Thich Nhat Hahn said, “Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.” Be Where You Are is about how to use writing and mindfulness to stop and live more fully where you are.
Here, you will find new ways to slow down, reflect, and live more fully in the midst of the whirling pace of life. In this space, I’ll share writing and mindfulness prompts, essays, discussion threads, and interviews with writers, creatives, teachers & practitioners. I’ll also host virtual workshops & meet-ups to help us write, practice mindfulness, and make art in community.
When I experienced postpartum depression and anxiety and was searching for a way to come back to myself, my therapist recommended I try meditation, something I’d been considering for a decade but just kept putting off. It helped tremendously. It led me into Zen Buddhist practices as well as back to my old Christian contemplative practices. I was also writing and teaching writing workshops, and becoming obsessed with the intersections between writing and mindfulness practices.
This newsletter is for anyone who knows there is more to life than productivity and the shiny surfaces of things—anyone who hears the humming underneath it all and wants to create spacious time on this planet right now. I am not a guru. I am try to find my way forward and inviting you along for the journey through existential dread toward the light (with a heavy dose of self-deprecating humor and realness). Non-meditators and skeptics of various stripes: you are very welcome!
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Beginner’s Mind Interview Series with writers, creatives, teachers & practitioners about their daily creative & mindfulness practices🎙️💥
Essays exploring writing, mindfulness, motherhood, aging & other things ✨
Ass in Chair Collective meetups including seasonal celebrations with prizes! co-hosted with from The Long Pause
Workshops on writing and mindfulness practice with special guests ⚡
Recs & Links to help you be where you are (or escape for a bit) 🌈✨
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📚You can check out my Bookshop site for a curated selection of books by people I’ve interviewed and books that will help you be where you are.📚
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"You have a perspective on writing that is honest to the busy life of a writer and inspirational to the heart dislocated by doubt.”
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Take a minute and introduce yourself at this thread!
About me
I’m the author of The Falls (New American Press) and Feed (Seven Kitchens Press) as well as other essays and poems. I have an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and an MA from Boston University in English Literature. I’m a Pittsburgh native, but now live in Los Angeles, where I work as a writer and writing teacher. I currently teach writing workshops for the Madwomen in the Attic, and I’m at work on my first book of nonfiction and my second poetry collection.
My recent writing explores motherhood, feminism, middle age, technology, attention, engaged Buddhist and Christian contemplative practices, and the in-between spaces that are awkward, often beautiful, and teach us a lot. For instance, how do you stay present (survive) when your kids are singing Post Malone’s “Sunflower” in cat voices on a road trip—the rhythms coming in various syncopations of meow meow meow meowwww? I’m interested in the ways we adapt and keep rolling when we face mundane, daily difficulties as well as bigger challenges in our lives. What are the regular practices that sustain us? I’m excited to share these within a community we are building together here.
I’ve published this essay at Romper about phone addiction and motherhood and this essay at Racked about managing postpartum body and identity shifts through the lens of finding jeans that fit. Also, this essay about sagging breasts at Free State Review.
Here’s a poem at AGNI and another at New Ohio Review that dig into motherhood and technology.
In the Romper essay, I write: “I want to be there, really there, when my children fall, without giving up the right to be in my own head, too. How do I do that?" That question is at the heart of what this newsletter will do: write and live into those messy, ambivalent moments.
When I’m not writing or teaching (or hiding out somewhere scrolling and trying not to scroll), I’m usually hanging out with my partner, historian and writer, Nico Slate, and our two awesome kids.
You can find me on Instagram and elsewhere @mohnslate or find out more at my website.
I’d love to hear from you! Please share your thoughts, questions, and ideas for people, texts, or practices you’d like to see highlighted here.
