niff since 2009 when I first started taking classes and gravitated toward her as a coach. When I approached Niff about developing Rooted at Secret Circus, she was immediately supportive and on board. Not only does she run the school, but she also develops and designs all of the shows there AND is an aerialist who performs and trains folks all over the country. We are extra lucky because she is performing a piece in Rooted!!

I asked Niff to share more about her work as an artist and the process that she uses to create and cultivate community. Enjoy my interview with her, and please share your takeaways in the comments!

Niff will be performing a dance trapeze act to my song, “A Guardian and a Thief,” on September 11th and 12th. The song was inspired by the mother in this book.

1. Tell us about yourself. How did you get involved with aerials and what is your background as an artist?

My name is Niff Nicholls, and I am the owner and director of Secret Circus in Philadelphia, PA. I have been teaching and training in the art of aerial for over 20 years.

I actually came to aerials through curiosity. A friend of mine had started taking classes, and when she showed me videos, I was fascinated by the way the silks and rope could be wrapped and manipulated into knots and pathways around the body. That really caught my attention. And, of course, the fact that she could suddenly do pull-ups was a pretty compelling bonus!

My background is actually in illustration. I loved storytelling through pen, ink, and paint, and I spent years thinking visually and exploring how composition, shape, line, and movement could communicate an idea or emotion. Unfortunately, I developed nerve damage that eventually made fine motor skills like drawing and writing by hand extremely difficult, and I had to let that part of my artistic practice go.

Then I found aerial arts—and something unexpected happened. Aerials didn’t ask my hands to do the things they could no longer do. Instead, it gave me another medium for creativity: my entire body.

I began approaching the apparatus the way I had approached drawing. I wanted to discover new shapes, pathways, lines, and compositions. I started thinking outside the box and using the apparatus not simply as something to perform tricks on, but as a tool for creating visual art with my body. It was incredibly fulfilling to create again, and I haven’t stopped since.

2. What led you to start your own circus school?

Oh, this is a box of worms!

I never actually intended to open my own studio. I did it out of necessity.

I had been teaching and training for about ten years and was running the aerial program at another school. I poured a tremendous amount of time and energy into growing that program, developing safety standards, training teachers, and cultivating artistry. I also created some of Philadelphia’s first recreational circus shows.

Eventually, my former employer and I reached a point where we fundamentally disagreed about the standards I set. I was let go, and I was subsequently sued over a non-compete agreement that ultimately had no grounds. The lawsuit was eventually dropped.

That experience was incredibly difficult, and I still have a lot of trauma from it, but it also forced me to ask myself what I actually wanted to build. I knew I wanted a place where safety, creativity, artistry, and community weren’t competing priorities—they were the foundation.

That’s where Secret Circus came from. I named it Secret Circus because, at the time, I was honestly trying to protect myself from any more conflict or abuse from my former employers. What started as a few points in the back of a CrossFit gym has slowly grown into a school with an incredible staff, a wonderful community of students, and a life of its own.

The thing I’m most proud of is that, despite all of that history, our mission has never really changed: the highest standards in safety, creativity, artistry, and community.

3. When you look at all Secret Circus has accomplished over the past decade-plus, what are some things that you are proud of?

It is honestly crazy to think that Secret Circus is only 11 years old. I feel like it has been part of my life forever.

More than any particular accomplishment, I am most proud of the people who have made Secret Circus what it is.

I am incredibly proud of my team of coaches. (You can check out the coaches here.-Sarah) They are masters of their craft, but more importantly, they genuinely care about their students. It is an absolute honor to mentor and to learn from them every day. I think one of the greatest gifts of building a school is realizing that eventually your students and your teachers become people you can learn from, too.

I am also incredibly proud of the creativity I see in our students. I always joke that I draw the kind of students I want to teach, and holy cow, they constantly floor me with their imagination and artistry.

A lot of my colleagues joke about their students constantly sending them videos of tricks or sequences they saw on social media and asking to learn them. I can honestly say that has almost never been my experience. My students are incredibly curious, but they aren’t interested in simply reproducing someone else’s work. They want to discover what the apparatus can do for them. They are willing and able to make this art form their own.

That is really special to me. I think the most meaningful thing a teacher can do is give someone the tools and confidence to develop their own artistic voice.

4. What is your favorite apparatus and why?

Everyone would probably assume my answer is dance trapeze—and while there is DEFINITELY a special joy for me in trapeze, I actually love all the apparatuses.

I have always studied multiple apparatuses because I wanted to be able to “cross-pollinate” ideas—to take a concept, theory, or movement pathway from one apparatus and see what happened when I brought it somewhere completely different.

When I started spending more time innovating on trapeze, there weren’t nearly as many people working in the ropes of the trapeze as there are now. That gave me a lot of room to experiment. I could take ideas I had discovered on silks or rope and ask, “What happens if I try this here?”

And the best part was that it almost always led somewhere unexpected.

Even after 21 years, I’m still finding new ways to play up there. I think that’s what I love most about aerial: the feeling that you haven’t figured it out yet. There is always another pathway, another shape, another theory to unlock, another possibility waiting to be discovered (at least for myself!)

5. How do you approach developing acts? What is your artistic process like?

I usually start with a feeling that I want to process.

From there, I look for sequences, shapes, and movement qualities that help me express that feeling. I think about movement very much the way I used to think about drawing and painting. I look at the composition of my body in space and think about the “darks” and “lights,” the highs and lows, the negative space, the lines, and the overall visual composition.

Interestingly, I usually find the music somewhere in the middle of the process. I don’t like starting with a song because I don’t want the rhythm or structure of the music to dictate my ideas too early. I want the movement to exist on its own first, and then I look for music that reflects the emotional and visual landscape I’ve created—not the other way around.

I think of my acts as little therapy sessions. For me, the process of creating the piece is actually much more fulfilling than performing it.

Performing is probably my LEAST favorite part. Haha. I hate costumes. I hate being the center of attention. And no, I wasn’t always this way—but I think with age comes wisdom, and being a teacher has made me inherently want to see my students shine rather than stand in the spotlight myself.

What I do love is sharing something personal. I love taking an experience or an emotion that I’ve carried and translating it into movement, then allowing someone else to see themselves in it. If I can help someone process their own grief, joy, fear, or relationship with their body simply by watching me tell my story, then that feels incredibly meaningful.

6. How did you approach the act for Rooted in particular?

This act is particularly meaningful because I originally created it to a completely different piece of music. It was a cover of “Cowboy Take Me Away” by Fireswimmer that my husband and I edited together with lots of space and ambient sound.

When I first created the piece, I wanted to create an act that felt like driving in a car with my hand out the window down country roads when I was a lovesick 16 year old.

So creating the same movement now to a piece about a mother who is dying and a daughter who isn’t ready to let her go might seem like a complete 180. But for me, it actually isn’t.

At the center of those memories is a car my parents gave me—a used 1988 Toyota Cressida. My dad was a mechanic, and he fixed it up for my 16th birthday. My mom worked three jobs for much of my childhood so that I could participate in all the things I loved. She drove me to swim practice, cheerleading, painting lessons—everywhere.

And because it was the ‘80s and we were driving around in a beater car with no air conditioning, the windows were always down.

So that feeling of the wind, the cornfields, the feeling of being next to her is right there. Right in the center of my heart.

I lost my mom suddenly in 2019 after a devastating series of illnesses. We had argued plenty over the years—especially when I was younger, “We fought in the kitchen” so often because I was every bit as stubborn as she was—but as a woman, I called her every day. And I always felt like I could never possibly love her enough to equal the amount she loved us. (Note: “We fought in the kitchen” is a line from the song for Niff’s act.)

When she died it was so apparent how much she held together by her fierce and steady love for us. No one loves you like your mom, if you’re lucky.

So when I took this existing movement and allowed it to become a story about my mother, about loss, and about the seeds she planted in me, the piece took on an entirely new emotional life. The movement was already there, but the meaning underneath it had changed.

It is an honor to share that story onstage—and, honestly, it’s a little scary, too.

7. You’ve built a school that provides so many opportunities for artists to not only train but perform. Why is the performing aspect of aerials important to you?

Because this is a performance art.

It isn’t gymnastics, and it isn’t yoga. It is meant to be shared. This is an act of love for art and for storytelling. We train and bruise our bodies. We lift one another—sometimes literally. We fail, and fail, and fail again, and then we get back up and try again. We blend dance and theater and athleticism into one language.

We are a spectacle of human possibility.

We hang from our feet. We lift and drop. We spin. We wrap and tangle our bodies into shapes that don’t seem possible on the ground. And somehow, through all of that, we communicate something deeply human.

Why do we keep coming back?

Because there is an indescribable feeling that comes from lifting your own body into the air. The weightlessness of a spin can feel like flying. There is something almost primal about discovering that your own body is capable of doing something you once thought was impossible.

To me, the magic of circus/aerial is in taking that physical experience—the strength, vulnerability, fear, beauty, and sheer power of the human body—and turning it into a story that can be shared.

That is why performing matters to me. We don’t just train to do tricks. We train so that we can communicate, connect, and make someone in the audience feel something.

To showcase our stories and the sheer power of human beings is magic- and I think it deserves to be shared.

Thank you, Niff, for sharing your art with us and for creating a space where others can share as well! I hope you’ll check out Niff’s work, come take a class at SC if you’re in Philly, and watch her perform next month!

Inspiration

🎧 I’m reading through two books that are making me rethink my teaching strategy for my technology class this year: Deep Work and Restless Devices. Both have me considering how I boundary my own screen time and protect space for boredom and rumination. I’m building a set of 15 challenges for my undergraduates (like taking a day off social media) to help them navigate their own relationships with technology. Do you have any challenge ideas??

🎧 A few days ago, my neighbor came by with leftover ice box cake. “Can you please finish this for me?” When you live alone and like to bake (or layer and refrigerate), and you don’t want to eat an entire cake alone, you need a family of five to gobble your leftovers and we are willing participants! But, it's made me think a lot about generosity and unfussy hospitality. What do we have in excess that could benefit a friend? A neighbor? How can I be a “help me finish this” type of person who always makes extra to share?

Creative

🌟 We’re in release season, friends. “Mangrove” came out last week, and my next single, “Cherry Tree,” comes out this Friday. You can follow the release here and get notified when it’s out.

🌟 Tonight I’m meeting with musicians for our first full rehearsal for Rooted. There’s been so much joy in the process of creating and bending music to fit the acts in the show, and I’m excited to hear how it sounds with everyone playing together! You can get tickets for either night here.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you fly.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

We were bemoaning all things music industry and the hustle involved for getting your work out there. Despite having just written an ENTIRE BOOK ON THE TOPIC, I am still constantly questioning the why of launching creative work. What’s the purpose?

I told Dylan that I was releasing my first solo EP this August and that I wanted to do something different. Instead of just uploading the songs to streaming and scheduling a release show, I wanted the work to mean something. To do something.

These songs felt precious. All five of them were written about people I love and subjects that break my heart open.

I would never have even thought of recording them until my friend John asked me to perform at a house show two years ago, and I dug “Cherry Tree” and “Mangrove” out of my personal songwriting archives and performed them alone in a cozy living room full of close friends and strangers.

