NEW WEBSITE, WHO DIS?

You have reached the old, retired blogspot for the writer/producer

Sarah A. Lybrand

To peruse client work, learn about specialties & services, or to get in touch, please find Sarah's NEW Portfolio and Business website at: 

www.authory.com/SarahALybrand 

While inactive since 2021—this dusty old internet space still represents almost a decade's worth of writing prompts, inspiration, career updates, humble brags, and various other stabs at a full, creative life. So feel free to stay a while and reminisce--or come visit my new 'digs to see what's new. 

Thanks for everything, Blogspot. Onward! 

Super-belated ART NEWS!!

Somehow, I neglected to announce a few bits of news from this past year. I must have been distracted by... Oh yes.  Everyone's 'that's why' excuse for the past eighteen months, for better or worse. Lord knows I took my lumps too, but thankfully, I think these two art brags fall squarely in the "better" category? OR at the very least, new.

"Because of the pandemic" #1.

 

Like many, I found weird pockets of time to indulge weird ideas, with no particular reason to stop myself. Like obsessively taking photos on a hike last January after a windstorm, when all the dead, broken tree limbs looked so much like twisted bodies and human physiology, I just kept seeing the same theme over and over:

I couldn't help it. Apparently, nor could I help submitting said photos to the very next call-for-submissions I found. And lo and behold, two photos from the series were selected for publication! "Arboreal Arms" and "Bronchial Branches" (left to right, above) were selected by the The Tatterhood Review (a really cool literary scifi/fantasy 'zine, y'all!) for publication, and they even paid me a few shekels, too. Eeek!    

 

"Because of the pandemic" #2. 

In another twist of temporary insanity, at the same time I submitted an old painting I did back in 2015 to a gallery seeking work on the topic of "Paradoxical Paradigms." I called the painting Rembrandt's Bathsheba: The Hellscape Abloom and... it made it in! To an actual, honest-to-goodness ART SHOW!! Entirely, in my opinion, by mistake.

Nonetheless, the painting hung at the The Huntington Arts Council for a number of weeks, they threw all us artists a virtual reception (you can still view the body of work here), and the whole thing was both a total hoot and a real, true honor.

WHO EVEN AM I RIGHT NOW, YOU GUYS?! 

I know, I know, I usually fancy myself a writer. But that little surge of inspiration last year was a much-needed boost during a particularly demoralizing pandemic. So it just goes to show ya—submit submit submit! You never know who's crazy enough to call you an artist! 

 

  Rembrandt's Bathsheba: The Hellscape Abloom (2015)

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Rembrandt's Bathsheba: The Hellscape Abloom

Artist Statement: In painting Rembrandt’s Bathsheba: The Hellscape Abloom, I purged a demon in a single sitting with the materials I had on hand: some old tubes of acrylic and oil paint, some torn pages of a 1950’s Rembrandt art book my toddler had destroyed, spiritual enhancements of mood and music—and a subconscious laden with timely insecurities: body, motherhood, femininity, sex. 

 

In the Biblical story of Bathsheba, King David spies a bathing beauty on a rooftop and desires her, summoning her with a demand letter informing her he’s just sent her husband off to war so they can be together. 

In Rembrandt’s Baroque masterpiece, Bathsheba at her Bath (1654), it’s widely agreed that Bathsheba is lovingly depicted as despondent, deeply disturbed, saddened, and/or resigned by Kind David’s letter. 

 

When I first saw Rembrandt’s masterpiece hanging in the Louvre many years ago, and again in our vintage art book, I was not familiar with it, nor the biblical story it was based on. In blissful ignorance, I read this alluring, sensual woman as contemplative. Torn. Conflicted. Excited, but terrified. Perhaps even horrified. But also... Alight with possibility. Abloom, in a Hellscape. Conflicts in emotion make sense to me. Paradox’s make sense to me. Even when faced with such a profound paradigm shift as Bathsheba’s: you can hold two feelings in your heart at once.

 

 

 

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"Arboreal Arms" (2021) & (Above, Top Left)

"Bronchial Branches" (2021) (Above, Top Right)

Artist Statement: On one of my solitary hikes through the trails of eastern Long Island, I found the haunting, textured, and gnarled mess of the woods too striking not to capture — if only with a newcomer's eye and a smartphone camera. Yet with these rudimentary tools, art still finds a way. In this series, I aim to reveal how the arboreal can look downright aboral as the broken limbs, fallen trees, and knotted vines of the bare winter forest map unto our bodies' own tangled physiology — hair, veins, arteries, posture, caress — manifested in simple plays of light, color, and texture.

