A wonderful friend gave me The Book of Alchemy as a 60th birthday present. I didn't know who Suleika Jaouad was (turns out I kinda knew, because I knew Jon Batiste's wife was a writer fighting cancer), but I was immediately lured in by the subtitle: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life. HEY, I want to be creative and I want an inspired life, and this book does not disappoint. It's organized into 10 sections (On Memory, On Fear, On the Body - you get the idea), and for each section, a wonderful contributor shares a brief essay and leaves you with a writing prompt, all connected to that section's theme.
When I opened the book, my heart exploded: so many writers I loved, and also, so so many folks I'd never heard of. I was flipping back and forth, reading essay & prompts, and their short contributor bios, then reserving books to read more from all these new-to-me voices. What a gift this book is, to my reading and writing life!
So my Slicing this year is going to lean into this beautiful, prompt-filled book. Every Sunday, I'll take on a prompt and use it for that Sunday Slice. There are 5 Sundays in March this year, and I really wanted to take on the challenges of The Book of Alchemy, so it felt like a perfect way to lean in.
I'll see you March 1, and the plan is to write to Connie Carpenter Phinney's prompt, The Thing You Can't Stop Doing. Here we go!
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Want to know more about this book?
Life Kit episode: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1256346007
Suleika at Parnassus Books (Ann Patchett's book store): https://www.instagram.com/reels/DU_QQVgkfYK/
(and yes - Ann Patchett contributed an essay & prompt, for the On Ego section!)
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