Do these songs mean anything to anyone other than me?

This is what I thought, as I worked out arrangements and tweaked lyrics before the show. I felt silly digging some of these up. They were oddly arranged songs that captured moments of heartbreak and were highly personal.

A woman came up to me after my set with tears in her eyes. She connected with my music, my stories. She connected with the humanity that stitched the words together.

The answer to my above question felt clear. If my art can help anyone feel, help anyone heal, why wouldn’t I share it?

I decided to record all five songs and call them the Tree EP: songs and stories centered on metaphors involving nature.

But there was the issue of the release. Instead of asking “How should I release these songs?” I thought, “What do I want these songs to do?”

The music industry screams that in order to be successful as a musician, you have to optimize streaming (and there are so many strategies for this, involving time and money), play a ton of shows, and hustle on social media. It’s easy to take advice and follow it blindly without ever stepping back and asking a very personal and quiet “Why?” and “Does this version of success align with my personal version of success?”

In 2021, I attended a session led by my friend Jen Rafferty and worked to craft my professional why and whittle it down to seven words.

I connect people with creativity and community.

That’s my creative and professional north star. Does releasing music on Spotify connect people with creativity and community? Maybe? Does playing a bunch of shows? Sure, but I’m a mom and have 5,000 jobs. Does hustling on social media? Perhaps, but I can’t endure the soul suck that showing up there all the time entails.

So, how can I take this project and align it with my why?

The answer came to me in a rush this past May.

A CIRCUS SHOW!

It all made sense. I’d been wanting to connect my passion for live music and circus for the past decade and a half. I even asked one of my coaches to perform in a music video our band made in 2012.

Could I bring together a ton of women artists and develop a concept show that weaved these songs and stories with visual art and live performances?

I immediately texted Niff, the owner and founder of Secret Circus (and the rope artist from that music video!!), and she was in. For a month, I gathered my community members, and we nailed down the details. The concept for Rooted was born.

Songs and stories constructed in a quiet room with a guitar have blossomed into a show involving:

• Visual Artists: This incredible poster by my brother-in-law Elliott Woolworth, all of my album artwork (and t-shirt prints!) by my dear friend Haley Harmon, and a makers market will be at the show curated by the one and only Donna Ream and including my sis, niece, and other artisans!

• Musicians: Kenan, Chelsea, Melissa, Maura, and Claire will join me to play the entire show live—weaving together songs from my EP with newly composed pieces and songs that I’ve never performed live before.

• Aerialists: There will be hoop! Sling! Silks! Rope loop! Maya, Alice, Niff, Ashley, Chi-Wen, Molly, Trish, Cheryl, and Meg have created incredible acts to accompany the pieces.

• Spoken Word: My dearest Kimberly McGlonn will serve as MC, weaving poetry and spoken word throughout the story of Rooted.

• Lighting Design: Brandon is working with me to create lights and visuals that amplify the story.

Plus, sound engineers and photographers and, and, and I could go on and on.

It feels like I took all of my favorite people are coming together into a room to share their unique gifts and weave them, like the the roots of a Mangrove tree.

Connecting people to community and creativity.

I really hope you’ll come. I hope you’ll tell your friends. And I hope you’ll walk away feeling more connected to your own sense of creativity in the world.

Get your tickets here.

Over the next few weeks leading up to the show, I’ll highlight the work of some of the artists involved.

Inspiration

🎧 A big thank you to Sean and Matthew for having me on their podcast last week. I got to talk about my work as an academic and how I think about creativity and providing connections between research and practice. It was so fun, and these guys are doing such great work at West Chester. Read and listen below.

Sean Is Dwelling

Turn The Table Over: Sarah Gulish on Creativity, Agency, and Academic Publishing

Listen now

a month ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Sean Legnini

🎧 I already mentioned this, but my friend Jen just released an incredible book that should be required reading for every person working in education. You have agency. Here’s how you claim it.

🎧 I was talking to my friend Lydia about earworms this week and realizing that I always have a song in my head. ALWAYS. Unless there is music playing in nature, there is music playing in my brain. Are you the same? I’d love to know (it’s the researcher in me.) In case you were wondering, this is my current random earworm.

Creative

🌟 TOMORROW I release the first single off of my new album! You can stream “Mangrove” anywhere you listen to music. Just look for my name :).

🌟 I’m spending the week in the mountains while the kids go to sleepaway camp. I’ve been trying to write a little every morning and just got to page 50 of my new novel. I’m feeling really good about this one.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you root yourself.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

We did it.

We took our first international trip as a family, and I’ve hesitated to write about it because honestly, how can I sum it up in a post? If you know me personally, you know that this trip was more than just a fun family vacation. It came about as a much-needed north star when we questioned whether we'd all be healthy enough to make it happen.

It’s so strange to be on the other side of these experiences—experiences you’ve planned for, saved for, logisticized, and looked toward for years. It’s in the rearview mirror.

The pictures won’t show the moments when we were grouchy, tired, or when a child groaned “Not another beacccchhhh” as if they weren’t handed paradise on a platter 😆. They won’t reflect the moment when I looked at my kids and said, “Can you believe we are eating dinner with your cousins in Greece?” and one of my children responded, “Yeah, that’s cool. So anyway, did you know I just cracked all 10 of my knuckles?!!”

In reality, those moments were few and far between. Most of the moments were the good that you see. The food, the family, the deep connections to cousins and Yia Yias and Aunties and adventures that pushed us to our limits in the best way.

If you invite me over, I may screencast my photos onto your TV and tell you every tiny annoying detail. If not, these will have to do (based on how many photos Substack will allow).

1. Watching my brother’s kids and my own kids fall in step like 3 years hadn’t passed.

2. The South of France is insane, and I cried big tears when we left and had to say goodby to David and Wini.

3. Finding the light when we arrived in Athens.

4. Meeting Demitra on our first day. She couldn’t stop holding the girls (and attempting to hold Norris), grabbing their faces, and telling them how much she loved them.

5. The village where my kids’ great-grandparents came from.

6. Driving despite road hazards.

7. Make it a beach vacation but also make it a trip where you visit the graves of your dead relatives and have 100 Yia Yias touch your face and say “Bravo.”

8. Attempting to Greek dance at midnight in the middle of a soccer field.

9. Going on solo hikes to see the entire village and olive groves in Agia Marina.

10. Taking a family hike that nearly destroyed our children.

11. Leaving said hike to find a “restaurant” that was actually a Yia Yia’s house, where she made all the food fresh for us and had her grandchildren deliver it.

12. My first bite of Sfakian pie- a Cretan dish that I will keep dreaming about for months.

13. Snorkeling off the coast of Agia Marina.

14. Swimming all day and night. So much swimming!

15. Back at Manoli’s tavern where it all started. 17 years ago, Brandon and I stood here not knowing if we would find any family. We’re joined by our U.S. family, and Manolis son, daughter, and grandson.

16. At the Acropolis with those of my children who survived the 100+ temps to make it to the top.

17. An AI rendering of those who did not survive.

18. Our last night in Athens. Olive skin + Full bellies.

19. After a ten-hour plane ride, we still love each other enough to engage in airport bathroom shenanigans.

We did it.

Inspiration

🎧 Gosh, I read so many books on vacation. I really loved re-reading “Till we have faces” by C.S. Lewis. It was a favorite of mine in high school, and I haven’t read it in years.

🎧 I got a bouzouki on my trip to Greece in 2009 but never knew how to play it. I was determined to get help this time! I found a nice music store in Athens where they gave me a book with English translations and told me how to tune it properly. Get ready for some bouzouki music!

Creative

🌟 I’m full speed ahead with my fall show on September 11th. There is much to share in terms of art, music, and movement.

🌟 Next week I’m teaching a class that coincides with the Musikfest Music Industry conference. Have you ever been to Musikfest before? Are you going this year? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you go on an adventure.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

Brandon and I sat in Manolis Taverna and waited patiently as the waiter went to retrieve Manolis. In the meantime, food and drink started appearing on our table—wine, fresh bread, and feta salad.

After a few minutes had passed, an old man came over to the table and said hello.

“We are your family from America. I am Calliope’s great-grandson.” What ensued was a broken conversation where Brandon and Manolis tried to decifer their shared family tree through a series of photo albums at the restaurant. Seemingly satisfied that we were family (somehow), Manolis began introducing us to everyone in the restaurant. “Cousins from America!”

We knew that the time had come to show him the picture of the Greek women from 1980 and ask to be taken to them. My mother-in-law had assured us they would know where Brandon’s grandmother’s house was.

When we pulled out the Polaroid and asked him to show us where to find the women, he recognized them immediately and said he would walk us there once our meal was over.

The streets of Agia Marina were narrow cobblestone roads that wound through the hillside, with no clear pattern to the homes clustered throughout. When we finally got to our destination, Manolis knocked on the door, and a woman emerged. Dimitra, who we would later figure out was Calliope’s niece, looked like she was on her way out the door. Purse in hand, she listened patiently as Manolis spoke to her in rapid Greek.

She was delighted. “America!” She kept repeating and hugging us. She spoke very little English.

Dimitra said something to Manolis, gesturing toward the road and they were in negotiations for a few minutes until he finally translated their conversation. “Ok, Dimitra is very important. She is mayor of Chania!” (Mayor???) “She is going to party of the century tonight. Big party! Lots of people. Food. Music. You will go with her.”

Five minutes later, we were buckled in Dimitra’s car headed toward the city. The ride was painfully awkward as we all smiled at each other, not knowing how to communicate who we were or what the heck we were doing.

When we finally arrived at the party, Dimitra gestured for us to get out of the car and she immediately got to work running the show. We found a seat at a plastic table nearby and surveyed the situation. There were dozens of tables set up around a large food tent. Two speakers flanked either side of the tent and people were busily making final arrangements for the event. It felt like the Greek equivalent of a summer barbecue except for one important detail…

Everyone there was over the age of 65.

Aside from Brandon and me, every person at this party was geriatric. We were so confused at this party of the century. In a few minutes, the music cut out, and we looked up to see a Greek priest dressed in full garb with an impressive entourage enter the square. Everyone stood and became quiet. He started chanting through an Orthodox liturgy, and all the Yia Yias and Pappous chanted in response. We tried to play it cool but both Brandon and I were shaking with giggles halfway through the service. We had been kidnapped and taken to an alternate universe. There was no way to escape.

After the priest finished his party obligations, the celebration moved on to other events—like the great Yia Yia elbow olympics of 2009 where Greek grannies literally fought each other to get the most pastries on their plate once the food was blessed. We watched toothless women bring plates back to their tables with dozens of kalitsounia stacked precariously. The music was blasting, people were eating, Dimitria seemed to be milling about, and Brandon and I tried to move through the space and make up scenarios to make it all fit together.

At the end of the evening, Dimitra was cleaning up with a few others and it grew dark. Most of the old folks had left and there were just a few people sitting on plastic chairs and waiting patiently for rides.

