Kathryn Mockler's Blog, page 38
January 5, 2023
Welcome to Send My Love to Anyone!
Photo by Nag on UnsplashHello friends,
Happy New Year!
I want to thank everyone for subscribing to Send My Love to Anyone.
Your time and attention is an honour, and I’m grateful for it.
When I first started this newsletter in 2021, many of the subscribers were friends, family, and people I knew from the literary community in Canada especially through the literary journals I published or edited (The Rusty Toque, Joyland, and Watch Your Head).
But over the last year, the readership has grown, and many of you, I don’t know!
So please take a moment and introduce yourselves.
I’d love to hear what you’re up to. I’m working on a horror novel and tracking my word counts.
What are you reading and writing?
Support Send My Love to AnyoneThis newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Contributors | Subscribe
January 4, 2023
Send My Love to Anyone
About Send My Love to AnyoneSend My Love to Anyone is a free newsletter on all things writing (and sometimes art or film) by Kathryn Mockler and guests.
Send My Love to Anyone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this project, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribers can expect to receive one to two emails per month which include some combination of the following: a curated list of Gatherings, a post by Kathryn Mockler or a guest post, Kirby’s column The First Time, and Words Count, a new section on craft.
Send My Love to Anyone is free and posts are available for six months after publication for free subscribers.
Paying subscribers have access to the full archive, receive subscriber-only posts, and are supporting the site.
Sign up for a year and receive a 10% discount on the monthly subscription rate.
HonorariumsGuest writers are paid $100 (CAD) for stories, essays, poems or artworks.
Guest writers for Words Count, all things writing craft are paid $50 (CAD).
Honorariums will raise as we get more paid subscriptions. So please consider supporting this site.
SMLTA doesn’t pay for excerpts of published works.
SubmissionsTo keep me updated on what’s being published, send along your press release or book to Kathryn Mockler at admin@kathrynmockler.com
Due to demand, I may not be able to respond to all emails.
SMLTA is not accepting unsolicited submissions of original creative work or essays. Occasional calls for submissions or pitches will be listed in the monthly newsletter.
ContributorsTo check out past contributors visit the Send My Love to Anyone archive or the contributor list.
About Kathryn MocklerKathryn Mockler is the author of five books of poetry and several short films and experimental videos. She’s the publisher of Watch Your Head, an online journal devoted to climate justice and the climate crisis and Send My Love to Anyone, a newsletter on all things writing. She co-edited the print anthology Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2020) and her debut story collection is forthcoming with Book*hug in 2023. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria where she teaches short fiction and screenwriting.
Support Send My Love to AnyoneThis newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Contributors | Subscribe
January 2, 2023
The Return of the Owl | The First Time
The first gift I ever bought her, an owl pendant from the museum shop.
Photo by KirbyI’m still on Twitter [and Insta]. My cultivated feed of fourteen years still feeds me. Actual people, mostly artists, seek to be met in kind, those I genuinely care enough to follow, touch base with, retweet, encourage, love. Never mistake it for ‘community,’ [the oft-fabled poetry community? BA HA HA!] but pockets of seekers and finders, ‘likes,’ amidst a growing lot of the worse godawful branding.
Drama! Sure, it’s a primary colour and there’s plenty here determined to stir the pot. [“Yes, there is bad poetry. Lots.”] But, I rarely succumb to the tug, get on anyone’s one way raft to the falls. As I said in Poetry Is Queer, “It takes no breath to react, at least two breaths to respond.” There’s a whole lot in reactive mode. I’m not a sneaky breather.
Like my sweet dad, Wally, I’ve never understood the cavalier shenanigans of the televised/streaming public square, colosseum—go for the jugular—mudslinging.
The constant complaint complaint complaint… JFC. I mean, “what did so and so do [again]? They said something? Oh, they blocked you, I’m sorry unfollowed…”
She’s gay. She can gossip, be bitchy-cunty all she wants. I wish it were all that playful. Playful at all ffs.
As legendary gay journalist and prostitute Gerald Hannon was fond of saying, “I already know your truths, it’s your lies that interest me.”
