What’s Up, Pussycat? Whoaooaoooaoooh
The Necessity of Play
Feeling like a fire-breathing, neon green varmint these days? Did you ever wish you could stop fiddling with the Etch-a-Sketch dials and draw or paint on it instead?
Play is essential! Especially to help dispel massive amounts of anger!
Play boosts our brain function and supercharges our creativity!
Play enhances our emotional development. I’m trying to expand my emotional capacity every day. I used to exist in a state of numbness, panic or chronic pain, but these days more and more (thanks to IFS) I am living my feelings while staying grounded and present. I’ve become comfortable with my feelings by allowing myself to play.
Play helps us develop socially, and surely I need to do that! And physically, working out is no fun without a sense of play.
Play allows all of us, not only children, to explore, learn problem-solving skills, and build relationships, ultimately enhancing every aspect of our lives.
What is play? To toy, fiddle or frolic! To spend time amusing oneself! To recreate! To engage in spontaneity!
Play, the word, comes from Middle English to move lightly and quickly. I could go on with a long list of other meanings, but I want to skip (!) to the idea that play is the opposite of work!
But do we play? Do we make time to play? Do we prioritize play?
What in you resists play and why? What does it protect?
What is one playful thing you could do today? (What happens when you do it?)
How can you bring more play into your life?
The Prompt:
The Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times,” resonates with me daily. This prompt is reckoning with the difficulty of this (ongoing) moment and how hard it is to deal with and to process and write about grief which so many of us are living with and through and denying or refusing or suppressing or repressing…
Whether it’s the shock of the moment or the actual losses, I have found myself bringing in a sense of play to create an on-ramp for creativity, a way to begin to approach the difficult material of these times.
So this prompt brings a sense of play to my grief, so that I can process it the way a child might, so that I can manage a hot topic with some levity, not to make fun of it but to create access in a new way, and to allow audiences (or readers) to take it in.
Make a list of losses. They can be significant (my mother, my father, my sister, etc.) or they can be political (my home, my country, my planet, the bees, etc.) or they can be specific (my ability to breathe fresh air, my deported neighbor, my job).
Take 2 of these that feel energized for you and drill down with specifics. The qualities or habits or moments and sensory memories of the person, place, thing or concept that has been lost. See if there’s overlap and/or opposition in the 2 specific lists.
Now you can smash those two specific experiences together in a scene for 2-3 characters with a game (the play part of this prompt): the audience or reader doesn’t know what the character is holding (these specifics/losses) but you know. You are going to build a scene with 2-3 characters.
The protagonist holds these losses and the specifics you’ve created. AND they need something (whatever you’ve been struggling with that they actually want in your actual work). They are going to try to get the want while juggling these losses (more play there) so that these losses will intrude (like tossed and dropped juggling balls) into the behavior and language of the protagonist in strange ways, while the protagonist tries to act normal, as if they aren’t laden with loss. (Often this dropped juggling balls will result in some parataxis in the language of the protagonist.)
Maybe character #2 is clueless about why the protagonist is acting this way. Maybe character #3 knows the backstory. Don’t worry about trying to explain the behavior. Trust the strangeness will help us lean in.
Try to make the scene work via a series of events. Events are what forces the action forward, changes the playing field, or raises the stakes. In dialogue an event can be a revelation, a recognition, a decision, a proposal, promise/vow or a threat. (If you struggle with understanding events, see my class offering below.)
The protagonist must try to get what they want in spite of their internal obstacles (losses) and the actual obstacles in the other characters and perhaps the world too. The other character(s) push back, so that the protagonist fails (potentially dropping all the balls they are juggling). Have fun!
MORE FUNNER Classes!
I’m offering 3 different Saturday Classes this Summer via Zoom. If you take all 3, you get a discount!
Artistic Statement Seminar July 26th 2 PM - 5 PM ET Magical Dialogue August 16th 2 PM - 5 PM ET Events & Reversals: Making Things Happen August 30th 2 PM - 5 PM ET More Info Here TESTIMONIALS
Brave Group Coaching is Back!
The 6-week Introductory Brave Group Coaching Course starts July 10th, Thursdays at 7pm ET (time zone converter here)! Class skips July 24th and goes through August 21st.
It is possible to self-regulate and ground, even in these difficult times. It is possible to move past feelings of helplessness even while American, neurodivergent, disabled, chronically ill, and/or in chronic pain.
This is affordable coaching in a small group with kindness for however you want to show up, camera on or off, etc.
The practices I’m teaching shifted the needle for me. Small incremental changes are possible, and they help more than you’d imagine. Or I wouldn’t be here in remission for 5 autoimmune diseases, functioning without chronic pain.
Advanced Brave Group Coaching Returns
Weekly on Wednesdays at 3pm ET (time zone converter here) starting July 2nd. If you’ve already taken Brave Group Coaching and/or you’re a private client, you are welcome to attend these group sessions for $35.