One man, sitting tall in his seat and staring directly at us, spoke suddenly in perfect English. “Hello, there. Dimitra tells me that you are family from America. I am sure you are curious to know about this event you are attending.” He spoke like a broadcaster from the 80s with a slight British accent. It turns out this man had been trained in Shakespearean English and was the only human we ever met on the island who could converse with us. We were so relieved to get some answers. Who is Dimitra?? Is she really the mayor? Where are we? Can you tell her we’re Calliope’s great grandchildren? How is she related to us?

Spoiler alert! The party was not the party of the century. It was an event to bless the grand opening of a new retirement community. Dimitra was not the mayor. She worked for a city council person. But she was definitely and undeniably family.

When we got back to Dimitra’s house, it was clear that we would be spending the night. No question. She brought us a matching set of satin pajamas (new) that I still assume she was holding in her “if family ever comes and visits from America” bin. She fed us every piece of food in her home, introduced us to her husband Theo, a larger-than-life Greek man who wore ill-fitting tank tops and used Morse code to talk to friends for fun.

Brandon and I curled up in her guest room that night and whispered to each other from across our twin beds. “What are we doing here?” We felt unsure of our quest. Our only goal was to find the woman in the photo, and now that we had, we were unsure what to do next.

In the morning, clarity descended as we leafed through old photo albums on the porch and sipped dark Greek coffee. Dimitra had visited Pittsburgh in the 80s. It was why we had a Polaroid of her in the first place. As we leafed through the photos from that visit, Brandon excitedly pointed out the pictures of his mother and brother. “This is my mother.” “This is my family.” Dimitra’s eyes went wide as she learned for the first time who we really were. She started tearing up. Yes, yes, we were actual family from America.

Over the next few days, she became our tour guide. She showed us Calliope’s house, introduced us to the next generation of cousins, fed us, gave us gifts.

On our final day in Agia Marina, we sat at her table with Theo and her sister and held their hands, promising we’d return. Promising to keep in touch.

Tonight, we’re flying back to Greece 17 years later. Not only are we going to eat at Manolis, see Calliope’s house, and break bread with the cousins, we are bringing Dimitra our greatest gift.

Demi Jean, our 9-year-old, will get to meet the woman who she is named after. The two Demis, separated by seven decades, will get to break bread together and communicate through gestures and facial expressions. And all of our children will learn that their roots stretch far beyond Philadelphia, and Temple University, and Pittsburgh, and their Yia Yia, and her stuffed grape leaf recipe. That they stretch to a wooden table on a tiny village road where a mother and father decided to leave for America.

Inspiration

🎧 We’ve spent the last week in the South of France (can we all just start saying “Southern France” please?) and are leaving today. It’s the first time we’ve all ever visited my brother’s family and leaving is so bittersweet. The week has been nothing but inspirational. In no order, I’m inspired to:

• Keep in better touch with my niece and nephews

• Eat more meals on blankets with fresh bread and ripe nectarines.

• Walk

• Make music and art

🎧 Yesterday, we went to the medieval city of Albi and visited the largest brick cathedral in the world. I wish pictures would do it justice, but they just won’t. However, the kids did request this very reverent photo.

Creative

🌟 I brought a tiny keyboard with me on vacation so I could work on writing some music for the show in September. This MIDI controller folds up to be the size and shape of a cell phone and has so many functions.

🌟 Writing. Trying to find space to write when it’s there, but also being ok with lazy mornings and walks with the family.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you go on an adventure.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

It was the summer of 2009 and Brandon and I were laying on a dock in Chania, Crete, waiting for our rental car to arrive.

We’d spent the morning drifting around the town, looking for a café that would serve strong coffee. Luckily, the entire island seemed packed with places to pull up a chair and play a game of checkers while sipping the bitter dregs of a Greek coffee.

We were essentially boat-lagged, having slept a total of 45 minutes on the choppy ride from the mainland to the island. The ferry was like a cruise ship. You could pay for a private cabin and a nice meal, or you could shell out 20 Euros and spend the ride in the “airplane” style seats at the back of the boat. We weren’t the only ones who opted for those cheap seats—the entire area was full of Greek prisoners in orange jumpsuits, wearing shackles and sitting upright in their chairs.

After a few hours of attempting to sleep with one eye open, we gave up and headed for a balcony, watching the dark water for hours as we approached the island of Brandon’s ancestors.

We had told his mom about our plan earlier that spring. “We want to find your family.”

Tina, my mother-in-law, hadn’t been to her mother’s island since the 70s. She reminisced about how quaint it was back then, most of the hillside transportation occurring on the backs of donkeys.

She’d lost touch with her cousins, but had some clues from other family members who had returned in the decades since. She was convinced that if we told people we were the great-grandchildren of Calliope, her grandmother, they would “roll out the red carpet” for us.

Tina gave us a series of directives connected to cousins we’d never heard of along with a couple of weathered polaroids and a business card for a taverna owned by someone named Manolis. Her instructions:

1. Follow the map to the taverna and find Manolis (if he was still alive)

2. Tell him you are Calliope’s great-grandchildren from America

3. Show him the Polaroid picture of the two Greek women from the 80s

4. Ask him to take you to those women

5. Find the women and tell them you are family from America and want to see Calliope’s house

6. Prepare for the red carpet to be rolled.

Looking back on that conversation, she must have explained her family tree and how Manolis and these women were related to Brandon and his brother, but I couldn’t follow it.

So, as we sunbathed on the dock in Crete waiting for our rental car, we came up with a plan. We’d drive to our villa on the other side of the island, get settled, and try to find the town of Agia Marina, where his family lived.

When the rental car finally arrived, we were yet again reminded of how our inability to use a stick shift would cost us in more ways than one as we prepared to drive through the winding roads of the island.

Falsarna beach was a 45-minute drive up the coast. We didn’t pick it for proximity, but for the 35 euro nightly fee that included breakfast and other amenities. When we arrived, it was clear that the cluster of villas were largely vacant and that the wild landscape would be ours alone to enjoy.

After checking in, we drove our car down a winding path toward the beach with our windows down, bouzouki music humming on the radio. I’d never experienced being in an olive grove before and the smell was intoxicating—the air was humid and fragrant. Goats were roaming among the trees and bleating as our car ambled down the path.

To get to the beach, you had to walk down a series of stairs cut into the face of a rock. There was a bar at the top serving coffee and liquor and tourists positioned blankets and towels on the sand below. Behind the beach, there were a series of caves that opened toward the water.

On that first day there, Brandon and I watched in awe as a man sleepily emerged from one of the caves to walk up to the bar and scribble words into a notebook, sipping ouzo from a glass. I knew by the glisten in Brandon’s eye that I would have to ensure he didn’t stay on the island to become a cave person, too.

As the afternoon rolled on, we decided it was time to find the taverna.

Driving back along the coastline, we referenced the “map” in our hands. On the back of a taverna business card, there was a cursory drawing of the town of Agia Marina. On it were three landmarks: road, church, and Manolis.

We saw the signs first: Agia Marina.

Then, there was a large church connected to a road leading up the hillside. “Should we try it?” It all seemed too easy. We bumped along the winding street until we saw the restaurant as clear as day: Taverna Manolis.

We entered the restaurant and a hostess rushed to seat us outside under a trellis of vines. We struggled to communicate, but “wine” and “water” seemed to be understood universally. Finally, when our waiter arrived, we asked our nervous question, “Is Manolis here?”

“Yes, yes.” He answered.

“Can you tell him that his cousins from America are here?” There was some confusion and then we watched as his face changed, registering our request. “Family?” “Yes! We are family. From America.”

The waiter darted into the restaurant, and we locked eyes: Are we really doing this?

…..

Inspiration

🎧 I’ve been listening to Love Forms on audio for book club, and I enjoy the narrator so much.

🎧 I’m working on a composition project (more below!) and trying to find inspiration in natural elements. Some of you know I’ve been obsessed with mangrove trees for a few years now. Allie sent me this photo from her FL trip (this mural is on the side of a thrift store).

Creative

🌟 Save the date. On September 11th and 12th, I’m working with a collection of friends: musicians, aerialists, visual artists, and more to put on a show at Secret Circus Philadelphia. All of the songs from my forthcoming EP will be performed along with newly choreographed pieces by some incredible aerialists. I truly cannot believe how this vision is coming together and will share more soon!

🌟 I’m working on my second novel. It’s a crime story, so I’ve been knee deep in reading and watching crime-related content (not my typical fare). Does every crime story involve an over-the-top confession by the guilty party at the end? It seems so on the nose. Is that what we want? Readers, please chime in on this.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you go on an adventure.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

This post called for a picture of me at my desk holding a balloon. But alas, I had no balloon.

So, I took to Canva to turn this celebratory picture into an EXTRA celebratory picture, and things went…well, they took a turn.

Is there anything more whimsical than a lollipop pocket treasure? And what a GLAMOROUS diamond ring!

Ok, AI, I no longer feel like a failure. Thank you!

Anyway, back to being a reject. My dear friend Kat has an exercise she does with one of her classes at Berklee College of Music. It’s called a “rejection journal.” Every week, students have to go for something and journal about the rejections they received.

Some students put themselves out there for a gig or collaboration and get rejected. Others try to get a discount at a store and get rejected. Rejections in all shapes and sizes! And guess what? They get better at being rejected.

The truth is, if you are working in a creative field, you are absolutely going to be rejected. Many times. If you are not getting rejected, you aren’t trying things.

I felt this lesson so deeply this past week as I achieved 100 UNIQUE REJECTIONS on the manuscript for my first novel. And, like the aforementioned rejections, these have come in all shapes and sizes:

• Agents asking for a full manuscript and saying it’s not the right fit

• In-person pitches that turn into requests and fizzle out

• Straight up literary ghosting

• Impersonal “it’s not for me” emails

A few weeks ago, I wrote a note to myself: “If you query 10 more agents, you’ll make it to 100!”

On the outside, 100 rejections might seem like something to be upset about. But I know it’s not true—I know that it’s something to celebrate. It means that I put myself out there one hundred times to strangers because I believe in something.

It also means that I’ve learned so much through the process and become and even better writer.

I truly believe it. The worst thing I can do now is to hang up my hat and use the rejections as cosmic proof that nothing I make is good. Since I sit on the other side of publishing and have to field author submissions every year, I know that is categorically not true. Or, I could just spend my time asking AI to wallpaper every room of my house. Also a waste.

What’s not a waste is what the rejections taught me:

• Stories exist in a place and time. “Not right now” doesn’t necessarily mean “not ever.”

• I have so much to learn about story craft and I’m excited to do the work.

• I do actually want to be a writer. What started off as “I’ll try to write one book” has turned into an entire detailed outline for Book #2.

• I need to share ideas earlier and not create in a vacuum. I need community.

• Even if the story never goes beyond my beta readers, it still made people feel things. And I’m so incredibly grateful for that.

So, here’s to the next 100 rejections. May they continue to shape me into someone who can create stories that resonate and celebrate those bits of humanity worth celebrating. Now, can someone give this girl a real balloon?

Inspiration

🎧 Where do I even start. My book list since this last “Inspiration” post is longgggg. Just go get Joyful, Anyway and call it a day.