Here’s a [serious] cash cow, start-up, a 7/24 Upset Channel. Call it TILT, with room to grow a second channel, FULL TILT. (I think this used to be called “Speaker’s Corner” on Toronto’s City TV but recall that being at least watchable, mildly entertaining, informative.)
As a humourist, I lean towards humorous posts. My only rabbit hole is hot guys smiling in underwear. Bathroom selfies. A definite step up from the remnants of my younger Sears Catalog days.
There are those who have tried to shame me for even this pedestrian pleasure.
Guilty. Guilty as Barbra posing with Barry on the day Babs and I simply had to part ways in that K-Mart. I simply could not.
Anyone who enjoys their body that much to willingly generously display it for their own pleasure [and mine]. I’m going to pause, take in the view. And thank them.
Actually, it’s exactly that. It warms my heart to see people enjoying themselves, enjoying themselves so much they actually share their joy. Be it cooking [the BEST food porn], or needlepoint, their living room, or something they read, or seen, pretty things, or vintage gay stuff.
And music posts. Band posts. What you’re listening to posts. The Soft Pink Truth. Low. Dust-to-Digital. Harmony Holiday.
I relish the “jackass” shit, the “can you fucking believe this?!” [Yes.], the dance routines, Liza, clothes changes, bitch’n, everybody got one [but me]!, the incredulous, the “wtf, go back go back,” the
Everybody still wants their “Look [Mom]! see what I can do!” moment in the spotlight. And why not?
I recently told Gurdeep [Pandher of the Yukon] I loved him and asked where he got his cool pants, did they sew?
Lately, I’ve taken a charm to “animals helping each other.” Does this happen to all seniors?
Photo by Kathryn MocklerA friend of mine recently posted young owls living in a nearby tree. “Look, an owl! In a tree!”
The first owl I’ve ever seen close up was in a fenced area at a local metropark. I'd keep waiting/wanting for it to spin its head around to look at me.
Owls used to be really big in the 70s, my mother Suzanne collected them, owl tchotchkes in every room, the first gift I ever bought her, an owl pendant from the museum shop.
She had purchased a rather large painting of an owl to hang on our sun porch where we sat and played board games. All of a sudden, Suzanne’s arms flung wide, “Everyone stay still for just one minute, don’t move!,” as she left the room and returned with a jar she placed over the owl’s belly collecting the largest roach we had ever seen. The very next day she went to return the painting to the department store, but the manager said no, because it was on clearance, a final sale. On her way out she opened the jar returning the bug she hadn’t purchased to the store.
Seeing these owls [IRL] brings an oddly strange comfort to me these days. Thanks for posting.
Photo by KirbyKirby’s Poetry Is Queer is out now from Palimpsest Press.
Support Send My Love to AnyoneThis newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors and maintaining the newsletter.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Questions | Subscribe
January 1, 2023
What will your 2023 daily word count be? | Words Count
I’m starting to track my word counts for 2023.
I expect there will be lots of failure along the way. For me this is an experiment in process, practice, and accountability.
I will be posting my daily word counts publicly on the Send My Love to Anyone homepage where you will be invited to track your word counts in the comments or share your own public link.
In addition to tracking word counts, I’ve started a new section on Send My Love to Anyone called Words Count where I (and occasionally other guest writers) will write short notes about craft and process.
In case you miss any of this, a recap will be included in the monthly newsletter. There will not be daily emails from Word Counts because, well, that would be annoying!
For my word count number, I’ve chosen to try Fawn Parker’s 1500 words a day knowing I won’t hit that number and fully expect to adjust it as the year goes on.
For me it’s not about the number, but rather the consistency of having a regular writing routine.
If you are tracking, what are you working on and what is your daily word count target?
Support Send My Love to AnyoneThis newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors and maintaining the newsletter.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Questions | Subscribe
December 29, 2022
Words Count
Hi Friends!
I don’t know quite how it happened, but just after Christmas, I came up with an idea for my next project.
I like starting a new project at the same time that I’m wrapping up another. It’s an attempt to avoid the empty what-do-I-do-now feeling once my collection of stories is completely edited and done.