My Sexy New GF, Chloe

Meet my new 'lil writer's cabin! She's such a delight — a quiet oasis in the woods between Woodstock and Peekskill, NY; a one-room camping cabin perched on the edge of a small, scummy pond. She's perfect.

Or I guess technically she's not mine, as the placard above the window contains a possessive 's' and she does, in a legal sense, belong to a nice, elderly woman with Chloe's name. But in the process of renting and caring for said little cabin last year I befriended the Chloes. And we struck a mutually beneficial deal: short, off-the-grid writing retreats whenever I require total encapsulation in a page-producing writing-chamber — in return for off-peak rates and some extra cabin TLC. 

There's only one foreseeable problem with this relationship. With no shortage of gorgeous hiking trails, area waterfalls, and a one-man canoe, my biggest challenge with Chloe is getting too caught up. She's distracting AF. I try to remain focused. But besides writing and staring at the pond, here's the sort of thing I got up to the last time I was there: 

I caught my first fish!!! On my own!!! So yeah. I'm into Chloe.

We'll see how stiff my fingers get in winter, but with a loft bed, electric space heater, boxes of candles and exactly enough juice from a single power outlet to keep my offline laptop running (and a box full of notes to turn into a book, but never-you mind! More on that news later)..... I think I'm all set? 'Ta 'till then!

Post-covid stirrings had us dreamin' of TRAVEL like.....

During that brief Spring reprieve when Covid restrictions lifted enough to fill the air with lots of travel fervor — toot, TOOT! — I got aboard the travel train for DH Travel Services, parent co' for millenial fav (for well-curated, no-frills travel packages catering to the young and frugal), Great Value Vacations. Through the magical powers of research-from-my-couch, this content didn't involve any actual travel and I know, you're shocked — but it did inspire some of my own.  

Some friends and I took off for Austin, Texas in May to celebrate what we thought was the the end of Covid (LOLOLOL) and our family booked flights to visit our respective parents' in Missouri and Oregon for the summer, the first time spent with our kid's grandparents in nearly two years. [Little did we know both geographic locations would end up national hot-spots for the Delta variant; We white-knuckled it through both visits and returned healthy, but barely!]

Spring and summer highlights included a GVV piece commissioned to feature 8 Locations to Visit from Netflix's The Crown (can't say I didn't enjoy the deep, multi-season research on this one, guys!), plus a few new series I developed for GVV's seemingly limitless content pool: How to Order Coffee In X...., 5 Alternatives to Big Cities in (X), Essential Phrases of (X), and What's it Like to Travel to (X) Right Now?

The sort of content that might, you know, just make a comeback someday. If we can persuade our hesitant friends to join us in the effort to end this Eighth Circle of Variant Hell we've found ourselves in.  Cuz as they say in the 'biz: *"No Flyin' Delta Skies, 'til we cut Delta's ties, guys!"

Until then.... au revoir, mes amis. 

(* totally made up)

"The Finding Party," places 2nd!

"The Finding Party" gets second place in R1 of the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge 2021! 

Read The Finding Party, here.

This was my second NYC Midnight competition (dipping my toes in last year with a microfiction contest) and I must say, just entering The Short Story Challenge is an amazing learning experience and a huge accomplishment. I'm pumped just to be a part of it. 

But accolades ain't so bad, either!  In round one of my heat (among those who got the same prompts - an estimated group of 25 writers or so?) my story, The Finding Party, came in 2nd place! Holy smokes! This was out of a possible five slots, with four honorable mentions per grouping.

Now, this is only the first round of three, mind you — so I'll keep you posted on how the competition shakes out in the subsequent heats. But for now, I'm pretty dang pleased: this baby was cranked out in 7 days, had to be less than 2,500 words (and you better believe I pretty much used all of 'em), and had to include the prescriptive elements in the screengrab above (ghost story, farmer, a fixation).  

One of the best things about this particular contest is that whether you place or not, every story comes back with the judge's comments and feedback. For a writer, this is invaluable. 

(WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW!!). To sweeten the emotional payoff in The Finding Party, for example, the judges would have liked to have seen a bit more backstory about my narrator's failing marriage—a great note. At the same time, they also praised the execution of the plot twist, the interplay of sweetness and sadness in the story's tone, and, my personal favorite among the panel's comments, "this writer clearly has a handle on structure." (Aggh! Yesss! Swoon!).

