It's been almost a month since my last event, Winter Echoes, was held in Anchorage. 

The idea came to me when I'd invited someone to come down to Juneau to participate in a spoken word event centered around the idea of displacement and diaspora. 

As I was planning a trip to Anchorage for a friend's birthday party, I pitched the idea to Out North Executive Director Erin Willahan, who loved the idea, and immediately started hatching the plans. 

We each invited three people who are fantastic writers and performers in their own right.  

Unfortunately, one of my invitees had to bow out due to illness, but the show was fantastic.

I won't lie, part of my motivation for producing these events is to have a front row seat to some amazing entertainment and performances, and I'd been really wanting to see Synclaire, Raquel and Itzel perform live. 

And maybe that's the secret: Don't produce a show and hope other people will enjoy it, book the show that you want. to see and the audience will connect with it.

Thank you to all the performers and Out North for being such a wonderful part of my December.

("Ariadne" previously appeared on Words & Whispers, Issue 13, September 1, 2023.)


Her skills of weaving
               golden thread
               through the deepest deceit,
To feel each fiber
               in the string. 
“My princess, my sister of Crete.”
     Asterion,
               named after the first king,
               locked in a labyrinth
               beneath the Palace of Knossos,
               he releases a long breath, 
               “This is light. This is darkness.
               I grieved the best of us.”
A sacrifice to make her world, 
               heroes to entreat, 
               only for them to leave, 
               each a badge of abandonment, 
worn like scars, seven stars, 
               hang a constellation, 
               a crown, in the sky,
while the nymph 
               ​sways in the night.