Dear Somebody: Living with a duckling.

My latest illustration for Issue 62 of Uppercase Magazine

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY 

I wake to the sounds of a duckling quacking. I’m in bed, staring at the ceiling. It’s midnight; there are no bodies of water nearby. After a minute, I realize it’s F; the sounds are coming from my child. On the monitor, I see her balled body rolling around the crib, quacking. The quacking continues, then becomes laughter—until finally, it’s tears. I change her diaper, I sing her a lullaby, I crawl back into bed and wait for her to sleep. When she finally does, it’s 4:30 in the morning. 

The quacking has gone on for weeks now. I stand at the kitchen island, too tired to think. Instead, I give myself over to the mechanics of morning routine, grateful for a chance to turn my mind off. When I decided to become a parent, I never thought I’d find myself caring for a duckling—but here I am. This is what commitment is: caring for the one you have, regardless of whether they are who you imagined them to be.

I’m smearing sunbutter on toast when N runs into the kitchen. She’s having breakfast on the porch with T, watching rain fall from the open sky in sheets. Mom, she says, do you want to join us? I do.

On the other side of the front door, the earth takes a long bath. The air is pleasant, cool. Lightning flashes; I close my eyes and see its brightness through my lids. N counts the seconds until thunder follows. Mom, she says, I love sitting on the porch. I love watching the rain. I’m sitting in the middle so I can be next to you and dad…at the same time! Isn’t this air is so fresh? It’s my favorite thing. It’s my favorite thing, too— being a witness to the earth. Seeing her recycle whatever resources are left, beginning again.

In a past life, I’m still in the kitchen. Still making lunches. Still stewing in my own tiredness. Still longing for silence. In a past life, I opt out of this moment entirely. How lucky, then, to be in this life instead: one where there is a porch and it’s covered. One where the rain perseveres—is relentless, even—and I, with my two very good friends, get to watch the world as it is reborn. 

One floor above us, while the rain drapes her in its song, a little duckling quacks in her sleep. 

TUESDAY

Dear Library deal announcement. Note: this artwork isn’t from the book!

I feel so lucky to share that my debut as a picture book illustrator will be DEAR LIBRARY, a love letter to libraries--and a celebration of the possibility that lives inside books. As a child, I went to the library multiple times a week with my family. My sister and I would lay on the floor of the children's section, reading, for hours. Every now and then, my mom would come collect us and we'd send her away. We were never ready to leave.

I still go to the library a couple times a week, now with my own little gremlins in tow. We come home with a big stack of books and read wherever we can: at the kitchen island, at the dining table, on the living room floor, in bed. We read in the car. We read while walking. I tell N that possibility lives inside books: a book can change your whole world. It can free you from much of what restricts you—especially your own mind. 

Emily and I at The Bookshop in Nashville, a place where we’ve sang many songs, welcomed many books into the world, and made many memories (2024)

Emily and I at The Bookshop in Nashville, a place where we’ve sang many songs, welcomed many books into the world, and made many memories (2024)

Emily and I first tried to make a picture book 6 years ago, but it didn't work out. Sometimes that's the way things go. I didn't want to admit it, but I wasn't ready. I had a lot to learn, mostly about myself. I needed to be real about what I was willing to change—and what I was willing to lose—in order to create the work I wanted to make. I've spent the last few years focusing on myself and my craft. I have a long way to go; I think every artist feels this way—but now, I've got my head on right. I listen to myself. 

When this project came along, I knew it was a sign—life’s way of confirming that if I stop ignoring what’s inside my heart, I’ll be all right. And what a dream project it is: A book about books!—About libraries!—Written by my dear friend! I'm so grateful to Emily for keeping our dream alive, and I couldn't be more thrilled to work with the wonderful, gracious team at Candlewick. We're making a beautiful book together…and this time I'm ready. 

WEDNESDAY

I’m almost done with Laurie Frankel’s Family Family, a beautiful novel that asks the reader to reimagine what a family is and how a family comes to be. 

I’m listening to a lot of compositions by Joe Hisaishi while working on concepts for Dear Library and while writing. Hisaishi is best known for scoring almost all of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, and his music elicits feelings of mystery, contemplation, and peace.

I’m studying the composition and light value in Kaatje Vermeire’s gorgeous work, especially in De Vrouw En Het Jongetje (I have the French edition). I find her work astounding. It encapsules all of the dualities I admire in life—beauty with darkness, deep emotion and deep voids, danger and light. 

THURSDAY

On the value of creative suffering:

“I used to really believe in the creative value of agony and I don’t really know if I can subscribe to that anymore. That old idea that if it wasn’t painful then it wasn’t meaningful.

It’s a stereotype that we’ve been sold, even in the history books. The anguished genius. We’ve been conditioned to believe that there’s some kind of relationship between the creative life and dysfunctional mental health, that somehow there’s kind a correlation between the two. I don’t subscribe to that anymore because it’s just too exhausting. I’ve become really good about delegating and organizing my time. When you’re just an artist floating out there in the ether you’re made to believe that you have to create great art through pain and suffering. It isn’t true.” 

