Begin or renew an annual subscription in March, and you’ll be automatically entered into a prize draw to win a lovely box of goodies, including a copy of our our group read, a signed copy of Enchantment, some of my writing essentials (a refillable ink pen, a bottle of ink, a Rhodia notebook, Blackwing pencils), and the new, glorious Clearing stickers and bookmarks.
THE CLEARING WITH KATHERINE MAY
Elissa Altman on the beauty of impermanence
Hello,
Experiencing everything, everywhere, all at once is where we find our guest Elissa Altman this week, as she chats to me in the midst of a snow cyclone in Connecticut.
An author and speaker whose work touches on issues of family, trauma, and the permission to create, she acknowledges her deep need for rest and retreat as she whisks us away to her favourite place in the world; a tiny cottage set back from a stony beach in Owl’s Head, Maine.
Overlooking the sea and with guitar to hand, Elissa and I grapple with overcoming guilt, the pleasures of re-reading, the fetishisation of Mary Oliver and the horror of people placing items on their desks.
A glorious and warm-hearted episode with some timely reminders about the impermanence of things, good and bad.
Links from the episode:
Elissa’s website where you can find her books
Elissa’s Substack
Elissa’s Instagram
Devotions poetry collection by Mary Oliver
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing
Production Credits
Guest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan Hutchins
Substack Manager - Rebecca Armstrong
Producer - Alice Lloyd
Music - The Leaf Library theleaflibrary
Click here to listen in your favourite app, or paid subscribers can listen to an ad-free version here in this post.
Transcript:
Read this post with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Clearing with Katherine May to read this post and get 7 days access to the full archive
Upgrade