Writing in the Water

By Samantha Ladwig

A blank page never scared me until I bought a bookstore months before the pandemic—an endeavor that pushed me into retail hell, the stress of which sucked all the air out of my creativity.

I didn’t want to admit my reality because I didn’t know who I would be without writing and that scared me. But after a year of trying to force ideas out onto paper, I put the pen down; my job needed me to be all in, and I had a responsibility to show up.

Those in between, writing...