Looking back to look forward, 2026 edition

A very belated look-back on 2025 and look forward to 2026. 

Because January was the longest year.

Also because:

I increasingly feel less drawn to this space, this notes page started 10 years ago. Same with sharing a long list of year end reflections -- which relates to what takes me longer each year to get this out into the ether, along with other things seeming more important, urgent or desirable calling my time and attention.

I'll continue to do my annual reflection on my own, but feel less motivated to share all my highlights from the previous year in this public way. I may be drifting toward a different mode of sending out regular posts -- will I finally follow the trend and get a Substack? Something else? However, so not to leave this spot empty and devoid of explanation, below are some highlights from 2025, also some low-lights and a few goals for the next two years.

Highlights:

• I moved into a house where my roommate and I hosted a living room reading of my new full-length play TrapDoor: A multi-dimensional romp across space/time. 
• My play New Eden got semi-finalist ranking in the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition.
• I spent four months unlearning and relearning who I am through Imaginisma's alternative educational collective. 
• Tiara Thompson and I brought a staged reading of my play Wolf/Girl to the Liberty Theater in Hailey, Idaho, collaborating with The Liberty Theatre Company and Wood River Wolf Project.
• I shared a reading of Take Me Away: A train wreck with monsters at Boise Contemporary Theater's 5X5 Reading Series -- my first time back in that series since 2016!
• I read my weird poetic narrative Thoreau the Crow: An Origin Story at MING Studios and Address Book.
• I read four excerpts and pieces on the theme of Silence -- by myself and others -- on the Something I Heard show for Boise State Public Radio.
• I sold out my first edition of 12 Lifetimes: A Century Cycle. 
• Nick Jaina and I released the second edition of 12 Lifetimes -- with some updates inside and on the cover. 
• Chris Mathers Jackson wrote a sweet review about both editions, as did some kind readers on Goodreads.
• I read from the new edition in the midst of two Nick Jaina living room shows.
• The Dramatists Guild Institute Certificate Program (that went on hiatus in 2024) joined forces with PlayPenn to find a resurgence as the PlayPenn Certificate Program in Writing for the Stage -- so I got to pick that program back up again.
• I stayed at the Hemingway House in Ketchum, Idaho as a Writer-in-Residence for two weeks in May, untangling a new...something...that started growing in Imaginisma, or the previous year, or for decades of slow simmering incubation.
• I talked with George Prentice about my experience in Ketchum. 
• Thanks to Imaginisma, I started unwrapping a new workshop series along the lines of Untangling Your True Voice.
• I tried various parts of them out through Imaginisma, then at Hemingway House and the Water Bear Bar later in the summer. 
• I got the new red edition of 12 Lifetimes stocked at Chapter One Books in Ketchum, Kuna's Book Habit, Rediscovered Books and Flying M Boise.
• I returned to Alaska's Valdez Theatre Conference with my play Take Me Away.  
• At the conference, I also shared my ten-minute play You Light Me Up, micro-play Tree People and took part in the Valdez Fringe Relay with a ridiculously surreal western serial contribution.
• Thanks to fellow Valdez artist Shawna Medford Kelty, Take Me Away got featured on the KC-ACTF (before the American Collegiate Theatre Festival pulled from the Kennedy Center) Summer Reading List recommendations.
• Boise Contemporary Theater started a Locals Only Summer Reading Series, where I shared TrapDoor.
• I had an invitation-only Zoom reading of TrapDoor with some of my favorite performers, all of whom used to live in Boise and moved away (though one moved back, yay!).
• I got more into body/brain connections through another Alexander/Klein Techniques workshop with Fabio Tavares -- and a few with Lisa Lechner's Gravity installments too! Plus another somatic breathwork session at Exhale Boise and tuning sessions with CL Young.
• I realized I've practiced Alexander Technique Constructive Rest Pose in a daily way for 10 years.
• I took an excellent script analysis class on "difficult" plays by women through the new PlayPenn Certificate Program from Pandora Scooter. 
• I got to serve on the James Castle House selection team for 2026 residencies.
• I talked with Wally on the Content Warning Podcast about 12 Lifetimes and theater -- especially what it's like to write plays in Boise since the pandemic.
• Nick Jaina and I performed an evening of words and music at the Hemingway Center at Boise State University.
• Julianna Kelsey wrote a lovely feature story about that night and about my work as an artist for the Arbiter.
• I contributed a short article about courage to The Dramatist Quarterly.
• After years of talking about it, I made (and am continuing) first slow steps toward forming a Playwrights Collective in Boise.
• I read another weird poetic narrative called Rabbit at MING Studios and, when they selected the story for publishing, at the Paper Plane Press Volume 3 release event.
• I wrote/unearthed new short plays Eat Your Words and hope is the chest with feathers.
• I wrote a number of new centuries.
• I continued picking at a larger piece/thing/project that I'm still calling the Play Yet Unwritten, not sure if it's really a play, a facilitated workshop-ritual-ceremony-experience, or some hybrid of the above. I'm leaning toward hybrid.
• I read a new century at The Star Public Library Branch's Writers Read series and at a private holiday party.
• I got to see a client's fantastic doctoral dissertation about using fiction-based research to understand how teaching theatrical devising in educational programming also helps teach empathy.
• Thanks again to artist Shawna Medford Kelty, I got a staged reading of Take Me Away scheduled at SUNY Plattsburgh, coming up in March.
• Thanks to another fellow Valdez artist Greg Romero, my play see in the dark: a new myth got featured on the University of Houston Playwrights Winter Break Play-List series recommendations.
• I got news that my play TrapDoor is a semi-finalist at Local Theater Company's Local Lab.
  
