Memory Jar 2025

(or, a list of lists)

TL;DR: My Advanced Personal Writing Workshop starts on 1/13 and I have one spot left. Sign up now! It’s a six-week intensive in which each student workshops up to 50 contiguous pages. It’s an exciting class because you leave knowing you are really writing a book. The price for this class will be going up after this round, so snag this last spot now while you can! Info about the class and how to register and pay is here. (Read on please!)

The rest:

When my girls were little, we used to collect memories in a big mason jar by writing something good that happened down on a piece of paper and folding it up and putting it in the jar, and on New Year’s Eve we dumped them all out and read them aloud. We haven’t been doing it for a few years now and every year someone says, “We should start doing that again, it was so fun!”

This year has had as many downs as it has had ups for the people in my family and for people around the world. It seems like there’s no end in sight. But I do still work on gratitude diligently, and here are some things I am grateful for today:

• I have taught some absolutely wonderful classes this year with students who have chosen to continue with each other and with me after class was over, so I got to see more of their writing and how it grew and changed over time

• I have had the pleasure of working with several students 1:1 and being trusted with their words and ideas is an absolute honor

• I have been writing many new essays

• I earned spots in two residencies for 2026 and I have had to move the dates twice now for one of them, which is both frustrating and good because I have a rich and busy life!

• I have spent a lot of time thinking about reacting vs responding and I am pleased to say that I am learning to respond more than I react. I have always been a pretty reactive person (which I am not proud of) so this one is big for me

• All four of us are healthy, we have a house we love, animals we cherish, clean water and healthy food, busy lives, we love and are loved by family and friends, both girls have boyfriends and best friends we think are sweet and kind, and J and I are coming up on 24 years together. (Who ever would have guessed??)

In the new year I will be teaching two classes at GrubStreet, both in person at the center. One is 6 Weeks, 6 Essays, and the other is Jumpstart Your Memoir. If you are interested or would like to learn more, please let me know your questions!

As I mentioned up top, My Advanced Personal Writing Workshop starts on 1/13 and I have one spot left. It’s a six-week intensive in which each student workshops up to 50 contiguous pages. It’s an exciting class because you leave knowing you are really writing a book. The price for this class will be going up after this round, so snag this last spot now while you can! Info about the class and how to register and pay is here.

I read (and listened to) many books this year. I beat my goal on Goodreads and didn’t even log some of them. The ones that stayed with me the longest:

• everything written by and edited by Alice Wong (I finished the last one, Disability Intimacy, just a week before her death),

• Firstborn Girls (Bernice McFadden)

• One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (Omar El Akkad)

• Careless People (Sarah Wynn-Williams)

• The Names (Florence Knapp)

I also listened to a bunch of novels that flew by as I cleaned, drove, fed birds, whatever that I enjoyed in the moment. I selected a number of my favorite books to listen to with my older daughter in the car as we drive back and forth to various activities, including The Color Purple (Alice Walker), The Perks of Being A Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky) and That Was Then, This is Now (SE Hinton).

Best of all, I re-configured my social media so that I am either not on it or my feed is almost entirely birds. Not just pet birds although I have a few of those I follow. (And have! Here is a photo of me and my incredible queen house sparrow, Tock, eating from my hand.)

I follow bird photographers, crow/corvid rehabbers, bird conservation organizations, and more. My favorites this year have been FOBBV (home of Jackie & Shadow, the world’s most famous bald eagle cam) and verycoldnoodle, the most ridiculously funny blue jay(s).

I wish you all an easy, happy, and healthy transition into 2026, and may the next year be better for all of us.

xoxo Aimee