hello there!
Welcome to Sowing Words, my new blog about writing, teaching, and creativity, all coming to you from my small backyard garden. Thanks for clicking and reading, and I hope you’ll subscribe for free and stick around.
1. Why Sowing Words? Why now?
I am launching this space because I want a place where I can write about my writing process, teaching, gardening, creativity, and future projects all in one spot. My author website felt too static for me to share my random thoughts as a creative person and educator. This is where I want to have those conversations. I’ve been a writer and public high school English teacher for over two decades, and I’d love to share my insights and give back to the community. Every time something inspires me, you’ll be the first to know.
2. Who are you? There’s two of us? Nice to meet you!
If you are a writer, teacher, gardener, deep thinker, etc. who wants to be inspired by the simple things in life, you’ve come to the right place. Or if you appreciate my writing and want to support my work, that too! I also swear sometimes, and if you don’t like that, this isn’t the right fucking place for you. Teachers need to vent, and the most creative, down-to-earth people I know swear a ton. Enjoy!
3. My posting schedule
I expect to post on Sunday mornings, so you’ll find Sowing Words in your inbox and can read it with your morning coffee. My teaching and writing schedule can get hectic (I’ll probably be writing about that), so I’m keeping this completely free to all subscribers until I get a handle on how often I can post. I’ll try to make it weekly if I can, but it seems to be bimonthly at this point. I really want this to feel like a place I can be open to explore random topics with you and it not become another job for me (I have enough of those).
4. Gardening as a metaphor
FYI—I’ve only been gardening for a few years, but the insight and stress relief it has provided me as a creative person and teacher has been amazing. I’ll be sharing lots of gardening pictures from my small backyard, like the ones below from last summer. I garden in Massachusetts, zone 7a. More flowers than food so far, but I’m learning. I’m no gardening expert, but I will absolutely connect parallels between gardening, teaching, and writing—they are too obvious to ignore.
See you Sunday!
Hi Kristy, I am a teacher, also of 22 years, a gardener and a writer. I just started my own Substack. I think maybe we should be friends. ;) My Substack is called Mary’s pocketful of prose if you want to check it out. 😊
Those are very pretty flowers! And I'm looking forward to your parallels, it sounds really intriguing lol.