—from a The Creative Independent interview with Sufjan Stevens

FRIDAY

I wake up & it breaks my heart. I draw the blinds & the thrill of rain breaks my heart. I go outside. I ride the train, walk among the buildings, men in Monday suits. The flight of doves, the city of tents beneath the underpass, the huddled mass, old women hawking roses, & children all of them, break my heart. There’s a dream I have in which I love the world. I run from end to end like fingers through her hair. There are no borders, only wind. Like you, I was born. Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming. Hand on my heart. Hand on my stupid heart.

—Meditations in an Emergency by Cameron Awkward-Rich 

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Good is in the gray.

F and I by the sea (March 2024)

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY 

While F naps off her fever, N and I go to the beach. She builds sand castles and makes seagull soup; I comb the shoreline for shells. The water is cold but I jump in anyway. Under nearly 5 feet of water, I see my toes. The sea is turquoise, a mermaid’s glittering tail. I’ve never been to the Gulf before. 

We walk along the beach and stumble upon some two plastic toy crabs, one yellow, one blue. They’re buried under the deserted white blanket of the beach, with just a claw or two peeking out. I ask N if she wants to add them to her collection but she shakes her head no. “Well, we can play with them for a little while,” I say, and make several crab shapes. 

I want N to love the water. I’m beginning to feel a specific pressure of parenthood I thought I was immune to: wanting my children to experience the beauty of my childhood without the aches; wanting them to feel affection for many of the same things I do; wanting them to share some of the same philosophies. I want N to understand that among its many mysteries, the sea can wash most any despondency away. 

N plays for a few minutes and then pushes the toys away. “Mom, I don’t want these. They belong to another child and that child will miss them.” Standing in the stark black and white of N’s morality, I feel shame. I’m envious, too. I want more of life to clarify in front of me, I want more of it to appear so obviously right or wrong. My conviction, at one point solid, made of stone, is porous now and has been for years. It’s wrung through with the realization that most days, I learn I am wrong about something I once believed. 

I ask N if she’d like to bring the toys to the beach lost and found; she does. We watch as both crabs are placed inside an enormous beach shed, then closed and locked, where they succumb to a much darker life among their fellow comrades—each of whom has been misplaced, forgotten, or abandoned. Lost.

N asks me to close my eyes and walk backwards. I do. We take good care not to look once, not at the sand or the sky or the shells. Not at each other. We use our other senses. We take good care to sense the sun’s warmth on our backs, to hear the gull shrieks in our ears, to feel the powder of Gulf sand between our toes. We stumble along, and as we do, I mildly wonder what people think of us.

“Mom, are your eyes closed? You cannot surprise yourself if your eyes are always open.” N’s voice is small and perfect; I can hear the ocean inside it. You can’t surprise yourself if your mind is always made up, either, I remind myself. The whole world is endless behind my eyes. Maybe gray is OK—maybe even, gray is good. 

My eyes are still closed. I turn my mind off, too. Together, N and I walk backwards into the sea. 

TUESDAY

I’m reading To the End of the Land by David Grossman as part of Ruth Franklin Israeli/Palestinian reading group, I’m donating to the KidLit4Ceasefire fundraiser, I’m attending Palestine Charity Draw #3 hosted by Sarah Dyer; I’m remembering this poem by Gottfried Benn and this essay on divorce by Emily Gould; I’m looking at these illustrations by Nikki McClure which accompany Rachel Carson’s Something About the Sky. 

WEDNESDAY

In-between client work and book projects, whenever I get a moment or two, I’m beginning to rework the illustrations for my picture book proposal. 

I’m reading about the making The Bird Within Me Flies by Sara Lundberg as I prepare to do this. Lundberg is one of my favorite book artists working today, and reading her thoughts, always imbued with such genuine honesty and humility, has been a comfort:

“It was important for me to allow myself to be inconsequent. The characters didn’t have to look the same on each spread, I didn’t have to stick to a specific style or technique. So I just did each scene intuitively, and with the intention of bringing out the most interesting – the essence in each.

I felt confident that everything would tie up in the end anyway, so I might as well have fun on the way there, and avoid trying to do something perfect.” —Sara Lundberg

I’m also deeply interested in the pen-and-ink work of Patrick Benson, who illustrated one of our family’s favorite books: Owl Babies.

“The most important thing that an illustrator has to do is provide lots of visual clues, bits of information - rather like snapshots - that will act as a sort of springboard for the imagination.” —Patrick Benson

I’m keeping his advice close to me as I rework my illustrations, remembering that my job as an illustrator (and a writer) is never to provide the entire story, but to sprinkle just enough light so the reader can find their own path through it. 

THURSDAY

Nicola came to visit last week with her little one in tow, and between the gardens and meals and messes, we managed to take some new studio shots. There’s no one in the world I’d rather be photographed by than this particularly talented friend. Working together is easy: comfortable, classic, no frills—just like our friendship. 

My website requires a long-overdue update, and these new photographs will lead the way. So much has changed since the last time she photographed me in my workspace: a move to a new city, an MFA, a baby who is almost an entire year old. My own tiny studio with a door; a room of my own. 

My work has changed tremendously. I have, too. It feels good to capture some of this new. 

A tulips update: positively blooming. These little guys are bringing so much joy to us and all who walk by our home. 

