Everything comes around

About four hours from me writing this post, I'll be on a plane to America. Not only will I be heading to Tin House's Summer Writing Workshop to learn from the tremendous Jenny Offill, but I'll be generally travelling and exploring the country - Seattle to Portland, then New Orleans, New York, Boston before coming back home to Brisbane.

I've been planning the trip since February, but oddly it hasn't really felt real yet. Not even today, with my travel wallet full, my bags packed, and a touch hungover after a wonderful leaving party/picnic yesterday, has the trip settled in the snow globe of my head. Well, I suppose it'll have to today.

Anywho, a mixtape. Not all the songs are embedding for some reason, so you might need to open it in Spotify to hear them all. Enjoy!

Read Around America

In just over two weeks, I’ll be shipping out of cool, winter Brisbane and heading halfway around the world to a summery United States. It’s my first time going to America and my first time overseas to a country that isn’t New Zealand or an Australian island in almost fifteen years.

It’s a little bit crazy.

For anyone wondering, my reason for the trip is that I was accepted into the Tin House Summer Writers’ Workshop which is held between the 12 – 19 July. I’ve also tacked on a bit of a holiday onto either side of it. My trip is taking me first to Seattle, then Portland for the workshop, New Orleans, New York and Boston. I’ll be leaving on the 5^th of July and back on the 2^nd August. It’s going to be a big month!

The question I’ve got at the moment though is what, exactly, I should read on the trip. I’m thinking I should be tackling quintessential American novels while I’m over there, or novels set in the places I’m visiting.

So! What books do you recommend for good reading while travelling around America?

I may snap and I move fast

This year is going lightning fast. It's pretty nuts to think we're already checking out at the halfway point. By all accounts, it feels like we're over the hump that, for whatever reason, sat fat and angry at the start of this year. Things seem to be lightening up.

But looking ahead, I'm spending a lot of June tidying things up ready to spend July in America. It's my first time in the country, so I'm tentatively excited for it. Well, maybe a little more than tentatively. Maybe very excited. But nervous too. I've talked before about the fact that I'm a root layer more than a nomad, and this isn't a great big move, but in some ways it feels like it. It's four weeks in another country, bouncing state to state, and that's not always a form I do well in.

I hope I get a taste for it. I'd love to be more inclined that way. To find some traveller blood in me. Shake off this home body.

We'll wait and see, I guess.