Creative Reflections: Reading, Writing, Listening & Talking 6/12/26

Hey loves - it's been a minute! I hope you've been doing okay. Today was a 12 hours on Zoom kind of day. But the day got progressively more fulfilling, which is pretty awesome.

This format gathers some thoughts based on what I've been either receiving or generating within my creative life. My creativity has been more interior these days, and I'm determined to manifest! Externalize! Let it OUT!

Reading: Changing the Game…?

This week I have returned to gay hockey romance adventures! So much fun! I scored a digital check out of Rachel Reid’s ‘Game Changers: Volume Two!’ audiobook (yes, the 'Game Changers' franchise, sometimes better known as ‘Heated Rivalry’). Volume Two is a compilation of the final 3 books in the series: Common Goal, Role Model, and The Long Game. Here’s what I’ve been really pondering as I listen to these books (actually, I’ve been thinking about this for a while): romance novels are some of the best speculative fiction we’ve got. Stay with me…

I got into romance books was because Brittany Luce turned me on to how certain romance authors manage to keep the story moving, keep it sexy, and embed a lot of consent and communication into the hot scenes. Like an antidote to badly done or misogynist porn. The best of these books give us some decent scripts for the conversations we’re told we SHOULD be having, but are rarely taught HOW to have (which then get supplanted by the lessons of bad/misogynist porn). For example:

• Normalized discussion about condom use,
• Checking in to see if someone likes or even wants the attention they are getting
• Ways to communicate what you like
• Ways to communicate what you want to happen.
• Partners noticing each other’s responses and non-verbal cues

I have gotten a lot of this from reading Black romance authors Alyssa Cole, Talia Hibbert, Rebekah Weatherspoon, and my romance queen, Jasmine Guillory. I encountered these story-based lessons again when I jumped onto Rachel Reid's ‘Game Changers’ bandwagon but instead of hetero exchanges, she’s giving us hot, dude-on-dude action. AND as we move deeper into the series, not only are we getting respectful communication and a variety of… positions, we’re also getting:

• Challenges to norms of masculinity
• Accessing feelings
• Processing emotions including anxiety, depression and insecurity
• Setting, maintaining, and RESPECTING boundaries
• Experiments in transformation from being the worst kind of asshole to being someone committed to repairing the harm they’ve done?!!!

Adrienne Maree Brown introduced me to the idea that activism and organizing are science fiction and how we need to tell the story of the futures we wish to create. We could debate the merits of gay hockey romance as pleasure activism, but the potential for the transformational power of speculative storytelling is definitely there! And the pleasure is there - these stories are delightful! Is it politically imperfect? Of course it is! Such as the nature of the very concept of romance. AND these stories have the potential to empower imaginations. The hetero-focused stories of the authors I mentioned before inspire me to imagine a world where women can be safe and respected as whole humans while accessing pleasure and connection. These masc athletigay stories have me imagining a world where masculinity is disarmed and men are able to have it without sacrificing connection, care or joy. What if that could be real?

We are all living and dying on the toxic battlefield of gender enforcement. We build houses from the trauma of wreckage and we eat food grown in soil poisoned by generations of warfare. Capitalism and fascism are actively conspiring to limit our reality to the shape of their chaos. This is an all hands on deck situation, y’all. Rachel Reid has got me over here thinking, “Oooh - what if…?! Maybe…” It’s a fucking start. We ALL need help envisioning better futures, imagining ourselves (and each other) healed.

Writing: “Mind the Business That Pays You“ vs. “Pay Yourself First”

I started drafting two poems this week. I haven’t really been writing much lately. My own writing,: Manuscript, blog, whatever has been shoved repeatedly to the back burner for the sake of “minding the business that pays me” and I’m pretty done with it. Every hour of my life would be claimed by work if I let it. I have three ways to fill every hour, every day.

What’s particularly prickly about not claiming space for my creativity is that for the past couple of months I have been co-facilitating a creative writing space! Just ridiculous! I helped conceive, advertise, and facilitate a space where people show up and we encourage them to write for long stretches at a time. We provide thoughtfully crafted prompts and time to share early drafts. We exchange excellent feedback and I have heard gorgeous writing emerge from the space that I hold for others – what the fuck, Atena? Why build a temple of devotion and never step foot inside, never receive the blessings myself? Sigh. Like I said, I’m done with it. So I’m taking it upon myself to crawl out of the desert. I am going to revise those poems I wrote and submit them somewhere.

Listening: I Love this Film Score

In addition to my audiobooks and Tidal playlists (I finally quit Spotify! It took a while, but we got there! You’ll get there too!), the music I am particularly enjoying this week is the Original Motion Picture Score for ‘I Love Boosters.’ OMG, I LOVE it! Looking for some whimsy? Need a soundtrack for taking yourself less seriously? The Tune Yards have put together a delightful musical journey that will have you feeling like the star of your own cartoon adventure! It’s been great work music. (Also: go see I Love Boosters - it was so good! Boots Reilly took us on a helluva ride; I felt all of the feelings and absolutely cried joyful tears at the end!)

Talking: When Worlds Collide!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of closing out the Partner Plan Act conference put on by Illinois action for children with the reading of two of my poems, 'Reckon/Reclaim' and 'Relating to the Origin.' These poems have been performed before; what made this moment particularly sweet was the intersection of my worlds: my early childhood and my life as a writer and cultural worker. I got to enjoy the final keynote presentation which involved a doctor going hard for family literacy and championing the values that form the foundation of my early childhood career: finding the baby and supporting the family that cares for them. Then I got to share my work with colleagues who haven’t seen that aspect of my existence. It used to feel important to hold those parts of myself separate. It was nice to stand in the center and allow those parts of myself to converge.

Thanks again to the folks at Illinois Action for Children for the invitation and the opportunity!

That's what I've been up to. I'm trying to show up for my creativity, even as the need to work for money looms, ever large in my sky. I hope your work stress is continually decreasing and that you make time for the things that feed you!

In solidarity and gratitude,

🌺 Atena