FRIDAY

Dear waves, what will you do for me this year?
Will you drown out my scream?
Will you let me rise through the fog?
Will you fill me with that old salt feeling?
Will you let me take my long steps in the cold sand?
Will you let me lie on the white bedspread and study 
the black clouds with the blue holes in them?
Will you let me see the rusty trees and the old monoplanes one more year?
Will you still let me draw my sacred figures 
and move the kites and the birds around with my dark mind?

Lucky life is like this. Lucky there is an ocean to come to.
Lucky you can judge yourself in this water.
Lucky the waves are cold enough to wash out the meanness.
Lucky you can be purified over and over again.
Lucky there is the same cleanliness for everyone.
Lucky life is like that. Lucky life. Oh lucky life.
Oh lucky lucky life. Lucky life.

—from Lucky Life by Gerald Stern

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: When the ceiling becomes the sky.

The bound dummy book for my MFA Thesis project, When the Ceiling Becomes the Sky.

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY

Two days ago, I successfully defended my Master’s Thesis in a room full of faculty, all of whom are working illustrators, writers, and historians. I presented my critical essay, Mothering as Feminism, which proposes a new theory of feminism centered on the liberation of all people through the fundamental viewing of a mother as, first and foremost, an autonomous person worthy of value and care. I also presented my picture book dummy, When the Ceiling Becomes the Sky, which follows a child as she navigates the uncertainty that accompanies the birth of her baby sister and her mother’s postpartum depression.* 

I felt strange. Although the notion of discussing the work I’ve agonized and toiled over for the past year is exciting and opportune, I don’t like being the center of attention. On top of that, I was barely three weeks postpartum, didn’t fit into any of my clothes, and hadn’t slept more than three hours at a time since F was born. In the ten months leading up to this moment, I’d fretted about defense day. I’ll mess up, I told myself. I was convinced I wouldn’t be able to talk about my work in my postpartum haze—hormones surging through me, brain addled, body rearranged. I knew I’d probably cry.

As most postpartum people will tell you, birthing a child doesn’t automatically revert you back to your old self; instead, it catapults you into becoming someone new—someone you haven’t met yet, someone you’re not certain you’ll even like. This new person feels oddly present—and even more oddly—at peace. This new person feels confident, certain of her capabilities and her power to create change. 

The birth of my child also birthed a new me: one who can not only start over, but who does, and always has—again and again.

* P.S. I am interested in publishing both my picture book and my critical essay. If you know a publisher who may be a good fit for either project, please let me know. 

TUESDAY

Now that my picture book pitch is nearly finished, I’ve moved onto feeling both intimidated and excited at the prospect of pitching to children’s book agents and editors—along with a fair amount of post-adrenaline despair. The following interviews with artists I admire has brought some levity to this next stage of work:

• Michaela Goade on cultural respect, representation, and advocating for Mother Earth in her work. I also appreciated how open and honest she is about her path into the picture book world. 

  I recommend: Berry Song by Michaela Goade

• Jericho Brown on small truths and other surprises, and a wonderful look at how he constructs a poem (first: cut them apart).

  I recommend: Bullet Points by Jericho Brown

• Cátia Chien on the not-balance between motherhood and work, and again on how beautiful art blooms from creative struggle. 

  I recommend: Things to Do by Elaine Magliaro and Cátia Chien

WEDNESDAY

What I’ve been reading lately:

A look into Beatrix Potter’s journals, where her fascination with nature—particularly mushrooms and rabbits—influenced her illustrations and ultimately, the development of characters for her Peter Rabbit books. 

Inside Out & Back Again, a novel in verse by Thanhhà Lại, about a young girl fleeing Saigon for the United States during the Vietnam War.

Lisa Olivera on the ongoing practice of being present. 

THURSDAY

When I stepped outside after my defense, T was waiting for me. 

We’d agreed to quickly celebrate by grabbing margaritas at our local taco place for a few minutes before picking N up from school. Sitting on picnic benches in the warm sunshine, I filled him in on how it’d gone—the advice my professors had given me; the praise that had fallen out of their mouths and seeped into me, warming my bones; how I felt about next steps; what I wanted from my work and career moving forward. How it was all finally over.

It’d been 2 years since I first started graduate school; it was difficult to believe it had all come to an end. I’d sat through full days of class after waking up at 4 am with N; I’d written a book during each year of school, working nights and early mornings to fit it all in; I’d endured another difficult pregnancy while developing my thesis work, and I’d given birth to my second child a few weeks before my Thesis exhibition and defense. It was a lot, and often, I didn’t have faith I’d actually get through it. 

Me and T are both lucky enough to work for ourselves. While this means we have immense flexibility, it also means we work constantly—out of necessity, yes, but also out of a deep love for what we do. During the first year of graduate school, we argued out of sleeplessness, fatigue, both feeling our work had been deprioritized. During the second year of graduate school, we’d settled into a healthier rhythm: both prioritizing each other’s work and each other’s health, with the understanding that each stage of compromise was temporary and for our family’s greater good. The hard year gave way to the healthier year: we learned and grew from our own fallacies.

