Craft as a teacher
Creativity as an ecosystem, and the joy of improvised home decor
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Craft, in all its forms, asks us to both work within a structure and fly in the face of it.
The work that makes me grow the most as a writer is the work that asks me to stretch, but that also happens from a place of joy. I've spent the year rethinking how I work, the results of which can be seen in my approach to supporting fellow writers. And I've begun to think of my creative practice in terms of an ecosystem, taking stock of the whole to nourish the individual beings within it (hence the name Roots and Branches).
I appreciate focusing my energy on work that asks me to stretch, or meander, or move in some way that feels tangible within the writing.
Writing as embodied, rather than writing as task.
Part of growing my craft to write in this way asks me to rethink the structure of my writing days. And it asks me to engage with the dual learning of craft: Which asks us to learn the skill itself (whether writing or woodworking or whatever else), and then use the act of learning and performing that skill to teach us other, often unexpected, lessons.
One lesson my exploration of how I work has taught me is that I needed dedicated space, and to rethink my time. The 'craft as action' side of the coin meant redoing my studio and making it functional. It also meant recognizing my own cycles, and matching my writing times to meet them rather than imposing a structure that isn't mine to hold.
The 'craft as lesson and reflection' side of the coin meant confronting the fear at the root of these actions: That I'm not doing enough, that whatever I'm doing "won't work," and whatever other near-universal fears we carry. I'm hardly afraid of failure (I actually don't really believe in it as a concept, truth be told), but I'm also impatient, so teaching myself to slow down and give my work space to unfold and to reach the people it needs to has been...a bit of a process.
Whether or not I believe in failure, that anxiety about if my work will land with who I want it to, if I'll be financially successful, or whatever else always crops up. But as I'm learning, doing less but with more intention, and focusing and meditating before acting, has been lifechanging. Craft is not about making more or meeting deadlines, craft is (in part at least) about bringing an idea into the physical world.
Home crafts as liberatory
In thinking of the craft of writing, I also think of how crafts in all their forms have shaped my life this year. Much wonderful work has been written on how our cultural dismissal of craft, particularly crafts done by women for various home goods, is informed by patriarchal structures that render women's work in the home un-valuable and invisible. As with cooking, craft has a lot to teach us. Even something like scooping mulch every day for a month, while not maybe seen as a 'craft', is a way to witness our progress in creating (or deconstructing) a thing.
Working by hand teaches us the skill behind that work, but it teaches us the art of living too.
For me, it's been a year of repairs and purchases, more so than usual, but it's also been a year of improvisation. When I think about the lessons I've learned, it's that improvisation is a useful outlet and source of joy, particularly for those of us whose creative output is so deeply enmeshed with our finances and public persona.
The tendrils of this revelation reach out into many areas of my life, and I found a particular synchronicity between discovering my current favorite improvised craft (instructions below!), leading Writing Playground, and a line in a social post by Jarod K. Anderson (which I may be lightly paraphrasing here): "If you can fail, it isn't play."
This year has meant lots of unweaving and reweaving, so in that spirit here are two pieces from the archive I think you might enjoy:
This piece on identity, particularly on claiming my own Queer identity and the role food writing and my food communities played in that.
And this piece on mindful eating, particularly on its historical roots and mindfulness as a source of joy.
Celebrations:
2023 was all about expanding into the new and deepening into the familiar.
Expansions include: my first time winning book awards, my very first time as an subject matter expert for a court case (turns out this is super fun!), buying a home in Ireland (where I'll be ~ half the year going forward), offering oracle readings publicly, something I've always been sheepish about doing (and, importantly, only focusing on ones that speak to the kind of work I want to do).
I also expanded into new kinds of collaborations, like my pickling spice blend with Burlap and Barrel, Instagram Lives with creators and collaborators in adjacent interest areas (medical doctors, for example, like Dr. Sarah Ballantyne).
I also turned 40, expanding into a new decade that, if the last 6 or so months are to be believed, will be my best yet.
Case in point: I've started exercising and meditating daily again (needed! important!) and spend the last year really diving into somatic work and embodying my practice in all the ways I interact with the world: As a writer, a teacher, a fermenter, a coach, and a person. With gratitude to Ana Kinkela, Rachael Bradbury, and Ada Johnson, who have been pivotal to this expansion.
Spaces where I deepened into my work include: launching Roots + Branches, leaning into teaching fermentation in multiple countries, landing two book contracts at once (and completing one manuscript this year!), expanding my teaching/events in Alaska to collaborate with Rose McAdoo, and continuing to do regular book talks and events.
I offered Writing Playground, which was a really helpful way for me to forge my own coaching and writing support path, as well as Protecting your Practice.
