In response to my short-form rant about artwork for my book…here’s an update.

I found a Tik Tok artist and purchased a lovely painting that fits my book perfectly. Super stoked about this.

That gives me one picture per section in my book. I’ve had lots of offers for photographs for the book, and while I am appreciative, I need a link to a body of work for me to look through. This way if something grabs me…I can pursue it with you.

Now — a decision to make:

• Use one image per section in the book?
• Or put the…

Hello poets and readers of The POM.

This month we are doing something big. It may be a very personal journey for you, or you may get in on a larger conversation. Read all about it here:

The POM Hosts Mental Health & Poetry Month for August

The POM editors

Christina M. Ward, Samantha Lazar, MDSHall, Julia Marsiglio

The POM | AUGUST THEME

For the month of August, The POM is kicking off a theme: Mental Health & Poetry. Throughout the month, we’ll explore this topic through our work as we move toward openness, acceptance, authenticity, and connectedness through our poetry. We’ll show each other empathy. We’ll analyze our own connections between our need to poet and our own mental health. We’ll confess our struggles. We’ll make peace with how our minds work.

And through it all — we will grow.

Take a look at this:

Dr. Ludwig looked at more than 1,000 prominent people in eight creative-arts professions and 10 other professions. He concluded that psychiatric disturbances…

Total for July: $116.06

After 2 1/2 years of work on this platform, the earnings are just not enough to justify my time spent here. Moving forward, I will manage…

Today’s email from Medium Support is making me feel a whole lot less supported.

Hi there,

Thank you for applying for the Medium Creator Fellowship, and for all your writing on Medium. We were only able to accept a limited number of Fellows for this first group, and unfortunately we aren’t offering you a Fellowship at this time. Admission was based on both the stated eligibility requirements as well as subjective criteria, including quality and focus of writing and diversity of writers. …

Life as a freelancer. Ups & Downs ahead…

On today’s episode of “Life as a Freelancer”…you guessed it — ups & downs. UP: I picked up a new high-dollar client this week. I’m super-stoked to be a part of a company that is on a spiritual health and wellness path. (I am so down for that.)

But then came news…Newsbreak is stopping the base pay for most of their content creators and that includes me — a potential loss of over 1K per month. I have decided to contribute a piece a week just to see what I earn there…

Collecting Artwork for My Book Has Proven Difficult. I am still not even sure if I am doing it all correctly but I’ve been asking for 300 DPI digital copies of the pieces. It feels good to pay these artists for their work and then feature it in my second poetry collection, entitled Fireflies.

It’s been hard to get enough interest — I think because artists want to paint or develop something FOR the book. …

TECH

If you’ve been following my work for some time, you may know that I am a college-degreed environmental scientist. Though my minor degree in writing is what earns my living, my work is strongly infused with all kinds of nature influence. You can certainly tell this by looking at the hybrid car I drive and by the apps on my phone. Nature nerds unite, am-I-right?

If you are also a nature nerd like me, then you are going to love these apps. Some are not as well known, but I assure you, they are worth their geek-weight in gold.

We’ll…