T moved us from Nashville to St. Louis, driving a 36-foot U-Haul. He renovated a condo for my parents to live in so they could help care for us; for 2 years, he did every single diaper, nap time, school pick-up and drop-off; he took N to the playground or zoo while I wrote my books, he made lunches while I did homework, he cleaned the house while I studied and wrote papers. He listened to me gripe about pregnancy, gestational diabetes, the body leaks, the brain fatigue. He thought through story plots with me, studied my character development, my concepts, my sketches. He told me to rest; he told me to stop working; he told me when he believed I could—and should—do better; he told me to try again. 

In the sunshine, we sit across the table from each other for 23 minutes. Since having children, time is allotted to us in minutes—a few here and there—usually less than 60, in which to shower or write or make a meal. T tells me how proud he is of me; I thank him for helping us all get through the past few years. My eyes well up and when his do, too, I finally understand it—what he has told me over and over again, what has been so difficult but necessary for me to believe—that my win is not my win alone. It is also his, and ours, and our family’s. No one at this table is alone. 

FRIDAY

May they never be lonely at parties
Or wait for mail from people they haven’t written
Or still in middle age ask God for favors
Or forbid their children things they were never forbidden.

May hatred be like a habit they never developed
And can’t see the point of, like gambling or heavy drinking.
If they forget themselves, may it be in music
Or the kind of prayer that makes a garden of thinking.

May they enter the coming century
Like swans under a bridge into enchantment
And take with them enough of this century
To assure their grandchildren it really happened.

May they find a place to love, without nostalgia
For some place else that they can never go back to.
And may they find themselves, as we have found them,
Complete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to.

May they be themselves, long after we’ve stopped watching.
May they return from every kind of suffering
(Except the last, which doesn’t bear repeating)
And be themselves again, both blessed and blessing.

—Prayer For Our Daughters by Mark Jarman

Guns are now the #1 killers of American children and teenagers. We will continue to demand action; please donate to Everytown to support those trying to keep our children safe. 

The National Network of Abortion Funds helps ensure the bodily autonomy and reproductive rights for all people. Please consider donating if you can.

If you'd like to support me, you can pre-order my upcoming book of illustrated essays, How it Feels to Find Yourself, for yourself, a loved one, or both! To receive a free archival art print from the book, please pre-order through BuyOlympia. My art prints, stationery, and books are also available through BuyOlympia. 

See you next week!

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Preserving the humanity in our work.

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY

Last week, Dan Blank asked me why I decided to make elegy/a crow/Ba into an accordion book. He wanted to know why I would spend precious time gluing and assembling 50 accordion books when I’m: 9 months pregnant; in the middle of writing my Master’s thesis; finishing my Master’s thesis project—my first picture book pitch; promoting my upcoming book of illustrated essays; preparing for baby’s arrival in 4 weeks; and, you know, keeping atop of my regular work load, toddler, and home life. 

So why am I gluing and assembling and folding and mailing? The answer is that I've been trying to figure out how to get back to myself for a long time now. I want to pay attention to the artist and the creativity in me, which has taken a back seat to the business of being a brand and artist. As I told Dan: This accordion book brings a lot of humanity back to the art I'm interested in making. This book isn’t about making money or sales or generating publicity — it’s simply about writing a story from the heart and putting it out into the world to connect with others. 

For our full conversation and more of Dan’s thoughts on the power of handcrafted, read the latest edition of his newsletter here. 

TUESDAY

A song: One of my favorite covers is M. Ward’s take on David Bowie’s Let’s Dance — on repeat in my studio these days as I draw, draw, draw.

A picture: I recently bought this print for N’s room from Anna Cunha’s shop. Her work is poignant and pure, often capturing the simplicity of childhood and living with the land. I was surprised to learn that her gorgeously textured work is mostly illustrated digitally. 

A book: I’m almost finished with María Hesse’s illustrated biography of Frida Kahlo, which is devastating, mournful, and, of course, beautiful. 

WEDNESDAY

An excerpt from Before and After the Book Deal that really hit home this week, as I do what feels like even less for my family and home, while juggling a million other things and preparing to give birth:

“I feel badly that my daughter feels bad about me missing today’s performance, but I don’t feel guilty. It took me decades to be able to live off my own creative writing, and in those decades I learned that I have to fight tooth and nail to defend not just my writing time, but my identity as a writer, because most people will want/need me to do something other than my art. From the minute I was presented with my long-legged, super sucker newborn, I realized that I now had the world’s most precious time suck in my arms. There would be no end to this baby’s needs, no end to the things she would want from me, expect from me, forget at school and need. Nina gives me a hard time about it, but I refuse to hide how important my career is to me. In the domestic framework I’ve set up and continue to fight for, my writing and my daughter are both tied for first.

But getting my daughter to understand that this framework is built from love and respect is a long, long game indeed. I believe if I model the example of a working creative who defends her time, sets boundaries, and is honest about what she wants and doesn’t want, then long-term, my daughter won’t be trampled by people who want to take and take from her, ask for favors that turn into unpaid labor, see her negotiating like a lamb when she should be negotiating like a lion. This will probably take two decades, or maybe it will take my own daughter one day having children to realize the values I’m trying to impart. Or maybe it won’t work.”