Over the holidays, I devoured Courtney Maum’s book, Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book and found it inspiring both as a how-to and for writerly commiseration. Maum covers the emotional side of writing and publishing in terms of the expectations and disappointments that come with having your first book out—from no one showing up to your reading to the realization that many of your friends will neither read nor buy your book! Ouch.
Send My Love to Anyone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this project, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Before and After the Book Deal offers practical tips for DIY tours, social media promotion, and working with an agent. It also focuses on the stuff that writers often don’t talk about like envy and what to do if your book doesn’t make any of the book lists!
themockler
A post shared by Kathryn Mockler (@themockler)My new book project is a horror concept. It’s more high concept and genre focused than I’ve written before. It’s a challenge, and I’m excited about it!
I have been loving all the various writing accountability groups and communities I’ve been seeing online, and they are inspiring me to get into the word count game too.
Send My Love to Anyone contributor Farzana Doctor created the Facebook group #WritingSprint, John August has a writing accountability group chat associated with his screenwriting newsletter inneresting, Jami Attenberg hosts the #1000wordsofsummer, and earlier this year, Fawn Parker wrote a terrific article about how to write a novel in a month using a word counting system.
I have come to realize (especially since my ADHD diagnosis) that accountability support is essential if I want to get anything done.
I am fortunate to have a writing buddy for co-writing sessions, and now that I have an idea and a loose outline, I’m going to track my word count progress for even more accountability.
Fawn’s process involves writing 1500 words a day for a month and no editing. Another writer friend I know tracks 500 words a day.
I don’t fully expect to write a novel in a month. However, I am a believer in lofty goals!
I’m also going to add a little twist to account for my stubborn brain. If I’m stuck on writing the novel, then I have to write 1500 words of automatic or stream-of-consciousness writing to meet my word count. Even if I have to repeat the same word over and over to get to 1500, then I will do that!
Quality is of no concern here. This is an experiment in process and practise.
I plan on writing by hand, dictating, and typing. Whatever gets the job done.
I will be tracking my daily word counts starting January 1, 2023, and I will also post occasional progress reports and craft-related posts under a new Send My Love to Anyone section called Words Count.
Failures, road blocks, and number adjustments will be noted too.
For those who track word counts, I’d love to hear about your process, any tips you have, and what your daily word count is!
Happy writing in 2023!
Kathryn
Thank you for reading Send My Love to Anyone. This post is public so feel free to share it.
Support Send My Love to AnyoneThis newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Contributors | Subscribe
December 22, 2022
Send My Love to Anyone | Issue 22
Hi friends,
This is the final issue of 2022, and the end of the second year of Send My Love to Anyone! I can hardly believe it!
For Issue 22, Lynne Tillman recounts her story of trying unsuccessfully to secure the film rights to Jane Bowles’ 1943 novel Two Serious Ladies and we get to read an excerpt from her unproduced sceenplay too), and Elyse Friedman shares an excerpt of her new novel The Opportunist, which has been getting rave reviews!
Thanks so much to all the 2022 Send My Love to Anyone contributors: Tara McGuire, Lisa Robertson, Rebecca Fisseha, Susan Mockler, Sina Queyras, Francine Cunningham, Samantha Jones, Catherine Graham, Laurie D. Graham, Kim Fu, Naben Ruthnum, and Kirby who joined Send My Love to Anyone as a regular columnist this year.
ICYMI check out The First Time posts from 2022: this amazing kind of energy moment, hearts ears eyes, and Are all booksellers dreamers?)
This year for Send My Love to Anyone, I wrote about my ADHD Diagnosis, On Not Sharing Ideas Before They’re Hatched, The Book I Wouldn’t Read (as a child), and my Adventures in Puzzling.
For Catapult Magazine, I wrote a deeply personal essay about not wanting children. Thanks to Tajja Isen for her wonderful edits! This is a topic I’ve been afraid to write about for years, but the overturning of Roe vs. Wade made me feel like it was the right time to share. I’ve been overwhelmed by support from childfree people and parents alike. I encourage every writer to write that thing that scares them the most.
