I celebrated my thirty-ninth year by writing a lot. I aimed to post thirty-nine narratives here. I posted thirty-one. The project was great for my process – always I am writing, but not always with a mind to share. Thirty-Nine Stories also pressed me to quickly edit or revise (usually lightly) before posting. All good practice. Below are some drafts from the project.

Personal Narrative

An essay about going to Busan, and my healing

Remembering our family trip to Paris in A Stone at Notre Dame

Super short note about depression

Much of the year was about waiting, the fallow time

Finding peace in This Vantage, at Lotte Tower in Seoul

Scrambling surrender in The Holy Posture Of Whatever

I Would Go Back (I Cannot) is about our time in Colombia

Small Talk in Williamson, West Virginia

Impatient present, remembering age twenty in Itaewon

Shame and fear: all the fun in Burn It Down

About experimenting and writing faith, finding a wild story

Fiction

The wild story, From The Vault, split between Kuwait and LA

A flash piece about losing faith but needing its scripture

A most beautiful, yearning piece of flash about miscarriage

I like this mother and daughter enough to return to this start

Fun flash piece as letter to editor: The Right To Be Forgotten