—from Can You Be a Good Mom and a Great Writer? by Courtney Maum

THURSDAY

The world has graced us with the most excellent weather this week—warm breezes and open windows, too early yet for mosquitos or sweat. We’ve gone on many walks, watched the grackles bathe in the alleyway puddles, filled the hummingbird feeder with simple syrup, and did lots of laundry. 

N wore her yellow dress with flowers for the first time this spring and looked like a doll from somebody else’s drawing. I didn’t take a picture but I’m writing it here, now, to remember.

FRIDAY

in the dream of foxes
there is a field
and a procession of women
clean as good children
no hollow in the world
surrounded by dogs
no fur clumped bloody
on the ground
only a lovely time
of honest women stepping
without fear or guilt or shame
safe through the generous fields.

—A Dream of Foxes by Lucille Clifton

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Behind the craft #1

Painting elegy/a crow/Ba, my first accordion book and illustrated poem

Hi all,

Welcome to my first craft post, where I’m focusing on the process behind elegy/a crow/Ba, my first accordion book and illustrated poem. 

Last semester, I took a sketchbooking class with Kruttika Susarla. I was eager to develop a sketchbook practice that, I hoped, would cultivate a deep love of drawing. It sounds silly to say that I want to love drawing more, especially because I am an artist by nature and trade, but while my affection for words feels innate, drawing has always felt more like a stranger: someone I am intrigued by, but also afraid of. And like most relationships, it’s harder to love something that challenges you or is difficult to understand. 

When I write and illustrate stories, the words come first. This is because I have more of a writer-brain than a drawing-brain; I think and process in and through words. This class encouraged me to push against my natural inclinations—to prioritize illustration as the seed from which a story can grow. 

I knew I wanted to illustrate a poem that I’d written, but without having a poem written to direct me, I felt a bit lost. I chose to do something I never do, which is trust the process. I’m a Type A personality, which is conducive for running a business, but not so helpful when getting lost in creative work. I focused on drawing whatever came to me, believing that the words—that is, the entire poem and story—would somehow come to me later. 

I began with some thumbnail sketches: 

The beginning of my process: thumbnail sketches about a nebulous story.

As you can see here, I used a 6-page template to storyboard my illustration. Together, with a front and back cover, this created an 8-page book. I knew I wanted the end product to be an accordion book, so I settled on a number of pages that felt manageable with my time constraints.

I didn’t have a story in mind, but I did have a subject: my relationship with my paternal grandmother, who lived with us and cared for me throughout most of my childhood before moving back to India when I was in high school. 

Without a text guiding me, I wasn’t sure where to begin. Instead, as I do with most of my work, I tried to pinpoint the feeling I wanted to convey: nostalgia, mostly, and the pinprick of heartache that memory evokes.

Here are a few different stories taking shape through tiny thumbnail illustrations:

I created several more sets of thumbnails before a direction became clear.

By the fifth iteration, I felt like I was getting somewhere. The concept of a panoramic illustration, drawn from a bird’s-eye viewpoint, captured the combination of awe and loneliness that I was after. Vast scenery surrounded two tiny characters, creating mystery, which is essential to every engaging story. This sketch did what I wanted it to—it asked a question: What’s the story here?

Whenever I read interviews with authors and illustrators, they talk about how, eventually, after hours of writing about them, the characters began speaking on their own. They talk about how the idea for their story came from nowhere, a shiny moon that suddenly appeared in orbit. They note how inspiration is not something that strikes like a lightning bolt, but something that visits occasionally, after you’ve been sitting at your desk discouragingly, doing the damn work. 

It’s easy to roll your eyes when you read this, especially if you’re someone like me, who wants a formula for success that they can follow. It’s discouraging when any creative you admire tells you that they don’t know how the astonishing work they made came to fruition. It just kinda happened, they say. All they know is that they showed up. They put their hands on the keyboard or their fingers around the paintbrush. They wrote words that amounted to nothing. They drew embarrassing sketches that led nowhere. And once in awhile, usually when they least expected it, something beautiful arose. 

The truth is, that is the formula that I’ve been looking for—I just hoped there was something else I was missing. But there isn’t. The formula is simple: Show up, do the work, see what happens.

I did a tiny color sketch next. Here, you’ll see that I combined elements from my fourth concept with my fifth, incorporating the bird as a third character. It wasn’t until I drew this that the bird became a crow, and it wasn’t until the bird became a crow that my story, all of a sudden, came together. This was a poem about our culture, our heritage, our relationship, and my memories. This was the poem about my grandmother that I’d been wanting to write. 

It was the first time that this strange phenomena happened to me, and it was such an important, special lesson for me to experience. Drawing is uncomfortable for me, but it’s a skill that requires mastery if I want to successfully share the stories inside me with the world of children’s literature. This unexpected breakthrough gave me the motivation to keep going. 

A final, digital sketch, and more experiments in color—which I generally use to create mood, atmosphere, and emotion.

I did a tighter sketch on Procreate, and tried a quick sepia-toned colorway. I liked it, but the blue version felt just right—cold, wintry, lost; like a story that happened many lifetimes ago. So I collected my materials and began the final drawing on 2 strips of Arches cold-pressed paper that I taped together—real fancy!

The final painting on my desk…need a bigger desk!

