Beauty, inspiration and entertainment from Spring 2023

Henry Miller, Carl Jung, Cullen Thomas, Meghan Daum, Aristotle, Samuel R. Delany, The Emerald, Giri / Haji, Count Me In

Jul 08, 2023

Most of what I do when I’m not writing is outside—like on this recent short backpacking trip to Preston Peak in the Klamath/Siskiyou wilderness in northwestern California—but there are some things that I’d like to share from time to time.

Three books really worth reading

📖 The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller, by Mary V. Dearborn — an outstanding biography of a writer that has been a major inspiration to me.

📖 Man and His Symbols, C.G. Jung’s classic introduction to Jungian psychology. I’d avoided going straight to the source with Jung for a long time, having incorrectly assumed that the writing would be dense and unapproachable. To the contrary—at least in this work, his intention was to reach the lay reader, and so if you’re curious about Jung, don’t hesitate! I also recommend Practical Jung by Harry A. Wilmer.

📖 Brother One Cell: An American Coming of Age In South Korea’s Prisons, by Cullen Thomas — a beautifully written and compelling memoir by one of my favorite writing teachers.

Four pieces on Substack

Get Real, Man

Life is better on the edge

I’m struggling to find my footing in a society that distrusts excellence. I hunted excellence every day for 11 years. While the heat of my face still held its imprint on the pillow, I imagined ways to be better than yesterday. In minuscule moments of pause, I prepared myself for the next opportunity. As the dark defeated the sun, I analyzed the progress…

2 years ago · 17 likes · 21 comments · Latham Turner

Michael Mohr's Sincere American Writing

Writers Versus The World

Michael Mohr's Sincere American Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. ****This post is free. Enjoy my content? Want to read all of it? Consider going paid for only $5/month or $35/year. (Less than $3/mo for the yearly subscription.) You won’t regret the choice. Tr…

a year ago · 31 likes · 57 comments · Michael Mohr

The Recovering Academic

Can a work self be a whole self?

I remember the day I decided to abandon my Political Science major. It was January, not overly cold in northeastern Tennessee, but cloudy and foreboding. I now recognize that day as a turning point much like my decision to leave academe twenty-six years later. As usual, I was bucking the current — making a choice that felt impracti…

2 years ago · 19 likes · 31 comments · Joshua Doležal

Just Enough to Get Me in Trouble

I lied to my therapist

Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote about how I broke up with my therapist, and how writing this newsletter has helped me process the events of my life and the feelings around them. Here’s an excerpt: It’s fascinating how only thinking about your issues can oftentimes make them worse, whereas plucking them out of your brain and delivering …

a year ago · 57 likes · 22 comments · Lyle McKeany

TV, films, a couple of podcasts and articles

Giri/Haji | Giri/Haji Wiki | Fandom — *Giri/Haji,* a series on Netflix

Count Me In - Posters — The Movie Database (TMDb) — *Count Me In,* a film about rock drummers and drumming (2021)

*Genius* (2016) — ‘A chronicle of Max Perkins's time as the book editor at Scribner, where he edited Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.’

*Inanimate Objects Aren't Inanimate (Or Objects)*, an episode from The Emerald

*Do You Have What It Takes To Be Polyamorous?* Diana Fleischman on Sex, Jealousy, Emotional Discipline, and Why We Behave The Way We Do, an episode from The Unspeakable Podcast by Meghan Daum

The Unspeakable with Meghan Daum

appears on Substack as well, but the episodes are paywalled there. Her work is outstanding, and I encourage you to subscribe—and, if you just want to listen, the podcast is syndicated, so, linked above.

How Samuel R. Delany Reimagined Sci-Fi, Sex, and the City in The New Yorker

Aristotle’s Rules for Living Well; An Ancient Guide to the Good Life, in The New Yorker

My own writing from the past couple of months

I’ve been publishing a chapter of memoir a week, along with a few other pieces and interviews with fellow writers. I won’t include the full list here, because it’s all in the archives, but here are a few highlights.

Memoir

Waking up Running

June 28, 2023

I didn’t start running until my forties. I could never see myself as one of those cringing, tense joggers frowning their awful, sad, tight runner’s frowns—the faces I would laugh at as I rolled by on my skateboard when I was just thirteen, thinking I’ll never be that guy,

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Memoir

How to eat the question when someone asks "What's next?"—or anything else, for that matter.

June 21, 2023

At nine am on the morning of March 5, 2015, I was standing outside the hangar of a small airstrip in Cloverdale, California, my few employees gathered around me. The hills were a lush spring green, and the day had begun clear and bright, the air still crisp but warming quick…

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Learning how to do good magic in Chile

June 14, 2023

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The amateur athlete’s speedball

May 24, 2023

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A conversation about men writing memoir with Bowen Dwelle and Lyle McKeany

Bowen Dwelle and Lyle McKeany

May 20, 2023

Lyle McKeany is the writer behind Just Enough to Get Me in Trouble as well as a creative coach, and Bowen Dwelle writes DECIDE NOTHING, which includes his serialized memoir in progress An Ordinary Disaster, about a man learning to listen to himself.

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