🎧 I LOVEDDDDD this episode from Hidden Brain. It made me think a lot about Slow Productivity and the importance of rumination. Let’s get bored again! Walk around the neighborhood without phones! (This one is for me).

Creative

🌟 Ok. Wheels are turning for my BIG idea. Let’s just say this: I’m producing a show in September. There will be music, art, circus, and poetry. Stay tuned.

🌟 I’ve spent this week doing a lot of “not fun” writing. I’ve been putting off some research article revisions for weeks now, and finally buckled down and did it. Guess what? It took me wayyyyy less time than I thought it would and I’m kicking myself for waiting so long. Point taken.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you get rejected.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

Ensue existential crisis:

MORE OPTIONS??!! FOR WHAT? My life goals? Meals? Ways to pay off high-interest debt?

It’s like the scammers know I tend to have a fixed mindset, even though I pretend it’s not true!

Here’s how I typically function.

Introducing Sarah Gulish’s 7 easy steps for receiving and applying critical feedback:

1. Make a decision about an entirely abstract thing that you are inventing and putting into the world.

2. Share this thing with someone else and ask for feedback.

3. Respond with shock and horror when they give constructive feedback to make the thing better, and try to wrap your head around how it could be any different. Start believing that it’s perfectly good as is and regret asking for feedback in the first place.

4. (Remind yourself that you tell your students to be open to feedback in their creative work.)

5. Feel like a hypocrite and try the suggestion on for size.

6. Recognize that it was ACTUALLY A GOOD SUGGESTION (or not, but made you value your initial decision) and tell yourself you’ll never be so guarded about feedback again.

7. Make something else, operate as if you have amnesia. Complete the same guarded cycle again and head back to step 1.

Last night, Brandon and I were walking to The Moth. The theme was “American Dreams,” and we both had half-baked stories. Mine was about the time I sang Bruno Mars with an iPad Band in New Mexico when I was 8 months pregnant. His was about growing up in a small steel mill town and learning about the “American Dream” through an epic trip to Greece in 2009.

While we walked down Girard Avenue, I suggested we recite our five-minute stories aloud and give each other feedback. It felt weird, but I launched into the story with all my prepared bells and whistles (including the climactic moment when I pretend to play the Horn Part from “Uptown Funk” on a tablet).

“It’s good.” He said. “But here’s how I think it could be even better…”

He started rattling off suggestions. Could I hold the tension longer? Could I shorten the ending to achieve a stronger payoff without being overly sentimental?

“Ok…” I responded, gingerly stepping over the cracked pavement on Frankford Avenue. “I just am not sure how to do that part of the story.” (Clearly in step 3 of my 7 step method).

I thought for a moment, told myself to stop being SO DANG DEFENSIVE and then tried again. “It’s better!” He said. I had to agree.

Then, he went through his story. “Cut out that bit about the prisoners and the boat ride! We don’t need it!!” I shared emphatically. Oh, how it is easier to give than to receive.

If you’ve never been to the moth before, you might not know how it works. Basically, you put your name in a bag if you want to be called up for a story. Less than 50% get called on any given night.

At 7:30 PM sharp, we clinked our glasses as the host got up to call the first name of the night…drum roll please…

Brandon Gulish!

I watched Brandon move onstage and tell a heartfelt narrative of his family, his roots, the people who made him (no boats were mentioned). It was so moving that multiple people came to us later that night to say they were also from Western PA steel mill towns and felt seen by his story.

Each storyteller reaches in the bag to pull the next name and Brandon pulled…drum roll please…

Sarah Gulish!

Yup. We went back-to-back with stories in the most cringy fashion possible. I got onstage and told the edited version, made better because I was willing to try some other options. Surprisingly, no one came up to me at the end of the night to say how they had also sung with an iPad band while 8 months pregnant and felt seen.

There were stories that spanned life experiences: international adoption, immigration against all odds, veteran stories, veterinarian stories, and the winning story of a mom who built a huge Abraham Lincoln top hat for her daughter. If you’ve never experienced the moth, maybe this Substack is your sign to try some more options with your free time.

Are you willing?

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

If you’re just here for the cookie fails and circus tricks, no hard feelings. I’ll see ya next week.

The Background

Over the past few years, I’ve been involved with the National Association of Music Merchants thanks to my friend, John Mlynczak. We were on a call a few weeks ago and when he brought up the fly-in, I felt an immediate push to clear my calendar and make it happen.

To be honest, I’ve felt completely disconnected from politics these past couple of years. I’ve stopped following the news. I’ve started wondering, “Can any of us actually make a difference on a national scale? Probably not. So let’s just care about our own communities.” I’m not proud of my apathy, I’m just trying to be honest.

What intrigued me most about this trip was the learning. To know that we would spend an entire day discussing educational policy and get trained in how to talk to our representatives. I want to know these things. And I want to be able to tell my students how to advocate for our field.

So, I booked an Airbnb and packed my bags.

Day 1: Networking (AKA Awkward Sarah)

I arrived last Monday night at the opening reception in one of the two blazers that I own. I know what you’re all thinking, “How did Sarah pack for a trip where suits and nice bags are a requirement??”

Lucky for me—Brandon asked me to be a body double for a commercial he was shooting last year and said he’d pay me in the clothes I wore for the shoot and the bag I carried. They’ve been sitting in the corner of my closet waiting for their big moment. It’s GO TIME, Baby, I thought as I ripped tags off of the pleather laptop briefcase and pleated khaki pants.

I struggle with these mingling opportunities. Even though I was there as “CEO of F-flat Books,” I hate feeling like I have to be all CEOish and try to network and make small talk about business.

So, all in all, the dinner was good. I met some lovely humans, connected with my PA team, and learned what we would be doing for the next few days. (I also got to make some BIG talk, my favorite, and learn about hopes and dreams from folks sitting at my dinner table.)

Day 2: Training

Day two was a 14-hour day that included training, state team meetings, and an awards event for celebrating contributors to the arts in education. Our team of delegates included some celebrity power, and it was great to meet Miss America (I learned that this is still a thing!), Queen Cora (drummer for the likes of Prince and Beyonce), and J. Dash (who famously wrote “Wop.”).

Everyone was there for the same purpose: How do we advocate for arts education funding and for tariff relief that will help instrument manufacturers get more instruments into the hands of kids?

My PA team was full of veterans who have been doing this forever. My biggest takeaways from the training were:

• I had no idea about some of the federal funding avenues for the arts (Title II and Title IVa specifically. Look them up!!!).

• People at my table were instrumental in getting music named as a core subject in 2015. Their consistent advocacy has directly impacted my work!

• Tariffs are crazy. We know this. But just how far reaching the impacts of these tariffs are on mom and pop shops and US-based manufacturers? It’s a lot.

• Data is important, but stories are more important. As I shared the story of my work as a music educator and how I advocated to have music added as a subject at my son’s school, it became clear that my lived experience was needed in these meetings. I saw firsthand how federal funding could close the gaps in a district like Philadelphia. As a music teacher, I didn’t need people to tell me that music changes lives. I watched it with my own eyes.

• If we don’t tell the story, no one will. Is access to music education the most important issue in the world? Not necessarily. But is it the issue I can speak to? 100%. It is the thing I have devoted my life to and care deeply about. If I don’t share this with our elected officials, who will?

At the end of the day, we had a list of meetings for Thursday divided amongst our team. We represented music stores, manufacturers, educators, nonprofit leaders, and arts associations in Pennsylvania. We each had a story to tell that connected to the larger whole of our ask: continue funding education and provide tariff exemptions for musical instruments.

Day 3: Meetings

We started our day with a PA breakfast group meeting with Senator McCormick. How these types of meetings work: everyone shares their concerns with the Senator and he connects you with the staffer connected to those issues (we focused on education and trade policy). Then you have an opportunity to share your story, make your ask, and gather information to follow up.

The rest of our meetings took place in offices where we met with various staffers for representatives connected to the districts we all live in. We also ran into Fetterman in the hallway:

I’ve heard stories of meetings that have been uncomfortable or downright volatile, but that wasn’t our experience. As we outlined the importance of funding arts education and making instruments accessible to kids, no one questioned it. They did, however, have specific questions about our how and why.

Maybe this is naive of me, but I had no idea that you could literally walk into a Senate or House building and go into your rep’s office and talk to someone. Even without an appointment! That these decision-makers are so accessible, and that it’s our right as constituents to tell them what we need.

I also loved seeing each of their offices. Some claimed hometown pride (like my own rep, Brendan Boyle), and others used their doors to communicate their values.

On the way out of Rep. Madeleine Dean’s office, I noticed these two sticky notes, and they renewed my hope in some of the humans that are running this country.

Substack just warned me that this email is nearly at its limit, so it’s time for me to wrap up.

It’s really hard for me to sum up everything swirling in my brain after this experience, but I’ll try.

1. It’s my job to know about educational funding. As a professor and advocate, I need to know these things to better serve my students and community. Because of the training and connections, I now feel equipped to go to the School District of Philadelphia and figure out how we can tap into these available funds to make sure that every kid in our city has access to music education. I didn’t know how it was possible before, but I do now.

2. Being a kind human is a bipartisan act. There were a few reps we planned to meet with that I completely disagree with from a political perspective. I thought it would be hard to put that aside, but it really wasn’t. It reminded me that sitting across the table from another human and speaking truth will always win over screaming on the internet.

3. Music affects everyone. In every meeting, we’d find musical connections. One of the staffers even turned out to be a student I taught in 2007! Finding those human connections was the first step in advocacy work.

4. I want to do more of this. So much in our government still feels like a dumpster fire to me, and that hasn’t changed. But I did walk away feeling empowered to affect the small corner of the world that I know and love. I want to help others do the same for their corners.

Special thanks to my PA team: Cindy from Martin Guitar, Mark from Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, Nadine and Adam from FU Tone, and Julia from the Namm Foundation (plus Beth from Brighton Music Store, who isn’t pictured!).

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

“I refuse to spend money on a couch when I just got a job that pays my bills!!!” I replied.

There was a lot of standing and floor sitting in my office this past year. August 2025 me wanted everything to be perfect before the first day of school—pictures on the wall, and a fully-furnished room with vibes.

I had to keep telling myself to be patient, to take time building and curating my work, not only in room decor, but in the larger scope of what it means to have a massive career shift. You won’t be actualized on day one (or ever); it takes time.

Still, I really wanted a couch.

Last week, one of my neighbors texted in our book club group chat: “Does anyone want this?”

The clouds parted, the angels sang, and I could barely get my fingers to the keys quick enough: YES!

—

The timing was perfect as I’m wrapping up my last week of teaching in my first year as a college professor.

I feel very strongly about the last week of school and about making it memorable for students. I felt this way as a high school teacher, and nothing has changed.

When I taught high school, marking an end to each year felt necessary. We’d write songs for departing seniors, throw parties, write reflections, and I’d spend hours writing notes to my students who were about to graduate.

I had the best intentions for this week. I thought, surely I can write individualized handwritten notes to all 100 (!) of my students, tell them what qualities I admire in them, and give them a pep talk for their years to come.

I even folded tiny, colorful cards and addressed about 30 of them when I realized… this is impossible.

