Curiosity, Interconnectedness, and Play

Today I sent out a blast via my quarterly mailing list to invite folks to attend my upcoming panel, “Art Under Duress.” Find details on the Events page!

Some quick behind-the-scenes: I read and reviewed Low: Notes on Art & Trash last November and was completely captivated by the way Jaydra Johnson presents her experience of growing up white trash alongside an interrogation of outsider art, color theory, and the physical detritus of our lives. I’ve been scheming about this panel since the end of last year. Putting it together has required procuring corporate sponsorship (thank you, Fulcrum Wealth Management!), joining forces with Debbra Palmer, poet and intrepid volunteer publicist at CALYX, calling on my network to seek assistance with the technology side (thanks to Nadia Hahn, the panel will be recorded, subtitled, and archived for asynchronous viewing)--not to mention actually reaching out to these writers and inviting them to hang out with me for the equivalent of a virtual tea party. TL;DR: I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time, and it would mean the world to me if you would attend. 

I’m in the “platform-building” stage of my career. For nonfiction writers in particular, industry gatekeepers evaluate your potential based on your platform, the audience that you bring to whatever you do. Since I write predominantly about white American evangelicalism and the female experience, I check the box for “expert in my field”--lived experience plus a bachelor’s degree in Biblical Studies, but my lifelong Luddite-adjacent tendencies mean that I don’t have a huge social media presence or online following. My appreciation for instagram has grown considerably over the past year, and these days I’m really enjoying posting about local spots in Boulder, promoting the work of other writers I love, and highlighting when I have new pieces out. Please join me! If you’re into short, pithy statements and links, I’m still on Twitter and I’m trying to make it work on Bluesky. If you’re deep in the writing world, you can find me on Substack. If you like endless pictures of knitted baby cardigans and to keep up with the Boulder small business scene, follow my artstagram, @mwatsonmade, and if you want to keep up with the most comprehensive of all of these outlets, my personal instagram is—as always—@krazykenzer14. And announcing to the public for the first time: I have (perhaps in spite of my better judgment) recently launched a TikTok channel that focuses on demystifying select niche elements of evangelicalism and purity culture. 

Peep the grid

Platform-building is considered a prerequisite for traditional publication, which has been my longtime goal. I’ve written a book, and I hope to traditionally publish it and have it make its well-distributed way out into the world. But to look at platform-building as a criteria for publication is also an inversion of priorities: ultimately, I want to publish because I want my work to be read. I want to connect with people who care about the same things I do, who share my concerns and my preoccupations. Platform-building is a way of making myself discoverable so I can find and be found by the people I’m writing for. I write about white American evangelicalism. I write about big girl feelings. I write about devotion, self-suppression, longing and love. 

I’ve been talking with my therapist lately about finding forms of media that feel integrated with my work. Collaboration and conversation are the forms that feel the most natural and the most invigorating to me. This panel—“Art Under Duress”—is an iconic example of the work I really want to do in the world: bring together thinkers and artists so we can spark more ideas in one another than we might have on our own.

Over the next few months, you’ll see more and more critical, conversation-oriented work from me. I’m hosting it under the heading “Critic at Large,” in homage to the late Jesse Lott, who suggested that Houston City Council should have a number of appointed seats for “artists at large.” 

This summer, I have an essay coming out in Christian Century about my serial experiences on youth group trips (!!!). Timed to coincide with the essay’s release, I’ll be sharing a conversation with Cara Meredith, who’s just released the book, Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and how White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation. While Meredith is largely writing for those within the church, her book is a daring confrontation with the ways exclusionary theology was commercialized and tested on kids and teens via the church camp industrial complex. She’s done a great job wrestling with the nuanced truth of church camp: that some of it was very good, and some of it was very harmful. 

I’m also working on a series of critical essays for Mayday magazine in the role of their inaugural critic-in-residence! These essays will be released once a month for four months, and each of them touches on some aspect of the intersection of literature and religious deconstruction. 