The completed painting is 8”x48” and was created with a combination of Holbein gouache (my underpainting and large swaths of color), Faber Castell polychromos colored pencils (detail work and texture), and Caran D’Ache neopastel oil pastels (blending, atmosphere, and texture). 

After the illustration was completed, the words slowly came. I wrote and rewrote the poem that accompanies the final page of this book several times, and then spent many weeks between October and December of 2022 revising it. 

I then added the front and back covers in Photoshop and spent approximately a week or two of my life trying to format it properly so that when printed across 4 panels and assembled, the accordion book would fold and unfold exactly the way I wanted it to. 

Here’s a photo of my shoddy version:

When I couldn’t quite figure it out, my friends at Done Depot here in St. Louis graciously took this task off my hands and printed the final panels for me. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been assembling the accordion books here and there, whenever I have small patches of time, and I’m so excited to now offer them for sale. 

elegy/a crow/Ba is an 8-page accordion book based on an illustrated poem I wrote about the memories, passing, and recollection of my grandmother. This poem was inspired by the Hindu tradition of Shradhha, in which we feed crows, the symbols of our ancestors and the carriers of our lineage. 

A limited edition of the book, assembled, signed, and numbered by hand, is now available in my shop.

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Life is infinitely inventive

One of the panels from elegy/a crow/Ba, my 8-page illustrated poem, now available as a hand-assembled accordion book

Hi, friends.

Once a month or so, I’ll be sending out a newsletter focusing on craft. These posts will highlight the inner workings of specific projects I’ve made or am working on. It’ll be an opportunity for you to ask questions about my process and for me to share the thoughts and inspirations behind certain decisions. 

A process post detailing the behind-the-scenes making of elegy/a crow/Ba, my accordion book (highlighted below, in Monday’s section of today’s post) will go out to all subscribers on Monday, March 6.

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY

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elegy/a crow/Ba is an 8-page accordion book based on an illustrated poem I wrote about the memories, passing, and recollection of my grandmother. This poem was inspired by the Hindu tradition of Shradhha, in which we feed crows, the symbols of our ancestors and the carriers of our lineage. 

A limited edition of the book, assembled, signed, and numbered by hand, is now available in my shop.

TUESDAY

I grew up listening to Simon & Garfunkel’s version of Blues Run the Game, but when Laura Marling’s version came on the radio today, T reminded me that this beautiful song was originally written and recorded by Jackson C. Frank. 

Of course, that sent me reading, and I was excited to learn that Paul Simon produced Frank’s first (and only) album, and that Frank used to live with both Simon & Garfunkel in England for some time. Can you imagine having these people as your roommates?I’ve got a lovely husband and toddler as my own, personally speaking, but geez louise the envy has taken hold.

I’ve been listening to Frank’s eponymous album on repeat all day, and of course, the original Blues Run the Game has already played more than a dozen times.

WEDNESDAY

“I grew up mostly happy, in relative poverty, using colorful paper food stamps to buy salty potato chips and sugary twenty- five- cent juice from the corner store and then trekking up to our second- floor apartment, belly satiated and heart full. And. As an adult, I’ve flown business class across the world (many times) and enjoyed meals that cost more than a month’s rent at that childhood apartment. This and that. Both true. As a kid, I spent rainy summer days climbing inside of plastic milk crates so that my brothers could push me alongside the curb on our city street, my tiny vessel floating along the current of backed- up rainwater that would quickly take me down the hill on Smith Street. It was glorious and exhilarating. And. As an adult, I’ve spent lush sunny days on a steep hillside in Italy, enjoying a private pool overlooking a vast vineyard, wine in one hand and a laptop in the other. This and that. Both true.

With full clarity, I understand the uniqueness of my position, which exists because of, rather than in spite of, how I grew up. Living both sides of the same coin has gifted me the insight to never take my experiences for granted. And to be certain, all of these experiences are etched into the happiest places deep inside of my soul. I can still instinctively feel the delight of simpler times floating down rainwater on a city street, just as much as I can feel the deep exhale and warmth of an afternoon in the Tuscan sun.

Though some may perceive poverty as bad and prosperity as good, I know that neither is absolutely true. That clarity has taught me to accept life as it is and still find joy wherever I am.”

—For Richer or Poorer, excerpted from Cyndie Spiegel’s MICROJOYS: Finding Hope (Especially) When Life is Not Okay

THURSDAY

“Sitting in a windowless room in Times Square, scrolling from library to library, state to state, we were unexpectedly moved by the color, light and joy at our fingertips. These glimpses into lives of strangers were a reminder that copies of the books piled on our desks at the Book Review will soon land on shelves in libraries across the country and, eventually, in the hands of readers. You’ll pass them to other people, and on and on.

We all know that books connect us, that language has quiet power. To see the concentration, curiosity and peace on faces lit by words is to know — beyond a shadow of a doubt, in a time rife with shadows — that libraries are the beating hearts of our communities. What we borrow from them pales in comparison to what we keep. How often we pause to appreciate their bounty is up to us.”

—A Love Letter to Libraries, Long Overdue by Elisabeth Egan and Erica Ackerberg 

FRIDAY

More amazed than anything 
I took the perfectly black 
stillborn kitten 
with the one large eye 
in the center of its small forehead 
from the house cat's bed 
and buried it in a field 
behind the house. 