So I pivoted. I gave an in-person speech to all 75 of my freshmen. I told them how grateful I was that we got to start our journey together, how I was so proud of them for being kind (!) and collaborative (!) and pushing outside their comfort zones. I started tearing up like a big softy.

But for the juniors?

I wanted to do something really special. They’re the first group of students to ever take my class, “Progressive Methods,” and all year I’ve been referring to them as “guinea pigs”, inviting feedback and collaboration to chart the direction of the course. Once a student suggested, “We should have a party with food,” I knew I would spend my weekend baking.

Google: Recipe for guinea pig cookies

Result: [images of recipes for special cookies that you FEED your guinea pig. Nope.]

Google: Recipe for guinea pig SHAPED cookies

Result: [buy this cute cookie cutter you can get from etsy in 3-5 business days; look at this amazing cookie influencer that makes guinea pig cookies that you will never be able to come close to recreating and even looking at them makes you feel terrible about the lack of cookie skills you’ve acquired in your 41 years on this earth; scroll; scroll; scroll; look at these guinea pig cookies I made that are kind of ugly but they work. BINGO]

The INSPO

This was a Gulish family effort.

Demi drew a guinea pig form on a piece of paper which we cut out to trace over some sugar cookie dough. My friend Carrie gave me all the royal icing tips and away we went.

The results

I sent this photo to my mom and sis.

They then mentioned that they thought they were created by my children. Nope. Just a grown woman trying to make a freaking guinea pig cookie.

On Monday morning, I brought in a tray of weird, edible rodents and handed them out to my students. For a class centered on exploration, trying new things, and being ok with failure, it was actually quite perfect.

I gave them a heartfelt speech, told them how proud I was of all their hard work, and said I had one final question for them before we wrapped:

“Would any of you be willing to carry a couch up to my office?”

#nailedit

Inspiration

🎧 I’m reading all of these course reflections and feeling so inspired by the vulnerability and empathy I’m seeing in these students.

🎧 I just finished reading “American Men,” and it was a tearful journey. Hats off to Jordan, who somehow made a non-fiction book feel like literature.

Creative

🌟 Thank you to everyone who came and supported Ashley and me at our show last week! Here’s a fun photo that Marci snapped.

🌟 I have a BIG idea. This always happens (thanks for staying with me, Brandon) when one thing ends. My brain is on to the next. I sent multiple emails this morning to friends for a massive collaboration on a live event this fall. More to come!

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you nail it.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

After every presentation, I ask the same three questions to the group:

1. What are the surprise wins that came about during the creative process?

2. What are some ideas that you really loved but had to abandon?

3. What do you think is the most important skill that you’re walking away with?

Their answers are really interesting. Two common themes are emerging:

The creative process is not linear.

You have to be okay with cutting really good ideas that don’t serve the project's end goal.

It made me think about my own process and how I approach creating when performing as an aerialist. Unironically, I’m in the throes of show week at my circus school and have been living with a creative piece that is most certainly not what I planned.

So, this post is in honor of all of the “great ideas” for the act I’ve co-created with my partner, Ashley. Behind all of the beautiful, artistic moments in our work, I promise there are a baker’s dozen of awkward fails that will never see the light of day.

Let’s say goodbye to some of these moments with dignity.

The “Cocoon”

Cocoon, you held such promise. So many shapes and interesting poses trapped inside your moldable form. It was a strong opening to the piece until…it wasn’t. And despite the fact that others in the gym called the whole situation “interesting,” the last nail in your coffin came when Sarah and Ashley never figured out a way to actually GET OUT OF YOU. Cocoon, you have been chopped.

The “Diaper Loops”

We know, criss-cross diaper loops, you were the cool new move on the scene. So much potential—interesting in a hipster, “I found it first” kind of a way. Like a corner coffee shop with dead-eyed baristas and shabby chic recliners. Sadly, no amount of coolness could take away from the constant struggle to get in and out of your clutches. Diaper loops, you have been chopped.

The Double Slack Collision

We get the appeal. A show-stopping finisher. A dynamic double drop when the audience is least expecting it. It could be awe-inspiring! But the way that Sarah kept barreling into Ashley full speed ahead until they both tumbled to the ground? Not cute. Sorry, double slack collision. Chopped.

—

I forgot to mention that my students also reflected on how it feels easier to try and fail when you’re doing it with others.

Creating in community—it makes the wins that much brighter.

Inspiration

🎧 I ripped through Yesteryear this past week. Have you read it?

🎧 One of my students shared an original song today with a lyric to the effect of “Pick yourself up, say the things unsaid.” I loved it.

🎧 At the PMEA conference last week, I watched the West Chester Wind Ensemble play this piece and it ripped me to shreds. Shreds! I can’t put into words what it felt like to hear this piece live. The recording won’t do it justice but I still recommend a listen.

Creative

🌟 I have a capstone project due for a faculty course that I’m participating in. When the facilitators said the project could be anything, I took that and ran. Looks like this course is about to get a new theme song. 👀

🌟 In two weeks, I’m traveling with a group of music educators and business owners from around the country to spend time on Capitol Hill meeting with our State Reps and advocating for better education funding. I’ve never done this sort of thing before and I can’t wait to share what I learn.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you aren’t defined by the ideas you release.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

I want to tell you about so many things and I’m also in that end-of-semester marathon where conferences are packed tight, final projects are due, and I have (of course) signed up for too many things.

But, alas! I got some good news this morning! I submitted an essay to a competition through this literary journal and learned it was accepted and will be printed this summer. This feels big as I have only ever published academic writing. This is the first published story from my perspective in my voice.

I’ve told parts of this story onstage at the Moth, and many of you lived this with me. I still can’t read these words without feeling acute grief (trigger warning: parental loss and postpartum). But, telling this story also reminds me of the definition my friend Kimberly told me about crisis: that is is a breaking and a blooming.

Thanks for reading, and for cheering on my journey as a writer.

Finding Joy in Breaking and Blooming

Announcing my third pregnancy lacked the joy, wonder, and hope of the first two occasions. Not even seven months postpartum with my second child, I was suddenly, unexpectedly thrown back into morning sickness and utter exhaustion. The physical reality of my body’s limitations, along with holding down a full-time teaching job while my husband traveled for work, felt impossible. When I shared the news with close friends and family with a quivering lip and tear-filled eyes, I received empathetic nods and shoulder squeezes. Everyone knew it was too much…except for Bob.

My father-in-law greeted my pregnancy announcement as if he had won the lottery and been cured of his pulmonary fibrosis on the same day. He laughed, a full-bodied, joyful laugh, during our phone call. This is what he had been praying for! A father of boys, Bob always wanted a little girl in the family. Once I had my daughter just a few months prior, his prodding was continuous: “Are you sure you don’t want just one more?” “Wouldn’t it be nice to have another baby daughter?”

“No, dad.” I would roll my eyes and wave him off, “Do you want to raise all of these babies??” So when his prayer was answered through what felt like an immaculate conception, I made it very clear that this predicament was his doing. My attitude wouldn’t deter his effervescence—he was going to have another grandbaby.

Four weeks later, an ultrasound confirmed what I knew in my gut–we were having another girl.

It took my entire pregnancy to come to terms with being a mother of three and what it would mean for our lives. Those months stretched and groaned with physical discomfort as I carried a toddler and infant up and down our three-story row home while their sister grew through the very important gestational fruit stages of peach, banana, and finally, watermelon. On the hardest days, when my body ached from teaching all day and growing a human, I would rock my one-year-old to sleep and think of Bob. He was the one person in my life who knew chronic pain, much more than I did in my temporary state.

Bob had been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis nearly a decade earlier. Having trouble catching his breath at work spiraled into a diagnosis that would have him maxing out oxygen machines and hoping for a double lung transplant, the only chance at extending his life. At the time, it felt doubly cruel. My husband and I were newly married and always knew we wanted to have kids. I saw Bob with my niece and nephew and preemptively mourned the reality that Bob would most likely never know my kids, and they, in turn, would never get the chance to hear his full-bellied laugh or sing along to Johnny Cash.

In 2012, all of that changed when Bob received a 5 am call on a crisp morning in March: “We think we have a match.”

Bob’s grueling recovery from surgery caused him to question his decision at times–was the pain of recovery and compromised immune system worth it? What does it mean to extend one’s life when the quality was so incredibly poor at times? He wrestled with these questions openly, honestly. But there was no question for us–his children and children-in-law. We got to have Bob, dad, grandpap for more time. And as my husband, Brandon, and I started having children, we counted each infant cuddle and each toddler ride on his walker as a bonus. We lived on borrowed time, and in many ways, it felt like time would stretch on with no end.

Hattie Sweet, our third baby, came into the world in June of 2018. Weighing in at 9 lbs and 8 oz, she made herself known from her first minutes of life, and there was nothing but joy in that moment. Gone was the morning sickness, the questions of how we would fit three tiny humans into our lives. Gone was the doubt that this was infinitely, miraculously meant to be. We called all of our family members to announce her arrival. Bob called hours later and left me a voicemail, reminding me how proud he was of me…how I was strong, brave.

When we brought Hattie to meet her grandpap across the state just a few weeks later, it was clear that Bob wasn’t doing well. A combination of medications over the years had wrecked his kidneys, and he was enduring a steady schedule of dialysis.

He was so sick.

There were days when Bob couldn’t get out of bed due to the nausea and chronic pain. Days when he needed the rooms to be pitch black and noise to be at a minimum–a challenge for our family of five with children squarely positioned in the “shrieking” stage of life. The one thing he could do? Rock his babies. He sat in the recliner for hours, holding Hattie bundled like a burrito and kissing her softly on the head. He hummed and sang hymns over her. She was his therapy. We called her “Bob’s girl” and hadn’t forgotten that he was the reason she was there at all.

When we got back to Philly and unpacked our cheerio-decorated minivan, I felt hopeful. Our neighborhood came to life in July, and I knew our days would be full of community parenting at the rec center, wearing bathing suits as clothes, and letting water ice drip down sticky faces and fingers. What we weren’t expecting was to get a call from my mother-in-law just a few hours later: “You need to come back. Your father is stopping dialysis.”

Many people have experienced a phone call that changes everything. This was ours. Brandon and I moved in a blur. Between tears and choked conversation, we packed the newborn back in the car and dropped the other kids at my parents’ house, rushing to Pittsburgh to convince Bob to keep going.

When we arrived at the hospital that night, it was clear that there was no convincing. He had endured so much for so long, and it was his decision to make. He wanted to be free from pain and suffering. He wanted to be free.

The four weeks that followed were some of the darkest days of our family’s life. But there were bright spots. At first, stopping dialysis gave Bob a few days of sweet relief. And he lived in those days. He played water gun battles with my four-year-old, and ate and drank his favorite foods. He even asked me to teach him the guitar and fumbled his way through “Ring of Fire.” In true Bob fashion, he threw himself a goodbye party that turned into a full blown hootenany with his unhinged tambourine playing. He also made amends–saying hard things to his kids and wife.

And he rocked his baby girls. On the porch, every afternoon, he’d sing and rock Hattie till she fell asleep.