Neuro-Affirming (NAF) Parts Work Group:
Meets Second Saturdays of each month (this Saturday, June 14th) to offer community, parts work experience and support for anyone neurodivergent (inclusive of many different ways to be neurodivergent including Autism, ADHD, Audhd, OCD, cPTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and more). You do not need an actual diagnosis to participate. Run by Emma and Jess (Level II), both of us Audhd, we are creating Parts Work content for healing and ease in neurodivergent systems. Sign up for our link here. Our next meeting is 12pm ET (time zone converter here) Saturday, June 14th. Sliding scale from $5-25/session.
Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
If you want to be listed here, please let me know what you’re up to and include your links!
For example, my poem “Ode to the Burner Boys” has been named a finalist for the 49th Parallel Award at the Bellingham Review edited by Jane Wong. They will publish it soon. And “Possible Paths for the Minotaur” is forthcoming as part of the Ghost City Press MicroChapbook Summer Series!
Dipika Guha interviews Jonathan Specter (Eureka Day) on the writing process!
Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre is producing the World Premiere of Iraq, But Funny which follows five generations of Assyrian women attempting to reclaim their story as it’s being narrated by some British guy. Written by Atra Asdou, this journey from the Ottoman Empire to modern-day U.S.A. is filled with history, family, dysfunction, razor-sharp wit, and off-the-wall humor, culminating in a riotous reckoning you won’t want to miss! Directed by the amazing Dalia Ashurina who directed my play/podcast Abraham’s Daughters. Previews start on May 29th and runs June 7 through July 20th.
Audrey Cephaly has written a new, awesome Substack on Plot v. Silence - I highly recommend it!
Take a Poetry Workshop with Only Poems.
For those of us who want to start submitting to literary magazines, here’s a post by Katie Manning, editor of Whale Road Review discussing it.
Playwrights! If you’re not already subscribed to Mark Ravenhill’s free newsletter for his 101 exercises for playwrights, you might want to click here to do that. If you’ve missed them, reach out and I’ll send you a pdf of the 1st 53, and a pdf of 54 - now. So you won’t have to search through the endless Twitter-verse for random entries.
If you are struggling with the news, try this article about resistance.
Opportunities:
Centre Theatre New Play Festival wants new plays! Submit by June 30th!
Enter the YALE Drama Series Competition deadline 8/15/25
Moxie Theatre seeks new plays Submit by June 30th! All plays must be written by women+ playwrights. For musicals, at least two thirds of the writing team must identify as women+ (in a team of two people, both must identify as women+) Submissions are now open for ten-minute plays, full-length plays, and full-length musicals. They recommend 6 or fewer characters.
Ixion is seeking up to 8 scripts where DEFIANCE figures prominently to be considered for further development, including staged readings and possibly full production in June of 2026. No more than 4 actors. Simple setting. No more than 12 pages. Include only first initial and last name of author. Put script name and your last name in header or footer. Multiple subs allowed. No bios. Send to ixionensemble@gmail.com by 5 p.m. 9/30/25. Defiance can be in any form or any situation to explore relationships, dynamics and moments where opposition comes into play, could take on the relationship between a parent and child, and individual versus a collective or even a people versus an entity.
Telephone seeks all kinds of creative folks from everywhere in the world to respond to other artists/poets/dancers/etc to create a global community of responses. It is a massively brilliant project (I contributed to), and they want all kinds of creatives involved especially outside the US and especially filmmakers and musicians. Check out what they are doing and reach out!
Women in the Arts & Media have a list of opps you can sign up to get monthly.
For poets, Two Sylvias Weekly Muse is a great community with classes and more! They are offering an Online Poetry Retreat this summer and early fall.
Artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on Instagram
Brave Space
With prompts, grounding practices, & discussions, Brave Space invites playwrights, poets, painters, potters, novelists, memoirists, musicians & artists working in any medium to make meaning in a safe community. Begin and/or bring your projects to completion. Or use Brave Space as a body-doubling space to get other things done in community. $5-25 suggested per session. 4+x/week! On or off camera. No commitment, drop-ins welcome. Try it!
Brave Space Schedule:
Mondays & Wednesdays at 12pm ET; Fridays at 12pm ET w/fast feedback; and Sundays at 6pm ET with Sharing Second Sundays at 730pm ET (that means July 13!!!) Email or reply for a link!
ACTUAL SCHEDULE: This week there is Brave Space tomorrow, Friday, June 13th, but no Brave Space Sunday or Monday. The next Brave Space will be Wednesday, June 18th. Then back to our regular schedule!
ACTIONS TO TAKE:
READ and SUBSCRIBE to ABORTION EVERY DAY by Jessica Valenti - support real research about what’s really happening. MEN, this is scary shit, and your support is needed and appreciated!
What you need to know about ICE.
Give to the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance
Give to Doctors Without Borders
6 Ways to Support Palestine
Donate for Civilians in Palestine
Fight for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Love this, Emma! We all really need it right now! Hope I get to see you one of these days! xoxoxo
Ray Bradbury - was just watching an interview with him where he hammered on this. He had a sign above his typewriter that said, “Don’t think.” he felt strongly it should be a living experience. And that it’s very important to surprise yourself, to find out who you really are.