In my work as a freelance writer, I have been very inceptionist and written about ChatGPT, the latest AI that some are worried might replace writers like myself. Don’t fire your writers just yet. Here’s ChatGPT’s essay about me: “Suzannah Kolbeck is a writer based in Baltimore, Maryland who has…

First, sweet loves, an announcement. No social media for me for January. No TikTok. No Instagram. I need to re-evaluate my relationship to the socials. To open up a little space in my life that isn’t filled by 60-second clips of dolphins saying hello to squirrels. I need to connect…

I am 51, a woman past child-bearing years still waiting out my copper IUD. I was a teacher. I am a mother. I am a widow. I am a writer and an artist and a baker. After the pandemic my life has started to shrink just as it clears of…

As is usual, apparently, August has steamrolled right through and smothered me in a warm, wet washclothy embrace. Now we are into September, and I am awash in the feelings and complicated thoughts that have arrived on the full moon in Pisces and Mercury’s retrograde phase. Last month I read…

In 2020, when the pandemic was in its infancy and we thought we’d have a lark treating shutdowns like snow days, I headed out to see what I could find along the Patapsco River. Spoiler alert: I have never been able to find an entrance to Patapsco State Park. Every…

It’s here, friends. The book I have been researching since 2018. The miles I have been walking, the medicine I have been making. …

UPDATE 6/15: Very dramatic. This was posted during a rough week. But Otis is now on a trial stay at the barn where my other horse lives. He is happy and relaxed — turns out, the problem was the shitty barn we moved to, not the horse. Fingers crossed this is the place for him and he gets to stay here forever. Otis is going back to his rescue. So maybe today wasn’t our very last good day, but it’s hard to say how good the days between this weepy moment and when the trailer pulls away down the drive will be.

Every once a month or so I gather my particular thoughts here in this place. Recently I have been wallowing in a perimenopausal soup of hormones, physical ailments and general emotional distress that make it challenging to string more than a few words together at once. …

I am missing our property in Canada. We have not seen it since 2019 when the world shut down, and the plan is to spend ten days there this summer, but we shall see. In the meantime, Plainsongs published this poem in their winter issue, and ode to this magical…