Under the Same Sky Bajo el Mismo Cielo

This month we’ve been visiting Montana, “Big Sky Country.” The Rocky Mountains extend up here, and visitors like ourselves arrive from all over to experience Glacier National Park and all of the natural wonders of this largely rural state.

But for weeks, the wide open sky has been filled with the haze of smoke from the wildfires in Washington, Oregon and Canada. There were many days it was not safe to be outside for long, especially for folks like me who have asthma and respiratory health conditions. I left out a basket of extra masks for our neighbors in the RV park and we checked the AQI every day to gauge our risks. I was filled for several days with feelings of disappointment and climate grief, thinking of all the communities like Spokane who were losing their homes and the wildlife and forests that would be affected. Here’s a little smidgen of a poem I started working on:

Smoke drifts on the wind
turns the sky sandstone
blurs the evergreen mountains 
to mere outlines
while a state west of us is burning
this is the smoke of a fire
that took their homes 
burnt national forests, protected lands
no longer protected 

In their book, How to Tell When We Will Die, Johanna Hedva describes the psychological “disorder” of depersonalization that they have lived with since they were a child. Through the chapter, “In Defense of De-persons,” they discuss how people who are disabled, neurodiverse, mad and/or otherwise are unable to fit into the universality or personhood of capitalist society, and that the normalization of capitalist domination, extraction, state violence and neglect, itself a form of violence, forces many people into states of unreality. Hedva offers that there is actually political agency in being de-personalized. How can this shift in thinking honor other ways of being, interconnected rather than separate, in a world of hyper-individualism?

Hedva describes this shift as becoming “de-governable, de-master-able, de-possessed, de-owned, de-owning, de-private, de-priveleged, de-individual.” This kind of thinking is often categorized in the mental health field as psychosis, but as Jarod T. Anderson says in his book, Something in the Woods Loves You, when describing the toxicity of patriarchal masculinity in Western culture, “unchecked self-interest as a human, a creature whose most potent strengths rest on communal endeavor and decentralized expertise, is not logical.” I also had the opportunity to read Ampersand Organ: A More-Than-Human Lyric by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes and interview them about their work, and have been thinking a lot about how this book is an incredible incantation of kinship, breaking down barriers between the individual self and everyone, and everything else in the world we inhabit.

I’ve been thinking a lot in the last few weeks about reactions to increased heat domes and climate disasters we have been experiencing in the last decade, and how this is becoming the new normal, inescapable and happening broadly across the globe. There are no fires near us, but smoke from miles away affects us too. Our fates are all connected. How are we confronting these realities and preparing? How does one hold radical hope and kinship in our hearts while living with these realities? What is the difference between adaptation and normalization, mass sedation, and held hostage by a handful of billionaires hell-bent on sending all of us careening towards annihilation?

Last weekend, we visited White Fish to attend the Huckleberry Arts Festival. There were a variety of local artist and artisans, as well as food vendors there, including folks selling jams and pastries with the state fruit, the Huckleberry. On one of our visits to Glacier, we took a boat tour across St. Mary’s Lake, and the tour guide shared that huckleberries are so special, and hoarded by locals, because they can’t be domestically grown, only found in the wild at higher elevations. While we haven’t found any huckleberries to forage yet, we have found elderberries, service berries and wild raspberries.

As the wildfire smoke has dissipated, we’ve been fortunate to walk around Flathead Lake, hike the to Avalanche Lake in Glacier, explore Kootenai Falls and the suspension bridge in the Kootenai National Forest. Some of these trails, with the elevation, have tested my stamina, but taking our time, staying hydrated and knowing my body’s limits has made these hikes, and the views we witnessed more than worth it.

Being in the presence of these beautiful natural places, the plants growing in the wild, rivers and waterfalls sluicing across rock, shaping the curve of mountains and trajectory of animals, including us, traversing the land, is always a reminder of what we must protect, and what we stand to lose. Indigenous communities and activists have been and continue to advocate for returning land stewardship to them and healing our relationships with the lands we live on, visit, hold in beloved care. It requires a rejection of white supremacist capitalist extraction, wholesale private land ownership, and much more. In my last newsletter, I referenced Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Declaration of Interdependence.” As we visit and move through these spaces, I return to her words, and her books, Gathering Moss and The Serviceberry.

I often think that the people who most need to witness and return to this beauty won’t; they feel no connection to the natural world we are a part of, and therefore no reverence for its protection. I strive to recognize this in these moments of loud, crashing, sweeping beauty on our walks and hikes, as well as quiet moments when I greet the trees, take pictures of the plants I don’t know the names of yet, and thank the land for allowing us to be there to witness all seen and unseen, sensed and just out of reach.