In 2022, I completed (save for some final edits) my collection of stories Anecdotes with the help of writer, editor, and designer Malcolm Sutton! I was thrilled when Malcolm agreed to edit this book, and frankly could not have finished it without him! I’m absolutely dying to share the cover he designed which will be revealed soon! Anecdotes is forthcoming from Book*hug in the fall of 2023.
One of the reasons I started Send My Love to Anyone was to get out of a serious writing block, and I’m happy to say that it worked, but also that I connected with a wonderful community in the process!
Huge thanks to all the Send My Love to Anyone subscribers and readers!
If you’d like to support this project, please consider becoming a paying subscriber!
Funds go to paying contributors for original unpublished essays, fiction, poetry, or art.
On the social media front, I’m giving Post News and Mastodon a serious try. They are quite different from each other, so I might even end up keeping them both.
I tried Hive, but the app didn’t work for me. Despite all appearances—I really only have so much room in my social media heart.
Reader NewsI’d love to know what you’ve been up to this year!
What have you published, been reading, watching, or listening to that you absolutely love?
Drop a note in the comments and please share your own updates, news (new books or publications), and recommendations!
Contributor NewsHey Send My Love to Anyone contributors, drop me a line and let me know what you’ve been up to!
I’m also inviting past contributors to record their posts.
If you’d like to do this, please this let me know and send me an mp3 of your post.
knife | fork | book benefit
@knifeforkbook \n\nTICKETS/INFO \nknifeforkbook.shop/store/p166/KIR…\n\nOn Sale Now \nKIRBY POETRY IS QUEER @PalimpsestPress \npalimpsestpress.ca/books/poetry-i… ","username":"itsakirby","name":"KIRBY","date":"Tue Dec 13 00:58:10 +0000 2022","photos":[{"img_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/media/Fj0ZIA...
KIRBY @itsakirby"Meanwhile, in another part of the forest..."KIRBYBEHOLDSix intimate workshop performances in a downtown living room setting to benefit @knifeforkbook TICKETS/INFO knifeforkbook.shop/store/p166/KIR…On Sale Now KIRBY POETRY IS QUEER @PalimpsestPress palimpsestpress.ca/books/poetry-i… 
12:58 AM ∙ Dec 13, 202219Likes7RetweetsJeff Dupuis reviews Fractured by Susan Mockler in Issue 14 of The Quarantine Review
Sydney Hegele on Morning Pages elitism
Marsh Mail Hell is real and it's a handwriting lesson If you know what Morning Pages are, you’ve likely been subjected a “Morning Pages Elitism” that is strangely disconnected from Julia Cameron’s original concept. Writer’s have been utilizing Cameron’s writer’s-block-beating practice from The Artist’s Way…Read morea month ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Sydney Hegele
What is your favourite film from 1973. I’m collecting a list of films to watch over the holidays.
Kathryn Mockler @themocklerWhat is your favourite film from 1973 if you have one?11:45 PM ∙ Dec 17, 202212Likes1RetweetSuperfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart, a memoir by Jen Sookfong Lee coming in January 2023.
Unsettling Poetry: Land-Based Strategies for Generating Poems with Liz Howard - January 14, 2023 - The FOLD
Scientists finally know why we catch colds and flu in winter.
