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[awamiba]

New Role Incoming - Poetry Society of Texas

I am delighted to announce that I will be serving on the 2026-2027 board of the Poetry Society of Texas. I’ll spend the year shadowing Barbara Blanks, with an eye towards picking up some of her duties in the next couple of years as she moves onward.

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[awamiba]

Speaking While Out & About Last Week

It’s been such a busy week! On Thursday, May 28th, I was one of the named headliners (along with my friends Janet Tyner, Carol Thompson, and Ilenya Marrin) for the Winnsboro Spoken Word Open Mic Night for the Winnsboro Center of the Arts. We drove the hour over to Winnsboro once again and had a grand old time with MC Mike Guinn, JDarrell Kirkley, and others. (Then I went to my niece’s wedding on…

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[awamiba]

Book on disability that I contributed to is available for pre-order!

Beloved As We Are, the book on disability in congregations that I contributed to, is now available for pre-order! As you well know, it has been several years in the making. We’re so glad it is finally out! Here’s the link to the UUA Bookstore’s listing: Beloved as We Are It is also listed on Amazon.com.

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[awamiba]

Upcoming Speaking Engagement - May 6, 2026

This Wednesday, I’m speaking to the Open Door Writing Group about Characters and Body Language.

[awamiba]

March 2026 Stats

In March, I wrote 6037 words. Of those words, 416 were for this blog (2 short posts), 2474 were for my journal, 0 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons 2744 were on various social media accounts, 168 were poetry (2 short poems), and 651 were in short stories (4 pieces of flash fiction). There were only 9 days that I didn’t write anything, but my word count was low due to…

[awamiba]

Speaking Engagement today, March 25, 2026 at Open Door Writing Group

Hey y’all! I’m talking about Writing Subplots at Open Door Writing Group today! Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel! Hope to see you soon!

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[awamiba]

Upcoming Speaking Engagement on March 19, 2026 at the Rusk County Poetry Society

I will be speaking to the Rusk County Poetry Society at their March meeting on March 19, 2026 in Henderson, Texas. My topic is “Line Breaks and White Space.” Hope to see y’all there!

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[awamiba]

February 2026 stats

In February 2026, I wrote an unreasonably tiny amount of words (4422). Of those words, 416 were for this blog (2 short posts), 1972 were for my journal (27 entries), 722 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (one for the Open Door Writing Group), 1134 were on various social media accounts, 0 were poetry (none! at all! alas!), and 178 were in a single short flash fiction…

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[awamiba]

Speaking Engagement at TPL on February 25, 2026

This week at 1pm in the Makerspace at the Tyler Public Library I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group on What I Learned from “Write Smart, Write Happy” and “How to Make a Living as a Poet”, including tips and tricks to help you live your best, most creative, productive writing life.

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[deactivated-this-account-deacti]

I ended up having a really interesting conversation with some people at the bus stop today. They were getting out of some sort of ‘clean and sober’ meeting and had starting saying how they were so bored because they didn’t have anything to do, and had to stay at home because all their old friends would pull them back. So I said something like, ‘So this is the time to do all the stuff your parents told you they didn’t have money/time for!’ “Whatcha mean?” “You know, like when you were five and you REALLY wanted to have that toy or do that thing and you were like, ‘Please mom please I gotta have this I gotta go do this’ and they went ‘Hell no you think I’m paying for that do you want to goddamn EAT?’ “ And this light went on in their eyes. The lady is going to go check thrift stores for an Easybake Oven and I told her about Wilton cake decorating classes. The dude is going to Griffith Park and ride horses, because, ‘I always wanted to be a cowboy, and you can’t drink when you’re on a horse ‘cause you’ll fucking die!’ Fuck it. This is what being an adult is. Sure it’s bills and work and relationships, but damn it, it’s also time to do the things you LIKE. I signed up for a free class/lecture on Water Gardens. I’m going. It’s time.

[ruthfully]

Jill. Jill you are wonderful.

[lostwolfling]

no joke, this is such an important aspect of overcoming trauma. I mean the trauma of abusive parents, the trauma of broke ass parents who got toxic because of it, the trauma of capitalism. Like fuck it. Go to Wrestlemania. Build a shit ton of terrariums.

[butchyena]

dude.

