March '24 Madhouse Recap

Salem, Fire, and Fairy Tales

Hello friends and fiends–

March is one of my favorite months, not just because it’s Aries season. Okay, okay. Maybe I’m lying, but bring on the FIRE baby! This is my month of self-pampering, exploring, and nourishing my creativity, and with the spring equinox on the 19th, we’re all about rebirth and nurturing right now. 

I started the month by doing a deep clean of the house, partly because spring was coming and partly because we’d all been recovering from The Plague: The Sequel. I like starting the month with fresh towels, blankets, and sheets, so I always try to do that. If I can sneak in a witchy floor wash or two throughout the month, I’m even happier, but most days, I’ll settle for there just not being crumbs everywhere I look (full disclosure: crumbs are everywhere). 

I decided to take some time this past month and do some solo traveling. I visited Salem, MA for a few days to rest, reset, and get inspired with lots of fieldwork. I’m planning to do a series of additional posts here throughout the next months about some of my experiences, so if you’re interested in history, witchcraft, or the occult, I recommend sticking around! 

We also celebrated Ostara and Easter with lots of food, honey, family, and nature-focused activities. Evie and I naturally dyed Easter eggs, which was something I’m hoping to continue as a tradition, and then we bought a bunch of suet and bird seed and cleaned (re: scrubbed) the birdhouses, too; I’m thinking about repainting the one we have outside to something more whimsical because why not, and then Evie painted and bejeweled one of her own, so seeing those every day fills me with a lot of joy.

For my birthday this year, Dennis surprised me with a reservation at TreeTops Restaurant, and we got to have a five-course meal in one of their private dining pods underneath the canopy. We sipped on champagne, snuggled under blankets, and enjoyed a really beautiful evening together. This has been on our to-do list for years, and I’m just so thankful to have such a wonderful human by my side in this life. Here’s to 35!

On the writing/teaching front:

• Earlier this year, I found out I was nominated for the 2023-2024 Point Park University Distinguished Teaching Award. This is a huge honor and I'm still kind of speechless about it. I recently turned in my teaching portfolio and regardless of what happens now, it means so much to me that I'm helping people and that students think I'm making a difference in their lives.

• SNHU granted me the Outstanding Educator Award 2024. They also gifted me a gorgeous traveling mug for Employee Appreciation Week. I mention the latter because I feel like so many universities look at adjuncts as dismissible workhorses, but SNHU does such a great job at showing how much they value and appreciate their teachers. It feels wonderful, and it’s no small thing. I’m grateful to work there.

• I judged 11th and 12th-grade poetry in the Greater Pittsburgh area for the Scholastic Writing Awards. It was a great experience and it reminded me of when I was writing for them as a kid. Very nostalgic and it felt wonderful (and healing) to be on the other side of this now. I hope to have more opportunities to do this again in the future.

• My short story “What it Takes to Swallow a Dog” is in the second issue of Ghoulish Tales and I’m SO EXCITED. This is a piece of historical horror based on Tarrare, the circus performer who would eat…anything. Everything about writing this was such a wild ride. You can pick up your copy here. 

• If you're looking for something creative for your kids to do this summer, send them to Point Park to build monsters with me! To participate in this program, students must be entering grades 9-12 as of Fall 2024 and/or be a 2024 high school graduate. More information here: www.pointpark.edu/summercamps

  

  

This month, I read:

• Thirst by Mary Oliver

• Foreign Bodies by Kimiko Kahn

• Pretty Boys are Poisionous by Megan Fox

• Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

• Blood Countess by Lana Popovic

• Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh

• Year of the Witch: Connecting with Nature’s Seasons through Intuitive Magic by Temperance Alden

• “A Very, Very Great Lady and Her Son at Home,” “The Smile of Winter,” “The Loves of Lady Purple,” and “The Werewolf” by Angela Carter; “Sometimes We’re Cruel” and “You Do What You’re Told” from J.A.W. McCarthy’s Sometime’s We’re Cruel and Other Stories.

• “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Frog Prince” by The Brothers Grimm; I’m also reading essays here and there from Bruno Bettelheim’s book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales.

On the media front:  

• Wonka (2023), Irish Wish (2024), Poor Things (2023)

• True Detective, Season 4 (2024): I enjoyed this season a lot, frankly because there was a lot to love, but I feel like I wanted more with the folklore/spirituality/supernatural angle they were pushing. I had a similar feeling in season 1, too. 

  • If you want more of the above, I have to recommend reading Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq, who is featured on the soundtrack. 

• The Bear, Season 1 and 2 (2022-3): I didn’t think this would be a show I would be into, but I was wrong. This is about art and discipline and life and balance and I truly loved every moment of it, especially the parts about sacrifice and self-actualization. I can’t wait for the third season in June.

• Not Dead Yet, Season 2 (2024): I feel like I’ve been watching a lot of heavy things lately and this show has been my relaxation watch. 

• The White Lotus, Season 1 (2021): I’m two episodes in, and honestly, I’m a little bored? Like I’m intrigued because I like watching shows about terrible people, but there isn’t enough happening to drive me to the show every day. I’ll finish it, but I’m not in a rush to.

• Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (2024): This was horribly hard to watch, but as a 90s kid who loved Nickelodeon and grew up with those shows, I felt it necessary to watch because I always fear romanticization due to lack of information. 

• The Twilight Zone: “Where is Everybody?” “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine,” and “A Passage for Trumpet.”

Podcasts:

• History for Weirdos, “The Witches Who Tried to Stop Hitler”

• Monster, She Wrote Podcast, “Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves”

Also as a reminder, if you enjoy and appreciate the work we do here in The Madhouse, you can show your support for the newsletter by "buying a coffee" (or two!) for our madwoman in residence: me! As always, I thank you for your time and support and I look forward to serving you another dose of all things creative soon.