Once the sickness started and caring for him grew too hard for us to manage, he was moved to a hospice house nearby. Each day, we sat vigil as a family, vacillating between laughter and tears as Bob grew increasingly distant until he no longer seemed present at all. I often thought of the irony of our reality. While Bob was becoming less and less in this world, Hattie was coming alive. Her first smile, her first laugh–she hit milestones each day amongst a collection of grieving family. She was undoubtedly our light in the darkest days. When anyone was struggling, all they needed was a Hattie cuddle to be grounded back into the preciousness of life.

A few days before Bob passed, I spent hours in his room with Hattie. Crystal prisms hung in front of his window, casting rainbow light across his bedding. For days, I would plant myself in that light-drenched space with a guitar, singing and talking to him despite receiving no signs of life in return. It became increasingly clear that this was the time for us to speak our last words and for the kids to say goodbye.

I wrapped a sleeping Hattie in her swaddle and placed her on Bob’s chest and we were shocked when, suddenly, miraculously, he came to life. “Hi, sweetie,” he said, and leaned to kiss her on the head. He hadn’t spoken in days. But all it took was feeling the presence of his girl to come back to us, to remind us he was still with us. Tears streamed down our faces as we watched the sweet moment unfold, and he curled his body around her. It would be ok.

Hattie is now seven years old and is arguably the most joyful kid you’ve ever met. She’s fully embraced her role in the family as “joy bringer” and stays true to her calling as a comedian in training. She has a whole list of impressions that send her brother and sister into hysterics and regularly puts on “shows” for us in the living room. I can’t imagine life without her.

Once in a while, she creases her eyes in a way that reminds me of her grandpap. In those moments, it’s as if he’s still with us. I have to believe that those weeks on the porch and the months of prayer before she was even born have taken root in her so deeply that she will never question her value or purpose. That, as with all things in life, we feel the pain with the joy, the blooming with the breaking, and with every death springs forth new life.

Inspiration

🎧 My friend, Jordan Conn, just published his new book this week! It’s been getting rave reviews, and I can’t wait to read it. He’s doing an event in Fishtown this Saturday- see you there?

🎧 I got to hang with my former co-workers last week at Lower Moreland’s musical, and it was amazing. These high schoolers were PROS! I felt so inspired to be great.

🎧 Carrie, Marissa, and I visited some incredible places in Austria, but hands down, I can’t stop thinking about this performance of the opera Wozzeck. The staging, costumes, lighting! Gah!

Creative

🌟 My friend Claire just recorded cello for my Tree EP. Next up—sending the entire project to Kenan for mixing/mastering. Stay tuned for a release date and party.

🌟 I’ve officially piled up a few more dozen agent rejections for the novel I finished last year. I’m thinking of completely redoing my query letter and making it less “standard” and more me. We’ll see if it does anything.

🌟 Next Friday (5/1 @ 7 PM) is my circus showcase. If you want a ticket link, let me know, and I’ll send it your way.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you see the blooming in the breaking.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

I’m doing the familiar work-mom juggle that always gives me a little bit of spring 2020 PTSD when my children were constantly Zoom bombing every class I taught, and I was simultaneously feeding babies and teaching guitar lessons.

But they’re older now! It’s easier to juggle now! (Ha.)

I’ve brought my kids to campus a few times over the past three years, and I’m not sure who gets more excited—the kids or my college students. Since they are all studying to become educators, I can’t think of a better way for them to get authentic training than to teach my children.

Today, my girls accompanied me to three classes: two sections of “Improvisation for Music Educators” and one section of “Progressive Methods in Music Education.” After getting them in the car at 6 AM, we made the sleepy 50 minute drive down 95 to a quiet campus and got to work. I made them bring their instruments and fully participate (duh.)

When they were recounting the day to their dad and brother, I realized how magical college seems. So, in no specific order, I present to you “what college is” from the perspective of my 9 and almost-8-year-old.

At college, you:

• Get to live in a house with friends.

• Eat donuts in class to raise money for a fraternity.

• Laugh a lot when a trumpet player warms up by buzzing in their mouthpiece.

• Play a gong in the storage closet loudly when your mom announces “Class Dismissed!” in her best British accent because it’s a bit you practiced at 7 AM and you aren’t going to MISS YOUR MOMENT.

• Rank students based on how much you like their outfits, how funny they are, and how much eye contact they make with you.

• Use all of your mom’s lotion, colorful pens, and papers in her office because it’s the only thing you can do to stave off boredom until you…

• Walk across the quad and get FREE gift cards to Dunkin’ just for existing!

• Eat at a dining hall where you can have a piece of pizza AND a bowl of ramen AND a cup of every type of soda AND jello AND ice cream AND a stomach ache.

• Pay $5 to throw a plate of shaving cream at the face of a college boy to raise money for ANOTHER fraternity.

• Run into the funny buzzy trumpet player in the music building and giggle. You have an inside joke now. You are known by these adolescent adults.

“Would you want to have my job?” I asked the girls as we got into the car.

“Yes,” Demi said.

“Why?”

“Because of the instruments…and the ice cream.”

You know what? She’s not wrong.

Inspiration

🎧 The LUCIUS CONCERT! It was the best first concert to take my girls to 🥺. There’s still time to see them in Savannah and Athens. Yes, we wore matching shirts! Yes, we sang along to every song!

🎧 I went and saw Hidden Brain Live for my birthday. Shankar broke down 7 learnings from 10 years of Hidden Brain. The one that hit me most? Stay present. He referenced this study that I’ve shared with my students in every class. The mere presence of your phone reduces your brainpower (I type as my phone sits beside me. Sigh.).

🎧 Shoutout to Christine for inviting me to see Romeo and Juliet. I thought this review captured my feelings so well.

Creative

🌟 Guys, I’m going to VIENNA NEXT WEEK to speak at a conference. I also get to eat pretzels and do a school visit (!!), and see the Mozart Orchestra (!!) and meet one of our board members from F-flat, Nate Holder, whom I have never met in person. Send me all your Austrian recs!

🌟 I just shared some very rough demos with a few friends who I collaborated with years ago. I think 2026 might be my year to stretch co-writing wings.

🌟 We’re in the final prep season for our annual circus showcase at my circus school. What does this mean? A lot of sequins, sore arms, and crippling doubt over ready we’ll be ready in time (spoiler: it always comes together).

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you get instruments and ice cream, too.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

Rob Maggio is a composition professor in the school of music, and he also teaches the songwriting elective class that a bunch of our studio composition majors take.

I googled him before our coffee date (DUH), and his C.V. made my eyes go wide. Guggenheim Fellow? Three Ivy League degrees? More compositions performed by more international groups than I can count on all my fingers and toes?

These are the kinds of Google searches that make you question whether you should have listed your sad-mom rock songs on your university profile. I’m the type of performer who wins Moth story slams by telling ultra-personal stories about mole removal, not someone garnering new music commissions from cultural strongholds.

Anyway, I said yes to coffee.

Much to my relief, Rob is one of the kindest humans I’ve met. He’s so down to earth, funny, and most of all, a curious learner. We spent an hour talking about songwriting, the books we love, how we approach teaching songwriting, and what we’re working on as artists right now.

Rob talked about how he got into songwriting as a way to work alongside his students and to be vulnerable in sharing his work, even when he didn’t think it was good. Yes, yes, YES!

I used to think that as a music teacher, I had to be the most impressive person in the room. I couldn’t let students know that I was a “work-in-progress” (spoiler alert: they knew) and I needed to hide my insecurities/vulnerabilities.

When I conducted research for my Ph.D. in 2013 on a coffee house event at my school, I asked my student participants: “Do you like it when teachers perform with you and for you, or would you rather they not participate?” Their answers shocked me. I assumed they would agree that school events are for students only, but that wasn’t the case.

They all loved it when their teachers, especially non-music teachers, were vulnerable and showed up alongside them.

This finding completely upended my thinking about doing with and for students. It’s what prompted my coworkers and me to start our teacher band, Staff Infection. It’s what made me begin doing every assignment with my students, showing them the messy middles of my work. It’s why I regularly picked up instruments I wasn’t good at and tried to work alongside them to improve. Honestly, it’s probably what encouraged me to tell stories about mole removal in front of hundreds of strangers. That, and Brene Brown.

[Unsurprisingly, going on YouTube and searching “Staff Infection” and even “Staff Infection School” produces some terrifying results. “Staff Infection Lower Moreland Java Jam” was the key to finding this LCD Soundsystem performance from 10 years ago, plus some other bangers.]

So, back to Rob.

Earlier this semester, Rob reached out to ask if we could collaborate on something. Each year, he assigns a co-writing project to his students. They have to work in pairs to create an original song with specific constraints. Did I want to be his co-writing partner? YES!

For weeks, we went back and forth, trading files on Logic and debating lyrics (Should it be “stay my heart” or “staying my heart”??)

Finally, last Tuesday we had a demo of our song and brought it to Rob’s class to share.

I sat in his class for the entire time, watching students share their work one by one and give each other feedback. The environment was incredibly warm, encouraging, creative, supportive.

These types of classrooms do not happen by accident. Our default is to be guarded and protective of creative work—to assume that others are out to tear us down, not to support our journey.

I know that for a fact that the class is the way it is because Rob is leading the way by practicing what he preaches—he’s doing each assignment alongside his students. He’s giving them space to share, and he’s receiving feedback, too. He’s growing, and he’s ok with being a public work-in-progress in front of his students. It’s what I hope to be as a teacher.

I’m not sure if they’ve Googled him or know about all of the accolades he’s received as a composer, but it didn’t really seem to matter. Everyone was just happy to be part of the process, together.

To be honest, writing this post made me a little emotional. The YouTube rabbit hole of watching past versions of me play music with some of my favorite people in the world (love you, Chelsea, ❤️) and realizing that I’m not at a place that held me for 16 years was an unexpected rollercoaster.

Then, I realize the irony in all of these emotions—that the very thing I miss is the very thing I’m building in this new space. That I have colleagues who are willing to be vulnerable, make music, and remember why we got into this in the first place.

Inspiration

🎧 I’ve been revisiting Lucius’ entire catalog before their show on This Friday! I think there are still tickets. It will be my girls’ first real concert and we have matching shirts from the Wildewoman tour ready to go.

🎧 Philadelphia! Music! Teaching! Wow, just wow. This book was everything.

🎧 I don’t know why, but I can’t stop listening to new BTS song, Swim. I’ve played it for everyone in my life this past weekend and it’s not hitting anyone like it’s hitting me. The synth loop makes me want to do a cartwheel, or set fire to something, or lay in a room surrounded by that sound only. Why? Music is so personal! I still think about this book everytime I have a viceral reaction to new music.

Creative

🌟 Friends, I can’t thank you enough for showing up for me last week. I need to give a special shoutout to the FLETCHER ST. BOOK CLUB for showing up hard for my book release. More reflections to come!

🌟 I finished recording vocals for my EP. Finally! Chelsea and Melissa layed down their harmony parts and now it’s time to send it to Kenan for his engineering magic. I might add some cello and deep synths (duh, see above).