The Big Thing—the grandest instantiation of my passion for collaboration—will take place the second weekend of August: the Thunderdome Conference. This event is a four-day residential conference for writers who are eager to learn from one another. The Thunderdome rejects the hyper-competitive, winner-takes-all framework exhibited in films like Mad Max and instead provides a setting conducive to creativity and collaboration. The Thunderdome emerges from a belief that none of us are doing the same thing and we do not need to be threatened by one another’s success. Our non-hierarchical model, inspired by revolutionary Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal’s concept of the “spect-actor,” invites residents to inhabit the role of “faculty-participant”: everyone who attends the residential conference will serve as faculty and deliver their own lecture. If you are local to Colorado and would like to join in for part of the Thunderdome Conference, we will have two public-facing events: a generative writing workshop with prompts followed by a networking happy hour (Friday, August 8th, 3-5 pm, register here!), and a Saturday evening reading at a yet-to-be-disclosed literary location. If you are not near Colorado but would like to support the Thunderdome, there are lots of ways to do it. I have opportunities for corporate sponsorships, whether by financial or in-kind donation, and individuals can also fund scholarships for faculty-participants. Get in touch with me or check out ThunderdomeConference.com for more information. 

And while all of this is underway on the personal side, sneaker wave magazine is still rocking and rolling. Since I quit the liquor store at the end of January, sneaker wave is basically “the day job”--and I feel so, so lucky to be able to say that. Every week I work with a dream team of writers/editors/friends to put out one true story. The magazine operates via substack, so subscribers get the story delivered straight to their email inbox, every Sunday morning. We pay writers and we have no paywall, so all of the stories we’ve published are FREE to read. It’s like the Moth, but written. We publish real life in real words from real people, for everyone. 

Look at this kick-ass team: Angela Wang, Managing Editor; Coach Mike Magnuson, Editor in Chief; yours truly; and Julie Beckerman Levine, Editor at Large.

It feels like such a dream to work with writers, polish their stories, and promote empathy via storytelling every week—but right now is a particularly bleak time for nonprofits and literary organizations. The Literary Arts branch of the NEA is dissolving and 2025 grants canceled in real time. We incorporated sneaker wave magazine as a 501(c)3 last year and the grants that we intended to apply for have been disappearing before our eyes. If you are passionate about storytelling, connecting people through their experiences, or just supporting me, please consider SUBSCRIBING TO SNEAKER WAVE. All of our stories are free, but we depend on your support to keep going. And, if you subscribe at the founder level, we’ll thank you with an awesome t-shirt. Stay tuned for details about how you can donate to sneaker wave directly.

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I’ve officially been freelancing full-time for three months now. This spring has felt like a Ferris Wheel of ideas and projects, constantly rotating around, and I’m attempting to handle whichever carriage is closest. Some days, everything feels chaotic and disorganized. Why am I knitting baby cardigans, painting birds, emailing French translators, and researching comedians? Why am I soliciting companies and tracking down event organizers and calling plastic surgeons and copyediting manuscripts about Russian nuclear non-proliferation? 

But the longer that I manage my various interests and obsessions in tandem, the more I’ve realized that they’re not so divergent after all. Each of these undertakings originates within my core values: curiosity, interconnectedness, and play. These values allow me to refine artwork—mine and other’s; I am a maker and an editor—and to ask questions that generate unique critical and creative writing. 

I make things under the brand heading MWatsonMade. Playful watercolors and crocheted cat-couches, fiery greeting cards with unconventional affirmations, banners and poem paintings and watercolored prints. Knitted baby cardigans and hats and pickleball paddle covers. These are whimsical and functional, and I believe in no separation between the two.

I write: critical material, questioning the assumptions and biases and frameworks that are presented in books I read; and creative material, about my own experience within American evangelicalism and as a woman within society. Sometimes a little local journalism gets thrown in the mix, so I can highlight neighbors doing good work. I edit for sneaker wave magazine and I offer developmental and copyediting for manuscripts. 

And I facilitate conversations and gatherings that invite other people to more fully inhabit their own creativity, interconnectedness, and sense of play. Is it sometimes chaotic? Sure. But that’s just how my brain works. 

I’d love for you to join me in any or all of these pursuits. Let me know where my attachments intersect with yours, and we can explore together. I’ve just gotten a copy of Syme’s Letter Writer: a Guide to Modern Correspondence, so if you’re up for some snail mail, let’s communicate that way! I’d love to hear from you.

Peace,

McKenzie