Loblaws asks customers to tackle food insecurity and it did not go well, Blog TO
Alicia Elliot on If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, CBC
blake butler @blakebutlerEverything you write has taken your entire life to write2:52 AM ∙ Nov 29, 2022808Likes139RetweetsA conversation mediated by art with Canisia Lubrin and Dionne Brand, The Yale Review
Breaking our cultural silence around menopause by Sue Carter in Catapult Magazine
On writing the zero draft:
Mushtaq Bilal, PhD @MushtaqBilalPhDZero draft is a critical part of the academic writing process.But a lot of folks ignore it and run into all sorts of problems including the writer's block.Here's what a zero draft is and why you should write one:8:41 AM ∙ Nov 11, 20224,032Likes993RetweetsJeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles by Chantal Akerman tops the Sights and Sounds Poll
#SightAndSoundPoll has been topped by a film directed by a woman – and one that takes a consciously, radically feminist approach to cinema. Things will never be the same, writes Laura Mulvey ","username":"SightSoundmag","name":"Sight and Sound magazine","date":"Thu Dec 01 21:47:49 +0000 2022","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"retweet_count":266,"like_count":822,"expanded_url":{"url":"https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-soun... greatest film of all time: Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles","description":"For the first time in 70 years the Sight and Sound poll has been topped by a film directed by a woman – and one that takes a consciously, radically feminist approach to cinema. Things will never be the same.","domain":"bfi.org.uk"},"video_url":null,"belowTheFold":true}">
Sight and Sound magazine @SightSoundmagFor the first time in 70 years the #SightAndSoundPoll has been topped by a film directed by a woman – and one that takes a consciously, radically feminist approach to cinema. Things will never be the same, writes Laura Mulvey 
bfi.org.ukThe greatest film of all time: Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 BruxellesFor the first time in 70 years the Sight and Sound poll has been topped by a film directed by a woman – and one that takes a consciously, radically feminist approach to cinema. Things will never be the same.9:47 PM ∙ Dec 1, 2022822Likes266RetweetsDigital habits and the environment, The Walrus
Tanis MacDonald tells us about her book of essays Straggle
Nikki Reimer’s essay “Grief Turns Us All Into Vultures”
Nikki “In THIS pandemic?!” Reimer @NikkiReimerMe, my baby brother, and the ways we continue to know each other even after death 
OrderoftheGoodDeath @OrderGoodDeathNEW ARTICLE Grappling with grief, neurodivergence, and what might have been.Read ‘Grief Turns Us All Into Vultures’: https:/www.orderofthegooddeath.com/article/grief-turns-us-all-into-vultures/ https://t.co/xy14CxdxU07:24 PM ∙ Dec 9, 202226Likes2RetweetsDrawing Together with Lynda Barry!
Stuart Ross will be editing Guernica Editions experimental fiction imprint 1366 Books! Exciting!
Guernica Editions @guernica_edTORONTO—Guernica Editions is pleased to add an exciting new imprint to its lineup: 1366 Books will be edited by Cobourg-based writer and editor Stuart Ross and will explore the boundaries of fiction, the short story, and the novel...Find the full press release on our Facebook! 
9:01 PM ∙ Dec 5, 202215Likes2RetweetsOn Literary Success by Kathy Fish
The Art of Flash Fiction On Literary "Success" Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash Hi friends, At this time of year “success” is on our minds as we look back on the year and judge ourselves against our own expectations and in relation to our peers. It’s also list season and nomination season. I’ve been thinking a lot about what success means for writers and artists…Read more23 days ago · 45 likes · 37 comments · Kathy FishThe demise of Bookforum, The New Yorker
Issue #22 of Send My Love to AnyoneLynne Tillman on Two Serious Ladies
Excerpt from The Opportunist by Elyse Friedman
Sign up for the Send My Love to Anyone Writing Prompts (free)
Sign up for the Watch Your Head Newsletter (free)
Support Send My Love to AnyoneThis newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly Substack subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors and maintaining the newsletter.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Questions | Subscribe
December 21, 2022
Lynne Tillman | Issue 22
Send My Love to Anyone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this project, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
In the late 1980s I desperately wanted to make a film of Jane Bowles’ novel Two Serious Ladies. Set on being a novelist, I believed I could simultaneously write and direct movies; I had already written and, with Sheila McLaughlin, co-directed an independent feature, Committed, about film actress Frances Farmer.
Jane Bowles is best known for a single and singular novel Two Serious Ladies (1943); on its publication, a success d’estime praised exuberantly by Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and John Ashbery. Two Serious Ladies’ protagonists, Miss Goering and Mrs. Copperfield, leave home, bearing opposite psychologies: Ms. Goering strikes out, wanting bold adventures, while Mrs. Copperfield trails after her husband, an unwilling traveler/tourist, full of fear. At the end of this seminal, tragi-comic, picaresque novel, they both return home, something their author never did, to the U.S., that is.
Making Committed was a grueling experience. Still, in my mind I could see Two Serious Ladies as a film, a movie of my imagination. Jane Bowles’ Two Serious Ladies made seriously inimitable protagonists, Miss Goering and Mrs. Copperfield, had invaded me, and I fantasized projecting them onto a screen that was not just my own.
