by Jessie Lynn McMains Since Stephen Sondheim died, I’ve had “Finishing the Hat” stuck in my head. “Finishing the Hat” is a song from Sondheim’s 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George, and in some ways it is the consummate Sondheim song; one of the finest examples of the way he blended music and…
Category: Inspiration
This is a Public Service Announcement with Xerox and Toner: writing & publishing perzines
by Jessie Lynn McMains Due to technical difficulties, I was unable to upload my video class about writing and publishing perzines as one single video, and chose to break it into parts. Part one of six is up now, the other five parts will be posted periodically throughout the next week on my YouTube channel….
Love Song during Riot with Many Voices
by Jessie Lynn McMains All through the summer of 2020, from May to September, I returned again and again to Lynda Hull’s poem “Love Song during Riot with many Voices.” I thought of it when police murdered Breonna Taylor in her apartment, and the protests began in Louisville, demanding justice. I thought of this man,…
One Long Longing
by Jessie Lynn McMains Homesick is just a state of mind for me, that I’m always missing someone or some place or something, I’m always trying to get back some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing. Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation Anyone who knows me well—or has read enough of my writing—knows that…
Let’s Be Bad
by Jessie Lynn McMains Sometimes, I want to do bad things. This is not a confession of nefarious plots or dirty thoughts. Maybe I should rephrase it. Sometimes, I want to allow myself to be bad at things. I want to let myself make crappy stuff. I want to let myself just make the absolute…
Why Bother? (we set out to change the world & ended up just changing ourselves)
by Jessie Lynn McMains There’s a scene towards the end of the film Velvet Goldmine, when Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor) says to Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale): “We set out to change the world, and ended up just changing ourselves.” “What’s wrong with that?” Arthur asks. “Nothing,” Curt replies, “If you don’t look at the world.”…
Racine Writer-In-Residence Project 