blueberries: decorated and delicious

I love Taproot Magazine because it’s ad-free, designed with exquisite art, and filled with personable essays and articles. Even the craft patterns begin with a short story from the creator that expresses care and warmth and individuality. And…drum roll please …

My story “The Blueberry Forest” is published in Issue 57 “Blue”! I am SO excited to have an essay published in Taproot!!!

I saw the email that my essay had been accepted right after I arrived at my mom’s house, the house I grew up in, just a couple of miles east of the blueberry field I write about in the essay. My mom was the first person I told. She hugged me and said “Congratulations!” Then she paused and said, “You mean Taproot?” When I nodded, she hugged me all over again. She, too, loves this magazine.

Plus, she’d been staying at my house as I worked on the first draft. Conveniently, I ran questions by her. My essay weaves a few stories together. One story is from my early teens when I picked blueberries to earn money for school clothes. Describing my experience unearthed memories and details, which started to seem more and more fantastical. Blueberry bushes more than ten feet tall? Yes, my mom said. She picked with me occasionally, and luckily, she was able to corroborate all of the details. I was happy to know my magical memories are accurate.

After the first draft, I completely exploded the story into a fourth element about picking strawberries too–a drastically different experience than picking blueberries. So different I didn’t like reliving the strawberry memories. I can still feel the heat on my shoulders, the ache in my lower back, and the anxious wish to be assigned rows of strawberries closer to the adults working in the field rather than the other kids. I rode the school bus to the farm with them, and they were full of drama, boom boxes, and occasional fights.

I ended up cutting the entire strawberry section. Hours of writing deleted. It felt absolutely right. The contrasting story helped me understand what made blueberry picking so special. Not that it wasn’t hard work. It was, but it also gave me a unique experience.

There’s more to my story, including a mystery about vandalized berries:

and some romance sparked by feathered finery.

If you’d like to order a copy of the “Blue” issue, visit their shop and use the code intotheblue for free shipping.

Lastly, I love the way my essay is illustrated. I was deeply curious about what it would look like on the page, and Michelle Housel’s artwork could not be more perfect–the colors, the whimsy-without-being-cutesy, and the moments captured from the essay. Just look at this handsome house finch!

As always, thank you for reading and for following me along my creative journey. I hope to have more to share with you soon. For now, I’m somewhat frantically plugging along every spare second I can find during a busy and demanding time. I hope you are finding time this summer to stop and smell the roses, or pick some blueberries, or just sit quietly appreciating the smell of jasmine blossoms.