Roots and Branches

the theory and practice of living a creative life.

Roots + Branches

Posts

  • Easing back into writing: a guide for troubled times

    Start with five minutes, and build from there Use the code SOLSTICE for 50% off Bloom, or any of my other programs! Easing back into writing: simple tips for reconnecting with your work, a few minutes at a time In my last issue, I pointed out that this moment, uncertain and sometimes scary as it…

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  • It's time to bust out the good craft supplies

    And your biggest ideas I wasn’t planning to write a newsletter today. I’ve been looking for ways to grapple with the moment (who isn’t?!) and the answer came from a surprising place. I started thinking about a post I saw on Twitter (RIP) in 2020 during the height of COVID, where a crafter posted a…

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  • Enter the Scary Door

    The Pop Culture Reference I use to Reduce Writing + Life Anxiety For many years, my writing and all my professional work (and everything else) were deeply intertwined with anxiety. Left unchecked, my anxiety knows no bounds: every project, relationship, ache and pain, and minor inconvenience has the potential to become a full blown disaster…

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  • Information literacy is critical: Readings and resources to help

    Hi!A short newsletter this week highlighting a few announcements that I think you’d find helpful. First up: I published a guide for evaluating resources and sifting out misinformation in my food + history newsletter. This was a section I wrote in my next book, The Essential Preserving Handbook, but it felt important to share now:…

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  • Regenerative Creative Ecosystems

    And the first steps to building yours In my circles, I work a lot with regenerative business ecosystems and implement regenerative ecosystem practices into my own work. I’ve even noticed some people talking about creative ecosystems: But the comparisons often feel surface-level and, honestly, I lose interest pretty quickly. I agree, it’s super useful to…

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  • Despairing about the state of the world may feel rational, but these are irrational times Everyone I’ve been talking to lately is moving through a sort of oscillation, wavering between intense hopelessness and sadness (personally or collectively) and a deep, unflappable knowing that everything is going to be ok. It’s a jarring feeling, particularly if…

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  • History requires us to be active participants in its creation.  We aren’t just passive consumers of history, but active creators. Our daily decisions, our habits, from what we eat to who we engage with to our sleep patterns, clothing, and job schedules all become patterns that connect to the ways we define a given age.…

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  • We are living in a liminal moment. For the last few months, maybe a bit longer, everyone I’ve spoken to has seemed almost at the threshold of something.  Some element, or maybe even most elements, of their life as it was have crumbled away, and while in most cases we recognize this crumbling as an…

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