The Brooklyn Cottage

12/06/2023

The Brooklyn Cottage is pleased to be hosting another evening of Show & Tell this Friday, December 8th at 7 p.m. in Prospect Heights—for anyone interested in gathering with a group of brave and beautiful others to share an in-progress creative work of any kind within the space of five minutes.

These evenings never fail to open my heart. And more than ever, I think, we need lily pads of softness upon which to encounter one another.

I know this is kinda last minute! But please message me by noon tomorrow if you’d like to be added to our lineup. (Address to follow and love to all.)

09/25/2023

25 presenters. Five minutes each to share an in-progress creative work of any kind whatsoever.

An English paper-piecing quilt that will take the maker two years to complete, a tender and hilarious short film about forests, a three-ingredient absolutely delicious Italian treat accompanied by a reading of Proust, a song about shame, acceptance and a new kind of welcome, a wildly inventive approach to Swedish Death Cleaning, a meditation on playgrounds and fear, a series of photo portraits taken while the photographer sat in his car: just a few of the presentations on offer this past Friday night.

Awe, beauty, and a next-morning abiding thought that these Show & Tell events should now be held quarterly (and always be open to anyone who wishes to partake).

The Brooklyn Cottage’s next Show & Tell is Friday, December 8th. 💞

06/24/2023

Ten participants. One amazing writing guide. One four month old baby. A dog. Tender, funny, surprising stories. Tears, laughter, experimenting, vulnerability, togetherness. Bread-breaking. Music. Community. A Brooklyn Cottage weekend together in Hudson that we won’t soon forget.

(And we don’t want to! So we’re partnering with Jeanne McCulloch on another Hudson writing weekend October 13th-15th. Let me know if you might like to join us.)❤️

06/17/2023

Prepping for our Brooklyn Cottage writing weekend in Hudson—everyone arriving for dinner tonight—and we’re feeling giddy with excitement!

06/08/2023

Wise words from Jeanne McCulloch, Founding Editorial Director of Tin House Books, former Managing Editor of The Paris Review, co-founder of Todos Santos Writers Workshop and guiding light of The Brooklyn Cottage’s inaugural and upcoming writing retreat in Hudson, NY, June 16th-18th:

“Ultimately the simple lesson in writing is the same one we teach our children when they are little: Use your words. Trust them, they have impact. Now, try to imagine making something with your words, maybe something you only barely understood before you started writing, but you knew it had to be said. To build our stories, to make something that has never been made before, we start there."

What do you think? Ready to start (from wherever you are)? Two spots left. To learn more (and to register):

A gentle, fun and energizing weekend writing retreat in fabulous Hudson, New York, open to all and led by the inestimable Jeanne McCulloch.

04/13/2023

And just like that, The Brooklyn Cottage’s first event as part of its relaunch was a “community write-in” this past Monday night led (gently, spaciously, expertly) by Time Magazine Editor at Large Susanna Schrobsdorff and Aaron Zimmerman, Executive Director of the NY Writers Coalition. The gathering (as all Brooklyn Cottage events are) was open to everyone, of any experience level. Curiosity was the only requirement for attendance! We were given hyacinth blossoms to hold, smell and touch (while our eyes were closed), and the blossoms served as our writing prompt.

Oh, the places we went! I think we were all surprised, delighted and humbled—by what we discovered in our own writing and what we experienced in the writing of others.

04/12/2023

In 2012—in collaboration with my dear friend Yazmany Arboleda—I created The Brooklyn Cottage out of my living room in Prospect Heights, seeded by the desire for an ongoing space where we could all be human together. And for the next several years, through regular meditation gatherings, storytelling evenings, pop-up art shows, cooking classes and workshops of all kinds those of us who arrived for a Brooklyn Cottage event—including me!—had the chance to practice doing just that: being human, messy, vulnerable, joyful, risk-taking, and very much “in progress.” Together.

Eleven years after we began, I’m happy to now be relaunching The Brooklyn Cottage with a new plan to host occasional gatherings not only in Brooklyn but also out of my upstate home in Hudson, New York, as well as online (because I miss the many friends I made during my time working for HelloRevel last year, and because The Brooklyn Cottage is as much an idea as an actual place, anyway).

I’ll be feeling my way through these next few months—and invite you to feel your way through too, with me! Stay tuned.💞

03/20/2023

The Brooklyn Cottage is baaaaaack! (Join us on April 10th at 6:30 pm in Prospect Heights for our first event in years: a “community write-in” led by Aaron Zimmerman and Susanna Schrobsdorff.)