The Black Trumpet Spot

I am smiling very widely to share with you that I have a short piece published in the newest Orion Magazine. I am a long-time admirer of the magazine - it’s themes, writers, artists, and values, and I could not be in better company than with the other thinking, caring, humans in this issue. You can read some of the pieces in full and generous samples of others here, online, to get you by until your beautiful print copy arrives.

The magazine has a section called Sacred Spaces that they asked me to write for with the only instruction from the editor being: We have a column within the department called Sacred Spaces that features 350-400 word essays. Pieces tend to be personal, reflective, meditative, and tightly focused. They focus on a question: what's an unlikely location where you encountered the ethereal? We are looking for stories of people who find god in the strip mall, at the bus stop, in their cubicle, or, of course, in a more natural setting.

They asked me to write for them because my agent had me submit a handful of essays that I’d originally published here on Appetites and they loved them. I am noting that to thank and acknowledge you, my readers, and especially my paying subscribers. When I started writing here, I didn’t have much that was good enough to submit, but through this bootcamp of weekly deadlines and feeling sweetly accountable to you who give me your time and dollars, I am building a body of work that I feel good about sharing.

Here is a primer I wrote on how to forage for black trumpet mushrooms and as a thank you to you paying subscribers, I’ve put together some behind the scenes scenes of the black trumpet spot, which, in addition to being beautiful, I hope will also be helpful in looking for your own black trumpet spot. I usually start seeing them fruit in the beginning of July, so now is a lovely time to be on the lookout for good habitat. There’s also a few favorite black trumpet dishes for inspiration in the kitchen and something savory to fantasize about to power you through the biting insects you will inevitably be faced with in your fungal pursuits.

I’ll send the rest of you off with this thirst trap, just to be a tease. When an editor said she did not understand the end of a line in my essay “a sculpture garden ode to phallic elegance.” I sent her this photo and asked her to “imagine a few dozen acres of this.” She responded “Ah.” and the line stayed in.