  

Lowlights:

• I got hit by a truck (my third time getting hit by a vehicle on my bicycle), breaking my right (write) hand, separating my shoulder at the A/C joint and tearing my rotator cuff. 
• Because of that (and the too-much I'd taken on before that), I found myself at the bottom of my well, overwhelmed and depleted.
• Because of that, I had to cut out of Imaginisma early and cut travel plans to Maine for that program -- but I was doing too much anyway.
• Because of aftermath from that accident, I also couldn't fulfill my original intentions at the Hemingway House, but the pivot I took ended up being what I needed.
• Because of the accident, I had to reschedule my reading in Star for December, but that ended up being the best time for that event.
• Because of the accident, I didn't start a new full-length project -- at least not the ones I planned.
• After starting back into my certificate program, the class I chose for fall had to postpone to begin in January -- but this one (The Art of Theatrical Imagination with Mathilde Dratwa) is making the start of this year much better and helping me find shape for The Play Yet Unwritten/Into Your Wild.
  
• My high school drama teacher and major theater community member Tom Willmorth (Mr. Tom) died of complications related to early onset Alzheimer's, Parkinsons and lewy-body dementia. 
• I spent all year moving through grief of relationship changes after letting go of my previous home/partner/our cat daughter.
• All the low-lights related to Trump, that inauguration, watching the devastation unfold, big hits to education, arts, humanities, grants, science, medicaid, human rights, people with disabilities, women, LGBTQIA+, science, immigrants, people living legally in the US but deported (or killed) anyway, friends suffering, nation/world suffering, animals and planet more endangered than ever...

3 Big Goals for the Next Two Years:

• Start submitting 100 things a year again
• Adapt my feature screenplay script into a large-cast, full-length puppet horror play that explores the cycle of abuse through a possessed boarding house
• Take next steps of this Play Yet Unwritten -- that might be called Into Your Wild? -- and move it toward a public showing

As the year of the wood snake moves into the fire horse, I see 2026 as my year of finding emotional clarity and trusting myself to let go of what I don't need, embracing fiery audacity in my creative curiosity and moving forward with big joy and passion -- turning emotional insight into real-world, empowered embodiment. Let's hope!

I'm asking:

• How might I trust my whole self?
• What does freedom (from stuckness, past patterning, survival mode...) look like for me?
• What happens when I plant what I long to grow and tend my garden in the way I want?

No photo reel in this reflection, at least not yet. Maybe I'll add that as I move forward, but if I try to do that now I may never post this. Instead, I'll leave you with this carved Octopus/Kraken wrestling a lighthouse at the Valdez harbor, which may or may not feel poignant to you too.