There turned out to be insuperable legal issues, and I gave in; my lawyer urged me to keep fighting, he was litigious for me. The other side never made the film, a sad outcome, really, but now I’m glad I lost out. It probably would have taken years from my writing and my life, such as it was.
My last-ditch effort to film the novel came in 1987 and landed me in Tangiers, where I met Paul Bowles, author of The Sheltering Sky. Paul and I had corresponded for years, at a time when people wrote letters; he had a beautiful, tidy script that didn’t reflect the emotional chaos of his stories.
Paul and Jane had married in 1938 and stayed together, living in separate apartments in the same building. She had died years earlier. In my letters I hadn’t discussed making the film until a month before I arrived. On the afternoon we met, I handed him a copy of the script. The next day he told me he liked it, especially because it was faithful to the novel and had used so much of Jane’s dialogue—brilliant, startling, sui generis in American letters. Then Paul said he couldn’t help me with the legal business, and that’s the precise moment when I dropped the project.
Jane also wrote some extraordinary stories, but her alcoholism did her in, finally; she had several strokes, and by the late sixties was hospitalized in Spain. In 1972 her publisher forgot to renew the copyright of Two Serious Ladies. Jane was forgotten in most ways, and she died in 1973 at the age of fifty-six. The script I wrote and this excerpt from it are meant as an homage to Jane Bowles and her great American novel.
Excerpt 1
Excerpt 2
Thank you for reading Send My Love to Anyone. This post is public so feel free to share it.
Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. Her novels are Haunted Houses; Motion Sickness; Cast in Doubt; No Lease on Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and American Genius, A Comedy. Her nonfiction books include The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory 1965–1967, with photographs by Stephen Shore; Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co.; and What Would Lynne Tillman Do?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and an Andy Warhol/Creative Capital Arts Writing Fellowship. Tillman is Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at The University of Albany and teaches at the School of Visual Arts’ Art Criticism and Writing MFA Program in New York. She lives in Manhattan with bass player David Hofstra.
Her most recent book is Mothercare: On Obligation, Love, Death, and Ambivalence (Penuin Random House, 2022)
Issue #22 of Send My Love to AnyoneDecember 2022 Gatherings
Excerpt from The Opportunist by Elyse Friedman
Sign up for the Send My Love to Anyone Writing Prompts (free)
Sign up for the Watch Your Head Newsletter (free)
Support Send My Love to AnyoneThis newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly Substack subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors and maintaining the newsletter.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Questions | Subscribe
Elyse Friedman | Issue 22
When the calls started up again, Alana ignored them. Ditto the texts and emails, including ones with red exclamation points attached. She had a part‐time job that felt full‐time and a daughter who required around‐the‐clock care. She had neither the hours nor the inclination to delve into family drama. And she already knew why her brothers were so desperate to reach her. The younger of the two, Martin, had been messaging sporadically for months about the “skank” their father had taken up with—a nurse, hired by the eldest, Teddy, to tend to the old man’s needs as he grew increasingly infirm and cranky. Nurse Kelly, a woman forty‐eight years their father’s junior, a gold digger, obviously, and a clever one according to Martin. Pretty sure she had him at the first sponge bath. Alana was more amused than disturbed.
She told her brothers she couldn’t care less. She had more important things to worry about. Eventually, they stopped contacting her.
Then a few weeks ago an oversized envelope had arrived in Alana’s mailbox. Thick creamy paper, her name embossed in swirling gold script—an invitation to the wedding of Edward Shropshire Sr. and Kelly McNutt. Ha! Clever indeed. She felt a fizz of satisfaction, even as she braced for the onslaught from her siblings who would be outraged at the prospect of losing any portion of their massive inher‐ itance. Alana hated her father and felt nothing but disdain for her brothers. She had no interest in “protecting the family investments” or “presenting a united front” or “having Dad’s back” or any of the increasingly urgent drivel that trickled in from her greedy siblings. She had been estranged from her father for decades and had no stake in this game. It was frankly a shock that she had been invited to the wed‐ ding. It must have been Kelly McNutt who insisted on that. The calls, texts, and emails started up again with renewed fervour. When Alana finally concluded that her brothers would not leave her in peace until she responded, she composed a simple three‐word text, not exactly a family joke, but something they would recognize and understand: BEYOND OUR CONTROL. She added a laughing‐so‐hard‐I’m‐ crying emoji and sent it to Teddy and Martin.
