eeo
design • writing • yoga
Category: Uncategorized
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I’m pleased to announce the publication of my first poetry chapbook. I hope you’ll check it out on Amazon or (better yet) at the publisher’s website, to support small business! https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-invisible-suitcase-by-elaine-olund/
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(I wrote this piece a couple years ago. It is sadly not an isolated example of injustice when it comes to household violence against children and women in particular. I recently edited and read this essay at V-day at Women Writing for (a) Change, in Ohio, so I am publishing the edited version here.) Dear…
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(Following is an excerpt from my novel, The Last Butterfly, that I’m workshopping this week at Colgate University in New York…feeling excited to reconnect with these characters…finally going to finish my edits/plot-hole fixes! It’s told in the voice of Luna, a 15 year old who lives in the deadzone of what was once central Indiana,…
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Last night I woke in the teeth of the storm, shaking in a strange bed in a strange place. This time, it wasn’t a dream. I woke to thunder so loud I could feel it course through me, over and over, the way a bass beat at a rock concert vibrates in your spine. Thunder…
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Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Feel your shoulders relax. Remember a time you were held, and rocked. Or a time you held someone, and rocked them. Any time you felt safe, held. Begin there.
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Perfection is deception. Perfection is a poison pill packaged and sold next to the botox and collagen injections.
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Happy 2019. It′s started off rocky, and my heart is feeling heavy for reasons both external and internal. Familiar questions echo: bouncing from the global to the personal. Why are our societal systems often so cruel to the most vulnerable, the most innocent?Why do we so often hurt the ones we love? And me: Why…
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Dear 19-year-old Me, You were SO excited, do you remember? I mean, you were on the move and it wasn’t New York, or even Chicago—but it was somewhere—another state, albeit in the absolute wrong direction, away from the coast, even further from the Atlantic you dreamed of living near one fine day. I’m writing to…
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We choose how we see things. An intention towards love rather than reactions from fear can change everything.
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Today in workshop: coloring back in time In today’s Amherst Artists & Writers workshop, we finished with a prompt rooted in mindfulness and childhood memory. Here’s how it goes: you choose a few crayons from a big bowl, make sure everyone has drawing paper, and together we all breathe in the smell of the…