swamp pink Acceptance, Amy Cipolla Barnes' Child Craft Illustrations and Social Anxiety

Thank you to everyone who celebrated my acceptance from swamp pink! It means so much to me. It’s been a year of aiming high and I haven’t gotten into all the mags on my list, but I am getting there. I’m so grateful for all of your support! As soon as I know the pub date, I will celebrate again!

I finally received my copy of Amy’s new book - Child Craft (Belle Point Press) - and I am so damn ecstatic that she asked me to illustrate two of her stories and then added them as bookends!! Amy is so amazing! If you haven’t read her work (although I think most of you have), I totally recommend picking up a copy!

Finally, I want to talk about my social anxiety.

Yesterday, I had to go to a meeting with about 100 other assistant language teachers in my city. We started meeting in person again last August because as everyone is aware the pandemic is “over.” You would think that I am a very social person, and I used to be, but I have come to find out through the enforced isolation of the pandemic that being social was more of a survival mechanism of my childhood than anything innately me.

Don’t get me wrong… I love hanging out with people that I know, especially now, because these moments are precious. Who I choose to spend my time with is important to me. So being forced to be social in a situation where I feel very uncomfortable (because I am still masking but the majority of the other foreigners were not) and where I’m casually dismissed or ignored, where my voice has no agency as one of the few people of color in the room, I realized that sometimes I just don’t like people. And that’s okay.

So I want to say eff social anxiety and the lack of sleep I got because I obsessively replayed conversations I had over and over in my head.

I want send light, love and creativity to all of you out there who choose to spend this time with me. I’m grateful to you.