She stopped hearing from them after that.
It was a rough night. Lily’s BiPap alarm had gone off twice. She could breathe without the machine, but not as well, and Alana was programmed to leap into action from the deepest slumber. The first time it sounded, around 1:00 a.m., it was a mask‐fit alarm. A quick adjustment and back to bed. The second was more annoying: a leak alarm at 4:28 that took forever to rectify—no matter how much she fiddled, the alarm kept sounding. She finally got it fixed and Lily was able to get back to sleep, but Alana couldn’t. She lay in bed, her brain churning. At 5:40 she got up, made coffee, and bolted two cinnamon buns in quick succession, an act she immediately regretted, even as she was scraping the last bits of hard white icing from the aluminum pan into her mouth.
It was a workday, so she woke Lily early, helped her dress, and did her hair in French braids. Ramona was coming for the day and Lily liked to look nice for her favourite support worker. Unlike Alana, Ramona was big into girly stuff: hair, nails, fashion. She would give Lily mani‐pedis, and they would flip through Harper’s Bazaar and Teen Vogue and critique the outfits. Ramona had been with them since Lily was three years old, and Alana trusted her completely. She was hugely competent and a ton of fun. Lily was an earnest child, but when Ramona was around, she let herself be silly and boisterous. It would not be unusual for Alana to come home and find them both with teased‐up hair and full‐on glitter makeup, binge‐watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. Ramona was what Lily called “chill.” Pretty much the opposite of Alana, who was always stressed out and exhausted.
“What time will you be home?” Lily asked.
“If all goes well, five thirty.” “When does all ever go well?”
Alana laughed. “It’s rare, but it has been known to happen. I was home on time twice last week.”
“True.”
“And you have Ramona.”
“OK. But try.”
“I always try, lovey. But if someone shows up out of the blue at four thirty, I can’t just leave. I have to help them.”
“I know.”
Alana worked part‐time at the RedTree Shelter, which offered emer‐ gency housing for victims of domestic abuse. It was a foolish job for her to have: low‐paying and high stress. Not what she needed in prac‐ tically her only hours away from managing Lily’s health. She should have taken employment that was easy on the soul, like flower arrang‐ ing—some vaguely pleasant, not overly cerebral activity that would give her time to refresh and restore. She often fantasized about becoming a professional dog walker or making perfect heart shapes in foamy cof‐ fees all day, but she stayed with RedTree. It was important work that made her feel a little better about herself. She sometimes wondered if her motivations were selfish at root.
When Ramona arrived, Alana kissed Lily goodbye and left for work. On her third try she managed to get her Stone Age Honda Odyssey to start and was backing out of the drive when a Lexus pulled in behind her, blocking her way. She tapped the horn—a polite “I’m actually leaving here” signal. Nothing. The car just sat there. She honked again, harder, wondering why it always seemed to be a Lexus or a Mercedes or a BMW that cut her off in traffic, or jumped its turn at a four‐way stop, or blocked her driveway when she was trying to get to work, for fuck’s sake. She curbed an impulse to ram her SUV into the shiny roadster, and instead left the Honda running while she strode toward the offending vehicle, getting ready to unleash years of pent‐up luxury‐car‐inspired fury on the entitled asshole behind the wheel. But before she could bang her fist on the tinted window, it slid down smoothly, revealing her brother Martin talking on a cell phone. He had it resting flat on an upturned palm held in front of his face. “OK,” he said. “I know. I’ll take care of it.”
“What the hell, Martin? I have to go to work.” It had been years since she had seen him, but he looked pretty much the same—a slightly higher hairline, maybe a few extra pounds. He was still conventionally handsome, fair and blue‐eyed with their father’s chiselled chin, but he now had the slightly puffy face of a drinker, the lightning‐bolt blood vessels on the side of his nose. He smelled faintly of good cologne with a top note of leather from the luxury rental car’s seats.
