Austin friends, please come join Sean Petrie, Liz Garton Scanlon, and me at Birdhouse Books and Gifts this coming Sunday, June 1, at 3 p.m. for readings from and conversation about Spinning Toward The Sun: Essays on Writing, Resilience, & the Creative Life.

It would be a big help to the good folks at Birdhouse if you would RSVP here.

Liz and I are both contributors to Spinning Toward the Sun, and Sean not only contributed an essay — his company, Burlwood Books, is the publisher. And like everyone else involved in the project, we all did it for free.

Curated by Nora Shalaway Carpenter and containing additional contributions by William Alexander, Sarah Aronson, Allan Gratz, Erin Entrada Kelly, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Sean Petrie, Liz Garton Scanlon, Padma Venkatraman, Alicia D. Williams, and many others, Spinning Toward the Sun is a benefit for victims of Hurricane Helene, which devasted the Asheville, North Carolina, area.

I’ve just finished reading the collection myself, and it more than delivers on the subtitle’s promise of insights into writing, resilience, and the roles that creativity plays in both. We’ll have a great time on Sunday, but even more so if you’re there with us!