If you’re interested in becoming a paid subscriber to support the newsletter and my work, I’d love to have you! Just $5 a month will help me continue to offer curated book recommendations, writing prompts, author spotlights, resources and more! You will also receive discounts on future workshops and editing services. It’s hard to be an independent artist, and your monthly support helps make my work more sustainable.

2026 Projects, Workshops and Events

Although I have multiple books in progress right now, one of the novels I am working on is on deadline for a submission by December, so I am prioritizing finishing a draft of that first. Since I no longer use NaNoWrimo anymore since a lot of bad stuff went down with them, I have been tracking my writing progress on myWriteClub. There’s something helpful for me to have a visual way to track my incremental progress on this work, and it’s easy to use. I’m also writing this book in a different way than I have with other works. I am generally someone who writes non linearly, writing scenes for a story or longer work in flashes as they come to me, often out of order of the story.

Recently, I have been supporting a writer friend, (insert Florinda’s information here) on her incredible speculative novel. She made it her mission to finish a draft by her birthday in July, and was successful. I was really inspired by how she pushed herself to write her way to the end of the story, not knowing exactly how it was going to go and letting the creative freedom guide her, so that is the method I am employing with this book too. While I’ll make little notes about ideas as they come, I am trying to only write scenes like tiles laid out one after the other. There is so much I don’t know about this book, which is both exciting and anxiety-inducing. I’ve never finished a novella or novel before, and yet now, with three books under my belt, it has never felt more possible.

Undertaking new work is daunting, because you are the creator, and have only yourself to rely on in the early stages of creating. Collaboration and support is important, but that often comes later.

My horror collection, The Remedy is the Disease, is out now from Undertaker Books! You can order your copy now using the link above!

I am currently planning the rest of my readings, workshops and events for fall 2026 and will announce more details in soon!

I’m incredibly heartened to that the book has been received so well by several reviewers. Here are some reviews and podcasts I’ve appeared on lately so you can get a sense of the book:

• You can read a review of the book here in Sinister Scoop!
• Review by H.V. Patterson
• Review by Alex Brown
• Susto Podcast Interview
• The Basement Girls Podcast: The Wolf Man
• The Scares That Shaped Us: The Thing

If you missed the virtual book launch I did last week with two of my favorite writers and supporters, Rios de la Luz and Ryan C. Bradley, you can watch the recorded reading here!

My poetry chapbook, Offerings to the Tumbled Temple, is also out now from Purple Ink Press! You can purchase a copy here. Chapbooks like these make great gifts for your poetry loving friends! You can also order a copy from your local indie bookstore or, if you love your local library, you can request that they stock a copy.

Indie bookstores currently stocking my books:

• BookWoman in Austin, TX
• Red Salmon Arts/Resistencia Bookstore in Austin, TX
• Austin Public Library Shop, Austin, TX
• Lark and Owl Bookstore in Georgetown, TX
• Haunt Happy Books in Lockhart, TX
• Curio Mrvosa in Taylor, TX
• Nowhere Bookshop in San Antonio, TX
• Boerne Bookshop in Boerne, TX
• Interabang Books in Dallas, TX
• Palabras Bilingual Bookshop in Phoenix, AZ
• Word Horde Emporium of The Weird and Fantastic in Petaluma, CA
• Secret Garden Books in Seattle, WA

Here are some ways that you can help me to promote my book (and other indie poets and writers):

• Buy a copy if you can.
• Share the book with your loved ones.
• If you love your local library or independent bookstore, you can request that they stock a copy.
• Nominate my book(s) for your next book club read!
• If you or anyone you know reviews books, you can request an copy from me to review!
• I am now booking for 2026 events, so if you have a bookstore, community organization or space you would like for me to provide a workshop, reading, author talk, etc, comment or reach out via my contact page on my website to plan further!

Open to New Editing Clients for the Fall!

The summer is almost over, and I’m opening up to a few new clients! As a professional editor and mentor, I would love to work with you to support your creative goals and develop your current projects!

I would love to take on folks who are working on poetry manuscripts or novels of all kinds, especially weird, speculative work, but I’m open to all forms of writing! You can read some testimonials from my current clients. I offer a variety of services and rates to fit your budget, so reach out today to schedule a consultation.

