A Substack Party at Cinderella's Corner

You are cordially invited . . .

“In my own little corner in my own little chair
I can be whatever I want to be.”

Lyrics By Oscar Hammerstein II & Music By Richard Rodgers

I grew up listening to Brandy sing Rodger & Hammerstein’s Cinderella melody “In My Own Little Corner” on replay. There was a familiar comfort and magic in watching her dream-croon beside her little corner chair. Tucked away from the wide world, Cinderella was free to imagine every adventurous impossibility with full glitz and glamor.

I’ve come to realize that Substack is my little corner chair in cyberspace. I’m truly grateful for this platform, which allows me to drop a multimodal smorgasbord of:

Random audio-visual elements—

PDFs like I’m the Crown Princess of the Greater Pedantic Empire!

Extra Credit Essay 2006

83.3KB ∙ PDF file

Download

One of my most favorite writing assignments ever! A meditation on a single color.

Download

And let’s not forget the fancy formatting for a little . . .

Prickmedainty poetry.

STARRY UNTOLD

Shy star, quiet star, beaming in the dark!

Don’t shadow and dim even when

none marvel under your light,

Don’t cry if no gaze ever

catches your secret

blaze and slant—

You are the starry untold,

but not unwritten,

the story bleeding

bright ink wishes

without a wisp of

gathered glory—

So trail your embers

far and wide as

wings dare

take you.

*

Pure ink fun however I choose to share it. While I’m not the most tech-savvy person, I’m enjoying experimenting with the many features available here.

And today, I’m celebrating the first ten posts of The Luniferous Gazette! Perhaps an entire cake might be a little premature, but a petite crystal slice seems an ample treat for my efforts—

Mmm, just a subtle hint of Swarovksi sparklestars.

So far, this weekly newsletter challenge has pushed me to dabble in such disparate subjects as ash diamonds, synestias, errant drops of cream, and holographic beasties. I feel like I’m getting back in touch with a lost spirit of curiosity that was finely ground to cinders by the weariness of adulthood.

My mother homeschooled my sisters and I for much of our childhood education, requiring us to turn in a short story and a poem every Friday. Unfortunately, the only surviving material that I could locate was a water-logged booklet that my father compiled and gave to our grandparents at Christmas:

*Purrito graces this photo with his fluffy paw.

Clearly, I am no Judith Shakespeare (nor am I sure why I considered myself such an authority on the athletic activities of spirits). But while my creative ink might’ve been a mediocre mess, I still credit these weekly assignments for getting me thinking. Inking. Dreaming—

And in the spirit of trying new things on Substack, I present my very first comic:

Whatever your dream, I wish you brightness in your little corner of the world. Oh, and a pixie’s wishing penny for luck!