This is in addition to my continued coaching work with Scholars and Writers, which I love because I continue to grow and learn alongside each person I work with, and both coaching models offer me so much space for reflection on process. Truly amazing, I'm very blessed (not to mention Anne, who runs Scholars and Writers, and Adeline, who handles a lot of the day to day, are both incredible people who I love working with).
I graduated from Chestnut School for herbalism and began training for my 200-HR yoga certification.
I continue to hold my dream of offering multifaceted creative spaces for fermentation, writing, reflection, and healing (and art? music? other things?) in rural spaces in the US and Ireland. Those dreams are coming along in their own time.
In the coming year, there are some exciting new things coming for my work and for me:
For Root the big one is that the online classes I offer will be growing in a really fun direction that I’m really excited to share. Plus, I’ll be releasing a new class, the long-awaited Finding Your Food Story, which has turned into a huge, beautiful, useful course beyond my wildest dreams, like a choose your own adventure of food history, memoir, and magic!
I'm also handing in the second of my new book manuscripts, this one the Essential Preserving Handbook, AND my other new book, the Fermentation Adventure oracle + recipe deck, will be released! Both in the same month!
2024 will be a great year for my life as an author (though I may be scarce in the autumn as I launch one book and finish another!)
I'm starting with my new 1:1 coaching clients for Roots and Branches in January, and plan to continue taking on new folks on a rolling basis until spaces fill up. Once they do, I'll be bringing on new folks about every two months. I always keep a waitlist, though, so I can accommodate and hopefully help as many writers as possible.
I'm also continuing to offer Mycelia and oracle readings throughout the year (I'm even giving a couple readings away to coincide with the release of my next book!)
I've been really, really loving the chance to think about how I can support my writing/creative community and put those thoughts into real, tangible things, and I can't wait to see how that continues to expand.
As I've talked about before, I created each of these out of a desire to support my fellow writers in ways I wasn't seeing elsewhere, and I get so excited about using my love of ecosystems, food, herbalism, and plant biology as a way to help people connect to their writing practices and finding joy and play in the process.
I really want to help people transform their relationship to creativity and productivity in the ways I've transformed mine, and to help people give themselves permission, at long last, to treat their work as a playground. And it actually works! How lucky am I to get to do this?
I’m not being facetious, I am so grateful every day that my job is to think about things, write about things, and help other people do that, too.
It's really incredible how my work has all come together, and/or found its own little niche within my creative ecosystem, within this past year. That I get to engage all my loves, for food, for fermentation, education, and community, and for writing, under the umbrella of this self-made career, is amazing beyond my wildest dreams.
I wish the same sort of joy for you (however that manifests in your world), and for a restful, peaceful end to 2023. And, of course a joyful, magical 2024.
Thank you as always for reading my newsletter, supporting my work, and being in community with me. It really does mean the world!
To make: pickle mobile
I don't think I've had a mobile in my room since I was...maybe 10 or so? Younger? But I got the impulse to make one out of old canning bands this year and, ever the fan of repurposed crafts, I went for it.
Behold, my pickle mobile:
Yes, it's pickled okra (and cucumbers), of course it is.
To make your own mobile:
-Start with printing out the design on cardstock/sturdy paper. You may want to print out a few copies if you want A BUNCH of okra and a bunch of jars, or maybe you want just a few. This mobile is yours to create after all.
-Cut out your okra(s) and jar(s), and use a hole punch, dowel, or my favorite from my bookbinding days, the screw punch, to poke holes in the tops.
-Grab two canning jar bands: one for a regular mouth jar, and one for a wide mouth jar.
-Now, grab your twine. Cut ~2 foot-long pieces, enough that each end can wrap around the canning bands AND end at one of your cut out pictures (so if you have a total of 12 cutouts, you'd need 6 pieces of twine).
-Gather the twine together, making sure all the ends are lined up, then fold it in half and make a loop knot: Make a circle, then pass the folded end through that circle and pull tight (if you need visuals, it's basically this loop knot, without the pencil as guide).
-At this point the process gets kind of intuitive: Loop and knot your twine strands around the smaller canning band first, then around the larger one (which will be lower down), leaving about 6 inches of space between them.
You may choose to tie some of the cutouts to the smaller band, or just have them all connected to the larger band. There's not really any wrong way to make a pickle mobile, it's just about playing around (and it's easy to undo and redo if you don't like how it turned out!)
I didn't color mine in with bold markers, but you certainly can. You also might use ribbons/different colors of twine/etc. This is about improvisation: Making the pickle mobile that most speaks to you.
And please show me your mobile if you make one! How cool would it be for a bunch of us to have matching mobiles around the world?
Wishing you and yours a restful remainder of 2023, and for a 2024 that's everything you hope it will be!
Supporting this newsletter literally makes my dreams come true, helping me devote my time to writing and to sending more and better recipes, interviews, and food stories to you. Thank you for being a part of my work!
You're always an inspiration, Julia.