Yes, I am still alive — barely — after my trip to southeast Alaska, wherein I paddled with grizzlies and porposes, nearly got swept out to sea, and felt dwarfed by the oh-so-primal landscape of big water and big mountains around me. I shall post more about that on SparklySparkly any moment now.

Meanwhile I have moved to the suburbs, aka Greenlake, and am adjusting (not very well) to a quieter lifestyle. OK, so those of you who live in Seattle know Greelake is not really a suburb but it feels like one when you are used to the urban density of bustling Queen Anne, with coffee shops and bars on every corner. My pug likes it however, because there are children on every corner to pet him and because he can wait for me outside the grocery store with less fear of being kidnapped. (I didn’t tell him about the two pugs that just got stolen from someone’s home in West Seattle!)

The real reason I am writing is to point out my most recent article — about the lovely Key Peninsula; to remind you that I’ll be teaching at Write on the Sound on October 5th (details still to come I promise), and also to let you know I’ll be teaching a class called “Turn Down the Volume, Pump Up the Word Count” at Hugo House this winter. This class will be all about stifling your inner demons so you can write, even when you know your stuff is complete, utter crap. Which is the problem I face every single day so I know what I’m talking about.

At least some of us are prolific: my friend and fellow writer Michelle Goodman’s latest book is about to come out, so you should check it out. It’s called “My So-Called Freelance Life,” and it’s definitely something I need to read, having run myself financially into the ground recently in my attempts to freelance, and still never managing to fully escape the clutches of my former 9-5 employers in the process. But enough about me! Check out Michelle’s informative career-related blog too, while you’re at it.