🌟 It’s my birthday. I promised myself I’d spend as much time creating today as I could, including Substack time. Let’s keep putting art in the world and cheerleading when others do the same.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you do it with them.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

The first track, “You Wanna Dance Or What?” contains a lyric that has been repeating in my head over and over again since I first heard it five days ago. I’ve already told some of you about it.

The song unfolds at a party, and after some descriptions of the protagonist’s environment and general struggle with life, it continues:

I hear a voice, a smiling stranger
"You all right?" he asks
I shake my head
"You wanna talk about it?"
I shake my head
"Can I sit with you 'till you feel better?"
He takes the space
We watch the disco lights spin in silence
My head lands on his shoulder
He puts his arm around me and says
"There's so much darkness in this world
But not in this room, and not between us
All right my G, we gonna go dance or what?"

Let that hit you for a moment.

There’s so much darkness in this world

But not in this room

And not between us

From the moment I heard that lyric, it fundamentally changed my perspective from “what’s out there” to “what’s in front of me.”

It doesn’t ignore the darkness or pretend that it doesn’t exist, a privilege of being healthy and whole and being born at a certain place at a certain time with a certain skin color. I am good at this brand of ignorance.

It also doesn’t let the darkness rewrite stories of light. Is there darkness? Yes. Is it here? Is it between us?

I’ve thought about it when comforting my child who was scared. “There are scary things in this world,” I said. “But there is safety here. And there is safety between us.”

Last year, during a dark time, I had an image of a broken vessel full of cracks. As I closed my eyes, I could imagine how light was fighting to get through the cracks, fighting to overtake what was broken. With that vision, I tried to be a “light finder,” not letting darkness or uncertainty rule my everyday, but finding the light in every crack.

This image re-emerged in my brain when I heard Idehen’s lyrics. It’s made me notice the light that permeates protest when the news is so sad—the small, but joy-filled moments in the mundanity.

Holding my best friend’s baby on Monday—a miracle that he is here with us.

Singing music that brings me to tears.

Laughing with my best friend at coffee so hard that we cry when we realize a total stranger has watched my awkward dance moves.

Editing curriculum from incredible creators that will no doubt change lives.

Being alive. Being here.

It’s not always dancing for me. Sometimes (like today), it is. But, whatever it is, we are responsible for light—for noticing it, for spreading it, for not letting the darkness overtake.

(For more thoughts on light, check out this post from last year)

Inspiration

🎧 Aside from the Idehen record, I’ve been revisiting Lucius’ entire catalog before their show on March 27th! I think there are still tickets.

🎧 I just finished Such Great Heights. If you’re an elder millennial like me who made “indie” your personality during your 20s, you’ll love it.

🎧 The one recipe my kids regularly request, and it never disappoints.

Creative

🌟 FRIDAY, I’m opening for my friend Josh Marsh’s album release. It’s happening at Death of the Fox Brewing in New Jersey and you can grab tickets here. (I think there are 10 left?!) I’ll be joined by my friends Melissa and Chelsea with their sweet harmonies.

🌟 My Book release party is SATURDAY! You can RSVP here! There will be snacks! And music!

🌟 I’m on spring break this week and am joyfully digging deep into creative projects. Joyfully, because I know this time is a luxury. There’s one more instrument to track for my EP, and then it will go to Kenan Salazar for mixing and mastering.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you see the light.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

I was talking to a kid the other day and counseling them through some big tears as they lamented that they “weren’t the best at anything.”

One by one, they listed off every activity, club, and pursuit in their life, citing a friend who was faster, stronger, smarter, and more talented.

In that moment of “I’m not good at anything” spiral, they commented that they should probably just quit everything that they’re not the best at.

I tried to rationalize with this kid, but in their mind, everyone had walked onto their individual field-stage-classroom dripping with talent that needn’t be honed, practiced, cultivated.

I couldn’t help but think of the book Grit and the research on how many people gravitate toward stories of the prodigy and invite that lore over the often truer, more boring form of mastery: working hard at something over and over again.

Our long and winding conversation had many missteps (again, where is the parenting handbook for every single life scenario? I shake my fists at the ceiling), but I landed on one statement and realized (oopsie), I was preaching to myself again.

“Do you know what I wish I learned at your age? I wish I learned that I should stop judging activities based on whether I’m good at them and instead, whether they bring me joy.”

Can mastery or “bestness” bring about joy? Maybe? I’m not really the one to ask.

What I do know is that most of my students report finding more joy in playing a secondary instrument than their primary one. Why? There is less pressure to be great.

I felt this deeply over the past two years as I returned to something I’m incredibly mediocre at:

Soccer.

In the fall of 2023, my friend Dave asked if I wanted to join his soccer team. I played soccer throughout my childhood and was never great, but what I lacked in technical skills I made up for in a general sense of competitiveness and ability to push through discomfort. I don’t have ball skills, I have wall skills (according to my grown-up teammates). Meaning, I can stand still really well. 😂

This soccer team came at the perfect time in my life. I had quit teaching full-time, and I was feeling a bit lost and desperate for camaraderie after sitting at a computer all day.

Our first season was miraculous. We won our championship! We were, as a team, “the best.”

Since that first championship, our stats have gone down the gutter. But my joy has only increased. When I was younger, I wasn’t having fun if I wasn’t winning.

But at age 40? Fun is running around outside on a roof field in center city and pretending you’re a kid. Fun is not about getting better for an end goal (like a championship), it’s about the play that happens every week. Every week, I would come home only to be greeted by my kids’ questions: “Did you win?!” “No.” “Did you score a goal?!” “No.” But I had fun, dang it!

A couple of months ago, I made the tough decision to hang up my cleats and say goodbye to soccer for this season.

As I try to balance being a present mom and all of the hobbies I seem to keep piling on, it makes sense. But, I did feel a little sad at being THE ONLY PERSON ON MY TEAM WHO NEVER SCORED A GOAL.

It even became a joke on the team as I grew more desperate to prove I could kick a ball into a net. No matter what I tried, no dice.

Until last week.

During my last game with our team, “Here for Beer,” I found myself at the net and after a failed attempt, I hit a rebound and IT WENT IN!

My friend Dan (who somehow has a subscription to replay every game) caught the moment of victory.

And turned it into a meme:

We have a lot of narratives in our country that say our worth comes from being the strongest, fastest, loudest, most aggressive. What would it look like to pour our energies into life-giving actions that have less to do with value judgements over performance and more to do with the intrinsic benefits? (asking for a friend 👀)

Here’s to being joyfully mediocre.

Inspiration

🎧My friend Haley made this incredible t-shirt and I used the artwork to inspire a whole class for my Improv students! I’ll share more next week but you should check it out.

🎧 I’m reading a book about the rise of indie music and it’s like someone’s shuffling my ipod from college.

Creative

🌟 Come to my book release on March 14th! You can RSVP here! There will be snacks! And music!

🌟 On March 13th, I’m opening for my friend Josh Marsh’s album release. It’s happening at Death of the Fox Brewing in New Jersey and you can grab tickets here. I’ll be joined by my friends Melissa and Chelsea with their sweet harmonies.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you take a minute to get that pebble out.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

Basically, you take an indoor football field and cram it with hundreds of booths and every sensory stimulus you can imagine.

Brass Instrument vendors where people are demonstrating how high they can play on a trumpet? ✅

Tour companies with candy and popcorn overflowing to entice you to plan a trip to Disney? ✅

Marching band organizations with huge trucks and LED displays blasting music through 10 ft. speakers? ✅

Little old me trying to sell children’s books? ✅

I’ve only been exhibiting for a couple of years, but I’ve learned a lot, especially since I don’t typically have help and need to pull all-day shifts at the booth.

I’ve learned to pack food and water, conserve my voice, get as much sleep as possible, and wear comfortable shoes.

I was feeling pretty good about the comfortable shoes rule last week until day 3 of conferencing when I had the worst.pain. on the ball of my foot.

I’m definitely at the stage of life where I’m suddenly getting weird old lady injuries like frozen shoulder and Morton neuroma, and I chalked this pain up to something similar. But by hour 10 of standing, I could barely put pressure on it.

I checked if something was lodged in my shoe. No dice. Keep smiling at patrons and pretending that you’re not in excruciating pain.

At the end of the night, my co-presenters and I had to make the 25-minute walk back to our Airbnb. I was limping.

“I think it’s my Morton Neuroma flaring up?”

“Could it be plantar fasciitis?” Marissa asked.

“What does it feel like?” Matt was also concerned since I was walking fine that morning.

“It kind of feels like there’s a tiny pebble lodged into the ball of my foot that’s burning, except it’s not a pebble.”

We were stumped, but hobbled onward.

We finally got back to our house and I went into my bedroom to take of my shoes…

and my socks…

and peel off a tiny pebble that had been wreaking havoc on my foot all day. A pebble! An actual pebble.

When I came out of the bedroom to tell Matt and Marissa, they were cracking up. “You said it felt like a rock!! Did you even think to check?”

“Not thoroughly!!”

This is so me. So focused on toughing something out that I don’t pause to take the necessary few minutes to assess, diagnose. Always in motion.

Ok, MAYBE THE ROCK IS A METAPHOR!

In my effort this year to “pay attention” and “immerse” myself, I’m still struggling to slow down and zoom out. I’m walking on pebbles and eating four granola bars for lunch. I’m worried about laundry piles and interest rates. Things that feel big and all-consuming in the moment, but might need a simple solution or just a breath of noticing.

So, let me zoom out.

Last week, I got to see dozens of authors who entrusted me to share their work. I got to see my books at multiple booths and talk to teachers whose lives have been changed by some of the work F-flat Books has done. I even got to meet a kind stranger who took this picture of me with my new book (this was not the pebble day, hence my smile).

I was able to sell all 100 lbs of books I brought on the plane with me, I made a great friend on the flight home (who gave me tips on how to keep the masa from sticking to my tortilla press), and I’m walking just fine.

Inspiration

🎧I got to present with Matt and Marissa at UT Austin and every time I’m with these two humans, I leave so inspired! Matt is a middle school orchestra director in PA, and Marissa just started working as Assistant Professor of Music Education at UT Austin.

We also released a new book with a cover designed by my brother-in-law Elliott and interior design by my brother, David!

🎧 I finished a bunch of books last week while I was traveling. “Careless People” was a doozy, but I completely recommend it. I got to read another draft of my friend Rachel’s novel, which had me sobbing on the plane. I also dove back into some fun fiction, like “Amazing Grace Adams.” What are you reading these days?

Creative

🌟 It’s performance season and I have some events coming up! First up: Kat Reinhert and I are doing a performance and book signing for our book, “How To Release Music,” on Saturday, March 14th, at Midsummer Books in Fishtown. You can RSVP here! There will be snacks! And music!

🌟 On March 13th, I’m opening for my friend Josh Marsh’s album release. It’s happening at Death of the Fox Brewing in New Jersey and you can grab tickets here. I’ll be joined by my friends Melissa and Chelsea with their sweet harmonies.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you take a minute to get that pebble out.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

I’d like to offer another way of thinking about life, specifically my life over the past few weeks.

Philly Snow Piles.