[falseficus]

i knew a surgeon and he once told me “nobodys insides look like how the textbooks say they will. you never know what you’re going to find in there once you open them up” and that was easily the most ominous thing anyone’s ever said to me

[brownheadedcowbird]

when i was taking my first year anatomy lab, we’d occasionally find a cadaver where things would branch off or attach in the wrong order, and when we’d ask our prof about it, he’d just shrug and say “they must not have read the book”

[ryannorth]

When my friend was in med school one of the cadavers donated for them to autopsy didn't have a belly button, just smooth skin.

[dandelion-stuff-and-fluff]

In the past 10 years of teaching in an anatomy lab, I have seen:

- A donor with a scrotum the size of my head. When we opened it up, we discovered it was a MASSIVE inguinal hernia and a good 1.5 ft of intestine were trapped down there.

- A donor with situs inversus totalis, whose organs were a mirror image of what we normally see (ie their heart pointed right and their liver was on the left, just for starters)

- A donor whose right common carotid artery branched off the aorta waaay over on the left hand side of the body and crossed alllll the way back across the thorax to get where it needed to be.

- A donor with 4 lobes for their right lung (should only be 3). We named the 4th lobe the Lisa Loeb, but all of the students were too young to appreciate our sparkling wit.

- A shocking variety of penile and breast implants. Y'all would not believe the number of different ways science has come up to counteract gravity.

- A couple of cases of ectopic kidneys, where a kidney didn't rise to its typical position just deep to the lowest ribs and instead stayed in the pelvis.

There is probably some other stuff that I am forgetting. Take home point is: the human body is weird and wonderful and you should learn more about yours!

[brightlotusmoon]

....duuude.

[naamahdarling]

Spleens Georg

[stele3]

14???????

My contribution: client co pinched nerve in L side of neck. I asked about health hx; she said, “I've got some extra ribs on that side.”

me: “some?” (!!!!!??!?!??!???)

Some was 2, but that’s crazy enough.

[cactusspatz]

Yeah, I don't discover the anatomical weirdness but I've had clients come in with extra ribs, missing ribs, extra vertebra, accessory muscles (that's when you have duplicates - sometimes fine, sometimes not), bones connected where they shouldn't be (spoiler: if your lumbar spine is connected to your hip, it Causes Problems), all sorts of stuff. Bodies are weird!

[headspace-hotel]

More from the notes

This made me remember that I had a friend in high school who had one thumb that was like half an inch shorter than the other. Not sure how that happened.

[weaselle]

even the things you never think about are a spectrum

[awamiba]

January 2026 Stats

In January 2026, I wrote 5329 words. Of those words,• 802 were for this blog (3 short posts),• 1230 were for my journal,• 2156 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (one for the Open Door Writing Group and one for Asher Point Independent Living Facility),• 585 were on various social media accounts,• 63 were poetry (1 short poem and 1 long),• and 491 were in short stories (2 pieces of…

[awamiba]

Speaking Engagement at TPL on January 28, 2026

This week at 1pm in the Makerspace at the Tyler Public Library I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group on Planning Your Writing Life, including tips and tricks to help you live your best, most creative, productive writing life.

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[awamiba]

Speaking Engagement on January 21, 2026 at Asher Point

Asher Point reached out to me through the library to come speak to their book club about writing, books that I’ve written, and all things books and reading. I can’t wait to talk to their Book Club! 🙂

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[awamiba]

Full 2025 Writing Stats

I’ve been very bad about tallying up all of last year’s writing, but I think I’m finally done with it. In 2025, I wrote 104,303 words. Of those words, 5559 were for this blog (29 short posts), 3,660 were in 2 essays 26,396 were for my journal, 43,436 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (15 lessons), 15,692 were on various social media accounts, 12,094 were poetry (68 poems –…

[awamiba]

Acceptance: An essay in "What Should I Do With My Life?(Letters to Deliver Series Book 2)"

This book from A Worthy Press hopes to help teens and young adults choose a career path that best fits their God-given talents. Each contributor shared insights from their own career journey—what they learned, what they’d do differently, and the wisdom they wanted to pass on to the next generation. I wrote my essay on the one thing I’ve done most consistently in my life – wrangling volunteers. I…

[awamiba]

The "Disability Book"

As several of you know, a couple of years ago I wrote an essay for a traditionally published book about living with disability and then, as usual in my life, things went amiss. The publishing company had an office fire (or maybe the whole building burned? Reports vary.) and timelines went askew. Time went by. I got a few emails asking for patience. Then one that said they were rethinking the…