Artist Initiative

My outcome was to write in order to find the best voice to describe postpartum depression; that outcome would be achieved by submitting new essays for publication and receiving feedback from editors. I'm thrilled to report that I found that voice and I've produced over 100 polished pages. However, the project's shape has evolved from what I originally envisioned. Instead of stand-alone essays, the book will be a full-length memoir. Because of that, I did not submit essays to publishers. I did submit it to an agent. In August 2013, I signed on with Nicole Tourtelot of Kuhn Projects. She responded, she said, most strongly to the book's voice. Though the book is still in-progress, she's planning to submit it to publishers as a partial; I'm currently working on the proposal. That Tourtelot is invested in what she refers to as my weird, dark, funny book, and that she thinks there’s an audience and a market for it has been very encouraging. 2: I gave three public readings: on October 2, 2013 at Normandale Community College; on November 23, 2013 at the Book Shelf in Winona; and on January 19, 2014, fellow Artist Initiative Grant 2013 recipient Kirstin Cronn-Mills and I gave a co-reading at Minnesota State University. On December 4, 2013, I gave a radio interview with Kyle Jaeger on KMSU's show Weekly Reader. I achieved Outcome 2 by publicizing my readings through fliers (I've attached an example) and through social media like Facebook and Twitter. Following the each reading, I did a Q and A and asked attendees to fill out a questionnaire measuring their level of engagement.