Many thanks to the members of the Boiler House Poets Collective ’26 for a wonderful residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA and reading at the North Adams Public Library!
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/10/21/one-liner-wednesday-famous-last-thoughts/
(Joanne Corey reading with the Boiler House Poets Collective at the North Adams (MA) Public Library, October 17, 2026. Photo credit: Deborah Marshall)
Since Thursday, I have been at the Boiler House Poets Collective’s annual residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art).
If you look back through my archive, you will find many, many posts that I made during residencies, in most years, daily, going all the way back to the residency which formed the basis for BHPC in November, 2015. The subsequent resdiencies have been in September or October.
I’m pleased to say that our reading on Saturday at the North Adams Public Library was great. We read in alphabetical order, so I was first, which I like because I then get to relax and enjoy everyone else’s work. With ten poets, we each do a 5-minute sampler of our work, so there is lots of variety for the audience. We had an unusually lively question and answer session after the reading and time for snacks and conversation.
Admittedly, I am low on energy this year, as I await surgery for Chiari malformation later this month. (Link has a lot of good information for Chiari in people with hEDS like me but, please, ignore the pitch for the practice at the end.) My focus had been to get through the reading, and I met that goal. I have tried to do a bit more since, like visiting the Museum, but I pushed a little too hard and am now having to pull back and rest more. I regret missing most of our workshopping sessions this residency but I hope that, next year, I’ll be in better shape to participate more fully.
I’m very grateful to my fellow Boiler House Poets Collective members for supporting me in my current, challenging circumstances and look forward to our future residencies together. Long live BHPC!
North Adams, MA folks are cordially invited to the Boiler House Poets Collective reading at the North Adams Public Library on Saturday, October 17 at 11:00 AM with reading first, followed by Q&A, book sales and signing, refreshments, and conversation.
You are also invited to join in with Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/10/14/one-liner-wednesday-leafing/
In honor of Banned Books Week, I’m sharing a poem I wrote that involves banned books. It was originally published by Rat’s Ass Review in their Fall-Winter 2022 issue.
THE BANNED BOOKMOBILE
Do you need a special license to drive
a bus of books? Children
are more fragile; books,
more combustible.
Children’s minds need fire,
need those books to start a blaze.
How else to know that a pair of penguin
dads can raise a chick?
That witches and wizards can be evil
or good or somewhere in the flawed between?
That even the bluest eye cannot
confer beauty and love?
That it’s a sin to kill
a mockingbird?
I don’t like having AI butting in with suggestions while I’m typing and I really don’t want to waste the energy it takes to run it, so I disable it as much as possible.
I disabled Gemini from my main Gmail inbox. A casualty of that is that I also lost spell check.
Mind you, spell check was there long before AI started butting in, but now it appears that you can only have spell check if Gemini is turned on.
While I try my best, I’m afraid that some typos have snuck into my emails.
I hope that people forgive them in exchange for my authentic voice, unaltered by AI.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “typo.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/09/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-19-2026/
WordPress helpfully reminded me that Top of JC’s Mind was born 13 years ago yesterday.
It doesn’t seem quite possible that I’ve kept the blog going that long, despite an avalanche of personal and world churn.
My thanks to everyone who has read or commented over this time, especially those who are helping buoy me in my current health/brain challenges.
I can’t guarantee another 13 years but I can hope for it…
The reason I haven’t been posting much lately is that I am getting ready to have surgery for Chiari malformation in late October. There is a lot to do to get prepared, including a bunch of tests, which, along with the rest of my medical team visits has been taking up a lot of time and my limited brainpower.
I also was trying to keep some fraction of my volunteering and online advocacy going but now push has come to shove, as they say, and I am setting almost everything aside for now to concentrate on my health. I need to rest more and not tax my already over-taxed brain.
My poor brain has been spending the last 2 1/2 years without the right amount of cerebrospinal fluid and my symptoms seem to be intensifying a bit, so I need to acknowledge that. I knew I’d need to be on a long hiatus after the surgery, so I’m practicing now.
That being said, there are a few commitments that I plan to keep, the Boiler House Poets Collective residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA and the sing-along hosted by the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton. I may not be much help for either of them but it’s important for me to be there.
I’m giving myself permission to stop trying to keep up with all the causes that I usually do, so I’m up-to-date to do comments or letters to elected officials and government agencies or just contribute to conversation. I will try to read just my favorite writers and columns. I need to get used to deleting things without opening them.
Ironically, I may post here a bit more during the weeks remaining before surgery. If there is less to keep up with, I might be able to reserve some time and brainpower to post.
If I don’t manage it, you’ll know the reason.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “reason.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/09/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-12-2026/
“Please tell your own story. This is the most important thing we can do for each other: to know each other through stories, and I hope so much that whoever you are, listening right now, you are able to do what you love, to be also the unique person you are.”
~~~ Gloria Steinem, from an interview for Netflix’s Famous Last Words, released after her death was announced last week
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/09/09/one-liner-wednesday-not-a-clue/
When Dolly Parton was asked about her ultimate goal in life, she answered:
“Just to be happy, to be as productive as I can be, make as many people happy as I can, make as much money as I can, so I can do for more people. And I just want the freedom to work, and everybody else can have the money.”
Mission accomplished, Dolly. Rest in peace. The good you have done in the world will live on for generations.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/09/02/one-liner-wednesday-getting-old/
Midnight Mousers, an anthology of noir stories featuring cats, including one from my writer-friend Devon Ellington, is now available through Amazon and coming soon from bookshop.org.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2026/08/26/one-liner-wednesday-ive-been-abandoned/
