I’m long overdue for one of my rambly updates regarding my health. For now, suffice to say it’s been a challenging time, a challenging year. But I am super proud that a personal essay of mine, “Invisible“, was just published in Under the Sun. This is the first piece of creative writing I’ve done that includes my physical situation. Other than blogs, I generally avoid writing about my illness, for me creative writing is a way to forget that I’m a sick person. But I was trawling through some old pieces last summer, and found something I wrote about an experience I had in a German sauna. It needed work, a lot of work actually, especially the ending, and I found myself expanding on what I experience physically on a day to day level. It was a bit clunky, to be honest, but I sent it out, and the wonderful readers and editors at Under the Sun, especially Miriam Mandel Levi, helped me smooth things out and make the piece work. I actually haven’t ever had such an in depth and supportive experience of editorial input from a literary magazine. The whole process was a joy, thank you Under the Sun!

Photo credit: The Selkie team