I suppose I could have given it 
to a museum, 
I could have called the local 
newspaper. 

But instead I took it out into the field 
and opened the earth 
and put it back 
saying, it was real, 
saying, life is infinitely inventive, 
saying, what other amazements 
lie in the dark seed of the earth, yes, 

I think I did right to go out alone 
and give it back peacefully, and cover the place 
with the reckless blossoms of weeds.

—The Kitten by Mary Oliver

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Time is strange

A glimpse of Maja, the painting I’ve spent my mornings working on.

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY

Time is strange. It is both urgent and painstakingly slow. 

Today, it strikes me that I have less than 3 months to finish my thesis picture book, my dissertation, and my final exhibition. Less than 3 months to prepare a nursery. Less than 3 months until my next book is released. At the same time, I have almost 3 more months of medication, of uncomfortable sleep, of monitoring my blood sugar, of remembering to take half a dozen pills. 3 more months of sharing my body with another person. 

Time is strange. It is what I govern my days by, despite knowing that it is entirely made up. It is both urgent and painstakingly slow. 

I read Otis Kidwell Burger’s diary entry and something about her experience, so familiar and unlike mine at the same time, eases the restless in me:

But surely everyone, at one time or another, has awakened thinking himself in some other place or in some earlier time. The conception of time depends, then, I suppose, upon the perception of continuity, and for this reason a woman's sense of time must be quite different from a man's. Her sense of continuity is internal and natural, not the external and easily interrupted continuity of clocks and calendars. She connects directly to the source of time, and the moon that pulls the tides around the world also pulls the hormone tide within her; her months are marked off without need of calendar. She carries her months, her years, her spring and winter within herself.

TUESDAY

I’m very excited by Violeta Lopez’s work, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting her latest picture book, At the Drop of a Cat (Enchanted Lion Books) ever since I first caught glimpses of it last year. I’m someone who becomes easily trapped in thinking rather than doing: I mull over my process. I think through ideas and experiments without actually just…trying them. This is rooted in fear of failure—I’m aware of that, yes, but having the awareness hasn’t made it any easier to change. 

Watching Violeta’s process of creating this book is eye-opening. Instantly, it becomes clear that there are particular perspectives that are attainable only through our hands, that can only be conjured by the grit of paper and pencil on our fingers, inaccessible entirely to our minds. 

In my own thesis project, I’ve finally finished re-writing the manuscript to my picture book. It took me over a dozen rewrites, 3 entirely different storylines, and many months to finally hear my own voice throughout the book. As I begin to paginate and create thumbnail artwork for the book, I find myself leaning forward, excited and nervously, by Violeta’s method for putting together a story. Rather than our own thoughts or ideas or even the stirring of our own hearts, it is the doing that continues to surprise us the most. 

WEDNESDAY

“I also have a full life outside. I work from home, but I travel a lot. Those two things mean I have to be very routine based, which sometimes means knowing when to stop writing. Every day, if I’m not done working by like five or six, I give myself a hard stop and I step away from my computer and usually don’t return to it. I call it quits for the day and any emails can wait until the next day. For me, knowing when to stop writing was a problem a couple years ago. I would work late into the night. I was telling myself I did my best writing at half ‘til midnight and then work deep until like 2am, and that wasn’t really serving anything. I’m much more excited about the idea of waking up and getting to writing now. The fact that I can wake up and know that I can put words on a blank page is more exciting to me than feeling like I have to put words on a blank page in order to earn the right to sleep.”

—Hanif Abdurraqib on avoiding burnout in creative work

THURSDAY

“…While we wait we must remain prepared and alert, and one way to do so is to write things down, in order to advance the idea, as this indicates a readiness to receive. Beware, however, of the idea that comes too easily, as this is often a residual idea and only compelling because it reminds us of something we have already done. We don’t want an idea that is like something we have done before. We don’t want a second-hand idea. We want the new idea. We want the beautiful idea.

One day, you will write a line that feels wrong, but at the same time provides you with a jolt of dissonance, a quickening of the nervous system. You will shake your head and write on, only to find that you come back to it, shake your head again, and carry on writing — yet back you come, again and again. This is the idea to pay attention to, the difficult idea, the disturbing idea, shimmering softly among all the deficient, dead ideas, gently but persistently tugging at your sleeve.”

—Nick Cave on how to recognize when something you’ve written is worthwhile

FRIDAY

I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors
but you aren't about to paint it that way
I didn't know I loved the sea
                             except the Sea of Azov
or how much

I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois
strikes me
I like it

I didn't know I liked rain
whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my
   heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop
   and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved
   rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting
   by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
is it because I lit my sixth cigarette
one alone could kill me
is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow
her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks
I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty
   to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
   watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

—from Things I Didn’t Know I Loved by Nâzim Hikmet

(This poem was sent to me by Stephanie, a subscriber. My favorite gift to receive is a poem. If you’d like to share your favorites, please do so in the comments below for us all to enjoy.)

If you'd like to support me, you can pre-order my upcoming book of illustrated essays, How it Feels to Find Yourself, for yourself, a loved one, or both! My art prints, stationery, and books are available through BuyOlympia.

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: The gaps of life.