What I’m Reading and Watching: Women in Translation

August is a liminal time between summer and fall-the dog days of summer on the cusp of more. This liminality always makes me think of the weird, speculative work I enjoy that has influenced my own writing. It is also Women in Translation month, and since I am making it a priority this month to finish books in progress and make it through my physical TBR, here are some books I plan to read this month/by the end of the year to celebrate works in translation from international women writers. Several of the books on this list were published in translation by Feminist Press, which is an incredible indie publisher I love!

As someone who is bilingual and interested in linguistics, always trying to learn new words and phrases in other langues besides English and Spanish, I find that many of the authors listed here are also writing fictional works that I emulate: they are surreal, uncanny, sometimes disturbing but always thought-provoking, often critiquing modern society and the ways we circumvent convention for genuine connection.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang was a book I read in recent years that stuck with me, not only because of it’s surrealism and body horror, but because I found it very relatable in its depiction of patriarchal control and how Kang depicted the “de-person-ness” and divergent thinking I mentioned above. The ending may seem extreme to readers when Yeong-hye gives up her life to return to the forest and become, in her mind, a tree, but I read that thinking that this was an exercise in reclaiming agency.

Here are some of the books I have read recently or plan to read:

• The Bookshop Woman by Nanako Hanada translated by Cat Anderson (Netgalley arc)
  • This was a surprise nonfiction ARC about Hanada’s experience after her separation from her husband when she was feeling adrift at her job at a novelty shop and joined PerfectStrangers, a matching site where you could meet interesting strangers in your area. She recounts all of the many different people she met around Tokyo from the interesting, the mundane, and even sometimes downright creepy. The more people she makes connections with, she begins offering them personalized book recommendations, as she has sold books in the store she manages and is an avid reader. Along the way, she learns more and more about herself, what she values in life and what is so special about connecting with others, whether they are one-time meetings or lasting friendships. I loved this quote: “But tonight, right now, I could see my own outlines clear and bright, sparking and fizzing as though with electricity.” I really enjoyed this book and would absolutely recommend it to others, especially book lovers!
• Panics by Barbara Molinard
  • I was gifted this book in 2023 because the gift giver told me it reminded him of my writing. I just finished it this year, as I am a slow reader when it comes to short collections, especially if I own them. What a book! Reading about Molinard in the translator’s note at the end, who lived with mental illness and struggled with her own writing for years, often destroying her work before it could even be shared, much less published, it is a wonder this book lives at all. The stories embody the malaise of everyday life, the disassociation of the characters from those around them and the anxiety and existential dread that comes with thinking and living in ways that defy what society expects as death looms over all. I’ve wondered, reading Molinard’s work, if she was neurodivergent, as many of the stories illustrate the mental anguish of someone who cannot assimilate to the neurotypical thinking and behavior of others. It’s definitely a feeling I relate to! I’ve taught “The Headless Man” from this collection in one of my Writing the Weird workshops, and hope to return to these stories for inspiration over and over again.
• Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell
• I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Towards Darkness by Irene Solà, translated by Mara Faye Lethem
• Medea Sang Me a Corrido by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches
• Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
• Witches by Brenda Lozano, translated by Heather Cleary
  • I’ve included this book in book recommendations before, but am returning to it to ensure I finally read it this year!
• Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsukimura, translated by Yuki Tejima
• Midnight Timetable: A Novel in Ghost Stories by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
• I’ve been meaning to read Mariana Enriquez for a while now, and I have two physical books on my list that I plan to dig into, Things We Lost in the Fire and A Sunny Place for Shady People.
• Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses

Since many of these books also fall into the category of weird, shorter fiction, I wanted to include some honorable mentions that I found interesting or moving, some in translation and some not, some written by men, but all in that same uncanny storytelling space:

• We Hexed the Moon by Mollyhall Seeley
• Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda
• The Secret Life of Insects by Bernardo Esquinca, translated by James D. Jenkins

Writing Prompts

How are you intertwined, interconnected, interdependent with all around you?

What points of connection can you affirm?

Call to Action: Community Care Spotlight

This space is meant to spotlight communities, creators and activists who are taking action to resist and do caring things for others. This month, I am highlighting funds and organizations aiding those in the Pacific Northwest and Indigenous and First Nations Communities in Western Canadian provinces affected by this horrible wildfire season:

• H.O.M.E Starts Here Fund for Spokane, WA
• Indigenous Climate Action has created a comprehensive list of grassroots organizations to donate funds and resources to to support First Nations communities affected by wildfires across Western Canadian provinces.

Leticia