When people at cocktail parties or whatever ask me “what have you been up to?” and I say “oh not much,” usually I am lying. I am just bad at talking about myself, and/or my brain is so focused on whatever I am doing at the moment, I forgot all the other stuff.
I have been up to things recently, so here’s a list:
I read an essay at an event called 20 x 2 Chicago a couple of weeks ago, talking about what I want and gratitude for what I have. Here it is.
I also wrote an essay for Uncanny Magazine about living and working with a chronic illness. It’s not going to be up on the website until December but Uncanny is a AWESOME publication and worth your subscription regardless.
Here’s a Medium post from Citizen Engagement Laboratory‘s Tracy Van Slyke on the Cultural Pulse project I’ve been working on with for the past year. The essay is on how social movements can connect pop culture + people power for justice, and I’m quoted in it too.
I was on a panel at the Illinois Library Association Conference with Juliet de Jesus Alejandre (Logan Square Neighborhood Association) Jorge Felix, (Puerto Rican Arts Alliance) and Mimosa Shah (Skokie Public Library) called “Always Be Collaborating: Looking Beyond the Library Walls for Models of Civic Engagement” I talked about civic partnerships with libraries and the media literacy workshops The Learned Fangirl has been doing this year. Here’s a handout from the talk.
Also TLF just announced our 2017 contributing writers. Very excited about that.
So if you ask me “what have you been up to” and I say “nothing” just know I’ll probably reveal what I’ve really been up to in piecemeal later on.
Keidra Chaney 