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY

My collaboration with Mead Cambridge was released a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share it here. Over the last year, I worked on dozens of iterations before these three designs were greenlit for production, and although we are well into January, I hope these will be of use to those of you who, like me, enjoy mapping out their days.

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A handful of planners are available in my shop as well as on Amazon. You can also enter the giveaway I’m hosting on Instagram (virtually no one has seen this post, so there is a very large chance you will win!). 

TUESDAY

When I confided to a friend recently that paring down my interests felt like I was making my work, business, and impact smaller, she invited me to realign my perspective, sending me the following passage:

“If you take objects out of a room, one by one, two things will happen. The first is obvious. You will miss some of the things you have taken away. The second is that you will notice the things that remain more than ever. Your attention will focus. You will become more likely to read the books that are left on the shelves. You will appreciate the remaining chairs more. And if there is a chess board, you are more likely to play chess. When things are taken from us, the stuff that remains has more value. It rises not only in visibility but also intensity. What we lose in breadth we gain in depth.”

—The gaps of life from Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book

WEDNESDAY

Today I read Still This Love Goes On, a beautiful picture book by Buffy Sainte-Marieand Julie Flett that celebrates seasons, Indigenous traditions, and community. When I finish, I turn to the back of the book to read the note that Buffy and Julie have written to readers. 

In hers, Julie writes: The lyrics represent a Cree worldview, one in which we don’t really have a word for goodbye, but say kithwam ka-wapamitonaw, which means “we’ll see each other again.”

I think about how much is lost in translation—between separate languages, of course, but also in the simplest of glances, or when transforming sheet music into sound, or when inviting the sentences from a book into our brains. I think about how often words fail us, even the ones we believe to most precisely describe how we feel. Mostly, I think about how beautiful it is that in Cree philosophy there is little reason for the word goodbye to exist. 

THURSDAY

It’s a cold January day but we go for our usual morning walk anyway. For the first time, N wears her dinosaur hat, a hand-me-down from her 3 cousins.

“Are you a dinosaur?” I ask her, smiling.

“No, mama,” N tells me solemnly. “Daddy is a dinosaur. I just have a dinosaur hat.”

I trail behind her and her dinosaur dad sheepishly, wondering how I could’ve let myself ask such a daft question. As she bounces along, I think about how many heads the dinosaur hat has called home: first A, who is now 9; then S, who is 7; and Z, who, at 2, is only a month older than N. 

I love that N wears so much of her cousins’ clothing. As I watch her collect sticks and pinecones, memories float along the river of my mind and down to my heart, where A carved out his own little nook nine years ago. I was still a lost kid in my mid-twenties when A came into the world prematurely, a tiny riot of iron will and too-fast-everything. 

Almost a decade before I had my own child, it was A who first introduced me to parenting—and that learning to parent is a long road towards becoming the person you always wanted to be, but never actually practiced being. With A, I learned what patience truly is. I didn’t know how to hold a baby, but I practiced with his little limbs. I felt my heart irrationally flare with anger when another toddler stole his pail at the playground; I practiced calming myself. I learned what it meant to be protective of another’s mind and heart through my conversations with him. I learned how to love my sibling more closely by observing how he loves his. Even today, I feel my heart well each time I experience the sensitivity and empathy he carries with him daily. It is far too big for his frame. As a person, I have always been slightly closed. It was A who taught me how to open my heart—who taught me how to love unconditionally. 

I think about A all day. Later, my sister tells me that the dinosaur hat never belonged to A—she bought it for S when he was little. Not only is my memory flawed, but the immediate flood of recollection I experienced was summoned by a truth that never even existed. At first, I feel cheated, as if the love in my heart is a lie. But then A’s face fills my mind and my eyes are quick to fill with tears. I feel overwhelmed by my love for him. Nothing about this love is a lie. 

FRIDAY

You simply go out and shut the door
without thinking. And when you look back
at what you’ve done
it’s too late. If this sounds
like the story of life, okay.

It was raining. The neighbors who had
a key were away. I tried and tried
the lower windows. Stared
inside at the sofa, plants, the table
and chairs, the stereo set-up.
My coffee cup and ashtray waited for me
on the glass-topped table, and my heart
went out to them. I said, Hello, friends,
or something like that. After all,
this wasn’t so bad.

Worst things had happened. This
was even a little funny. I found the ladder.
Took that and leaned it against the house.
Then climbed in the rain to the deck,
swung myself over the railing
and tried the door. Which was locked,
of course. But I looked in just the same
at my desk, some papers, and my chair.
This was the window on the other side
of the desk where I’d raise my eyes
and stare out when I sat at that desk.
This is not like downstairs, I thought.
This is something else.

And it was something to look in like that, unseen,
from the deck. To be there, inside, and not be there.
I don’t even think I can talk about it.
I brought my face close to the glass
and imagined myself inside,
sitting at the desk. Looking up
from my work now and again.
Thinking about some other place
and some other time.
The people I had loved then.

I stood there for a minute in the rain.
Considering myself to be the luckiest of men.
Even though a wave of grief passed through me.
Even though I felt violently ashamed
of the injury I’d done back then.
I bashed that beautiful window.
And stepped back in.

—Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In by Raymond Carver

xx,

M

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