He gave Alana the “I’ll just be one second” finger. “Listen, Damian, I gotta go. I’ll call you in an hour.” Martin pocketed the phone and smiled at his sister. “Sorry about that.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t get my texts? I need to speak to you. You have a minute?” “Not at the moment, no.”
“I flew across the country to talk to you. You can’t give me two min‐ utes of your time?”
“I have to go to work, Martin. If you want to ride with me, you’re welcome to. Just let me out, then you can park in the drive and Uber back.”
Martin eyed the dented Odyssey that was belching out exhaust. “Why don’t I drive you and give you cash to cab home?”
“No, thanks.”
He smiled tightly. “Fine.”
Alana returned to the SUV to wait for her brother. When Martin climbed in, he was carrying a stiff white envelope with a button‐and‐ string closure and an airport gift‐shop bag.
“Here, I got this for . . . your daughter.” “Her name is Lily.”
“I know that. Of course. You named her after Lillian.”
A demented‐looking doll with stiff blond ringlets stuck out of the tissue paper.
“Thanks,” said Alana. “She’s a little old for dolls though.” “Oh. How old is she now?”
“Eleven.”
“Wow. Time flies. But I thought . . .” “What?”
“You know . . . I figured she’d still be into dolls.” “She’s not slow, Martin. Her brain is fine.” “Oh. So . . . ?”
“She has a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Well, rare for girls, common for boys.”
“Right.”
“She’s inside, by the way. You want to meet your niece?”
Her brother looked confused and pained, as if she’d asked if he wanted to donate a kidney or breastfeed a cat. “I thought you were in a hurry?”
“I am. I’m just messing with you.” Alana eased the Odyssey out of the driveway. She knew Martin wouldn’t want to meet Lily. And she didn’t want Martin to meet Lily.
Excerpt from The Opportunist by Elyse Friedman ©2022. Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.Thank you for reading Send My Love to Anyone. This post is public so feel free to share it.
Elyse Friedman is a critically acclaimed author, screenwriter, poet and playwright. Her work has been shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award, the Toronto Book Award, the ReLit Award and the Tom Hendry Award. Her short story “The Soother” won the gold National Magazine Award for Fiction, and she has twice won the TIFF-CBC Films Screenwriter Award.
The OpportunistElyse FriedmanHarperCollins, 2022Issue #22 of Send My Love to Anyone
A deliciously sly, compulsively readable tale about greed, power and the world’s most devious family, for fans of The Nest and Succession .
When Alana Shropshire’s seventy-six-year-old father, Ed, starts dating Kelly, a saucy twenty-eight-year-old, a flurry of messages arrive from Alana’s brothers, urging her to help “protect Dad” from the young interloper. Alana knows that what Teddy and Martin really want to protect is their father’s fortune, and she tells them she couldn’t care less about the May–December romance. Long estranged from her privileged family, Alana has no stake in the game, and as a hardworking single mom, she has more important things to worry about. But when Ed and Kelly’s wedding is announced, Teddy and Martin kick into hyperdrive, and eventually persuade Alana to fly to their father’s 900-acre West Coast island retreat to perform one small task in their plan to lure the “gold digger” away from their father. Kelly, however, proves a lot wilier than expected, and Alana becomes entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of secrets and surprises. Will she be able to escape her brothers’ elaborate web of deceit? Just how far will her siblings go to retain control?
Lynne Tillman on Two Serious Ladies
Excerpt from The Opportunist by Elyse Friedman
Sign up for the Send My Love to Anyone Writing Prompts (free)
Sign up for the Watch Your Head Newsletter (free)
Support Send My Love to AnyoneThis newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly Substack subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors and maintaining the newsletter.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Questions | Subscribe
December 2, 2022
Tara McGuire | Issue 21
This newsletter is free, but you can support it by making a one-time payment to PayPal or by signing up for a monthly or yearly Substack subscription.
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the paying subscribers who help make this project possible!
Donated funds go to paying guest authors and maintaining the newsletter.
ConnectTwitter | Instagram | @themockler | Archive | Questions | Subscribe