In this city, a full-coverage snowfall can turn a greige urban jungle into a magical universe where discarded trash, cracked sidewalks, and forgotten dog waste (that should have been removed in the first place) are buried under a blanket of white.

Everything washed clean, reimagined.

You have snow piles that become igloos, co-opted by neighbors in friendly play. They sparkle with potential. The sun rises and shines through these carefully constructed structures, delivering hours of communal connection and laughter.

It’s not all sunshine and igloos.

A few days later, you get these.

A pipe bursts, necessitating a full road excavation. There’s nowhere to throw the dirt except for the huge mound of snow that takes up the entire sidewalk. In a matter of days, our winter wonderland turns into a frozen urban hellscape where parking is impossible, and neighbors are texting things like “who has an ice pick?”

The storm also coincided with the first “full week” of the semester, which meant virtual learning for both the kids and me (helloooooo fall 2020 PTSD), and a storm of other life curveballs, plus the general sense that the world is on fire.

I like to live my life like an igloo—keeping up the facade that everything is bright, clean, and open to community and connection. At times, I’d like to pretend that the surface is all that exists, that if I put a fresh, sparkly white coat on everything, no one will ever know what lies beneath the surface. (Like my anxiety-ridden pacing that occurred the other night as I stress-weighed my suitcases stuffed with books to pack for a conference this week. You won’t see my dead-eyed stares on any social media post.)

A few years back, Brandon and I were meeting with a friend and mentor, bragging about how “good” we were doing at marriage (we’d only been married a few years at this point).

The evidence?

“We barely fight!”

He dug deeper and shared something that I think about almost daily since then:

“It sounds like you might be good at peace keeping but not peace making.”

🤯

Say what??? In one sentence, he unpacked my MO in all areas of life. Pretend everything is fine and refuse to excavate.

Back to the Philly snow piles. Maybe the poop mound is even more beautiful than the igloo when you really think about it. There’s a story to it—that a burst pipe on Moyer St. caused neighbors to come together on the block to help each other out (including the poor man whose basement was flooded in freezing temperatures). That the water department sent out workers in the freezing cold at all hours of the morning who hustled to break the pavement, dig the dirt, and uncover the issue. There was no gaping hole left after the repair; they finished the job, smoothed the asphalt, and moved the dirt so it wouldn’t block traffic.

The product of peace-making.

Inspiration

🎧I have too many book recs to dig into today because of my Substack absence. A Guardian and a Thief gutted me, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Dopamine Nation forever changed my brain, and Careless People outraged me for many reasons.

🎧 My friend Lindsay has built a bookstore from scratch in our neighborhood and now she’s working to help local authors sell their books through school visits! Check out her website.

Creative

🌟 I’m in Texas with 100 lb of books (as much as I could fit in two suitcases) at the TMEA conference! I’m presenting on “The Creative String Orchestra” on Saturday and selling books all week. If you’re there, come visit me!

🌟 Well, friends. I did it. I revised my novel again, and I’m back in the query trenches. For those who’ve been following my journey, a quick recap: I finished my novel at the end of 2024, had beta readers in early 2025, started querying last spring, and received a few full requests and a total of around 50 rejections. I revised, did another round of beta reads, edited again, and am back querying agents. I love listening to episodes of TSNOTY and hearing about authors who took a long road to trad publishing.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you can reimagine things that don’t go as planned.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

“You aren’t going to eat breakfast??” I was shook. This knee-jerk purchase from Riverwards Produce the day before made me feel like I was being a good mom by buying the special bread.

Not only had they already been toasted and buttered, they were also peppered with bite marks around the perimeter as my raccoons children must have needed multiple opportunities to prove that “we don’t really like these that much.”

I should have put some Cheerios in a bag and called it a day.

I hate food waste almost as much as I hate working on a meal that goes untouched. So, I tossed them in a freezer bag and put them in the fridge for some future fate that likely would involve more butter and frying.

I’ve been thinking a lot about seed-sewing in life and work.

I’m one of those types of people who want clean lines: checklists checked, bows tied, chapters closed. Life is rarely that clean. Most of our projects, relationships, and life-work are more like the half-nibbled Philly muffin- full of potential but lacking appetite, timing, or the right audience.

That book I’ve been writing for three years that I still want to see the light of day, but wonder if I should just set it on fire? #phillymuffin

The EP I promised I’d finish last May, but is still sitting on my hard drive, nagging me? #phillymuffin

The spring semester classes I’m preparing that never feel finished because there is always more to learn, prep, understand, deep-dive, consider? #phillymuffin

—

On Monday, I put on real pants for the first time in weeks and entered a boardroom at J.W. Pepper Music to discuss the 30+ books and compositions I submitted for their review this past January. I’ve been on a mission to expand distribution opportunities for my authors & composers at F-flat Books, and this was a huge milestone for us.

If you’re not familiar, this company is the largest supplier of sheet music for schools. They can make or break an indie publisher by choosing to produce and promote their work. And here I was, meeting with six of their team members, talking about all of the resources that they were excited to promote this season.

Books that were written in 2019.

Songs that we released in 2021 and have barely sold any copies.

All of this work, reimagined and re-energized by an organization that can see the brilliance our authors bring to the table. I looked around the room and took a minute to recognize the blooming of all the seeds that had been planted—

• My brother Zooming in from France, talking confidently about the automated systems he’s built on the backend of our site that set our resources apart.

• The product specialist to my left, who also happened to be one of my former students from a course I taught in 2019, telling me that the reason he creates music is because of that course.

• The publishing lead sitting across from me, who just so happened to be a manager of a music store in my hometown—the same manager who oversaw the purchase of every instrument my family bought when I was growing up.

• The choral editor, who used to sing in the same church choir as me in 2006.

For every project we’ve tended to and relationship we’ve built, I never imagined they would have led me to that table. (And yes, I did take a photo of our name at the entrance like a total nerd!!)

And, I HAD to take a picture of this Sousaphone.

The most encouraging part? Knowing that I’ll get to tell my authors that someone is breathing new life into their work, that their music and stories will reach more people than I could have ever made possible just through our platform.

—

Last night, I made chicken Caesar salad for dinner. Guys, it was so fancy.

I used Trader Joe’s chicken fingers, romaine, shaved parmesan, and the fanciest croutons. Smothered in oil, Italian seasoning, and crisped in the oven, the kids went crazy over them!

“WHERE did you get the croutons from?”

Yep. Those past Philly Muffins became future salad croutons. And there was not a crumb left.

Inspiration

🎧 I just finished “What We Can Know” for bookclub and my oh my. If you want a slightly dystopian/thoughtful rambling look at how we construct the past through glimpses in the future, this one is for you.

🎧 Brandon’s doing a fun (slash all-consuming) project this week in Lake Placid in honor of the 45th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice. They are reconstructing the iconic game using HOLOGRAMS (we live in the future), and he gets to meet Al Michaels (!!!). DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?!

Creative

🌟 Ya’ll. My round 2 of beta reader feedback just came through this week, and I am re-energized to not light my novel on fire! We can persevere! Croutons, here we come.

🌟 I’m still in the post/procedure trying-to-take-it-easy moment and using time to be gentle with my creative expectations (ha!). My microphone is crying to me from the basement, and I have to tell her that she won’t be neglected forever…but maybe just one more week? Hold me accountable, friends.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you can reimagine things that don’t go as planned.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.

For the past few days, I’ve been sitting at my desk (with a heated neck collar, of course) while I literally and figuratively click through the tabs of my life and try to get things in order.

Present-day Sarah tries to focus on filling out a very complicated form for the University, while Four-weeks-ago Sarah reminds her of a Zoom call about capital funding she scheduled for her business.

Present-day Sarah can’t find matching socks for anyone in the family because last week, Sarah decided to organize all of the clothes in the house without finishing a job she had no business starting.

It’s like my brain is a ping pong ball, and there are many versions of me holding paddles on every side of the table.

It’s not lost on me that I’ve picked “Immerse” as my word of the year for 2026. I’ve been reflecting lately on how often my brain isn't present in the space my body occupies.

Sometimes, it’s a good thing! When I’m walking around the neighborhood and kicking around story ideas, or when I sit down at a piano and get lost in song.

But more often, I fear that the culture of distraction and my propensity for lists, tasks, and seemingly important work is a form of brain-body severance.

Over the Christmas holiday, I realized how much time I was spending checking email on my phone. EVEN THOUGH I got rid of all email apps! And social media apps! (And have even been pretty prideful about it, tbh). I was still logged in through my browser, and it became a force of habit—checking email or googling stuff that wasn’t immediate or important.

All of these phone-based habits are pulling me out of the world I’m in—conversations with my kids, watching TV with Brandon, or pretending I can sort through all the world’s clothes in an afternoon. I’ve never managed to save the world through googling something on my phone, so I thought it might be a good experiment to get rid of my browser, stop checking email, and write down everything I want to look up so I can do so when I get to a computer.

This was just one day's search terms that I felt were essential for my immediate attention:

The weird thing about acknowledging curiosity but not immediately looking something up is that sometimes the curiosity deepens. Other times, you ask people around you for input (like when I texted my friend Lydia instead to get a sourdough recommendation, or when I just sat down at the piano to figure out interesting chord progressions). Other times, the curiosity just fades away. (Jess, I really don’t care what’s in the tea that you gave me anymore. It tastes good! Who cares why! 😂)

Yesterday, I took the kids to the dentist, and while they were all back getting what they basically think is a spa day (something is seriously wrong with them), I was in the waiting room with around eight other adults. Every single one of them was glued to a phone. Well, all of the ones that were awake were glued to a phone.

I had this book with me (that I am finally finishing!) and was reading about how so much of our habits and behaviors are shaped by companies that profit from them. Gah! It’s so overwhelming.

I don’t know that I have any answers, or that writing down my Google search ideas on my phone to look at my phone less is helping anyone.

But I do know how it feels to sit across the table from someone who is truly listening to me, who is immersed in sharing space with me…who isn’t distracted by a phone or a watch or the constant need to check in on spaces outside their body.

I want to be that friend in 2026.

Inspiration

🎧 As I said, I’m almost finished Mood Machine and have sooo many thoughts. Would you like to hear them? Should I dedicate an entire post to it??

🎧 I’m currently doing a song-a-day challenge for the month of January for my SEVENTH year. My friend Kat and I now run this through our company, and 135 other people are signed up to do this challenge 🥺. That’s so much human art in the world! If you want to follow along, Kat is sharing her songs and others on Instagram @songwriting_for_me. (And if you want to hear my songs, let me know and I’ll send you a link to my Google Drive folder since I’m in my “burn it all down” social media era.)

Creative

🌟 I just finished another round of novel edits. Oof. How do people live with stories and characters for this long and keep tending to them like wayward children? Thank you to everyone who offered to beta read this second time around! My goal is to jump back into the Query trenches in a couple of weeks.

🌟 I’m having (minor) surgery this Friday. I made a bunch of freezer meals where you basically throw everything in raw, then dump it straight from the freezer into the crockpot. This website is my go-to!

Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you can immerse yourself in something good.

Connect with my work elsewhere:

🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn

💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!

📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.

🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.