This also represents my first attempt at putting something together on Substack, yet another experiment born out of throwing things at the wall during the pandemic to see what sticks. There, you'll be able to sign up or subscribe to read more of my work (if that's your thing). 

 Until then, happy backpacking season, y'all!    

That Time I Wrote a Timely Piece About a Fly...

I'm not a news reporter or anything — but some stories are just worth breaking. And so without much fanfare or thinking I jotted out this bombshell for Medium in a day, not waiting around for a single editor to read, edit, or reject this piece for being unoriginal, rambling, or for burying my lead. NOPE, no sirree, I just had to post it—and so whether or not that was a mistake only you (assuming this glowing invitation is enough of a teaser), me, and possibly only RBG will ever know. Either way, BEHOLD a thing I wrote about the mounting supernatural mischief afoot in our current state of political affairs: 

"Thank you, ghost of RBG"

PUBLISHED: "The Pandemic Ruined My Poly Relationship—But Saved My Marriage"

My new piece, "The Pandemic Ruined My Poly Relationship—But Saved My Marriage," can now be found in the MEMOIR section of Narratively. Swoon! 

Of all the things I've written over the years this, by far, reigns as the most personal. And yet still, I'm tasked with the awkward duty of self-promotion. 

So while I'm at it, and since I'm allowed to complain and qualify and hem and haw on my own damn blog: I patently deny writing that essay blurb on Narratively's homepage — accompanied by a questionable title, and some biographically inaccurate illustrations — but, hey, if you can get over it, dear reader, then I probably can, too.

Now here's the part where I drop the link, run away, and hide forever....

Full story: https://narratively.com/the-pandemic-ruined-my-poly-relationship-but-saved-my-marriage/

What Do BEES, PODS, WORK, and QUILTS Have in Common?

Photo Credit: National Archives

CHECK ME OUT ON MEDIUM! 

There's just something about standing up for piece of content because you believe in it—even if the editors of umpteen pubs didn't. 

I get it. The piece tries to do a lot. It's not just the personal narrative of how I started coworking with a group of moms back in the autumn of 2016—or how we've since used these functional playdates to prop up all sorts of goals over the years (career, personal, vocational, creative, and otherwise). It's also an article that provides takeaways, as well as some historical context, and of course, some COVID-level framing....

Meaning, sometimes you have a lot to say. Thankfully, Medium lets you say whatever, however you want. Having gone through a gajillion questionable headlines before picking this questionable headline (because if I still worked at Yahoo, it's the one they'd insist I use), so I'd just like to see you even TRY to resist clicking on:

"A Generations-old Trick for Staying Productive — 
Yes, Even with Kids Around" 

But if not, then at least sit back and enjoy this archival photo of the most 70's of all ladies, enjoying a little sewing bee in Central Park, from back when the fashion was hot, the hair was long, and the sisterhood was STRONG. Enjoy!

COVID-19 Response: TeleMedicine Clients

Besides ambitious kitchen experiments, endless campfires, home-organizing projects, and a flurry of back-to-school prep, what kept me busy during the strange chaos that was the COVID-19 lockdown and aftermath? 

Telemedicine client Doctor.com had a surge of business and content needs for physicians and hospitals eager to keep up with patient demand during quarantine. Here's a few content marketing titles from the weeks and months after the pandemic hit the east coast: 

How to Transition Your Practice or Hospital from Survival Mode to Growth After COVID-19

5 Ways Pain Management Specialists Can Continue to Practice with Telemedicine

Telemedicine Today: Patient Adoption and Preferences During COVID-19 and Beyond

Telemedicine 101: Your Quickstart Guide to Mastering Telemedicine (A downloadable white paper on navigating the telemedicine industry landscape)

BUT. That was a few months ago. Now that we're deep into September, I've been back out by the firepit, wrapped in a hoodie and sock hat in honor of this crispy fall weather. I think — thank goodness — all the doctors have their telemedicine platforms figured out for now. The weather's creeping colder so I'm just gonna be here, fireside, in the little pause before winter's storm, getting warm.  

(That is, until my next project update...an exciting one...coming soon!) Stay tuned... 

This Year's Hottest Cannabis Apps

What's app, people! Need more ways to burn time on your phone? A backlog over at MarijuanaDoctors.com meant this article posted in the spring — right around when Covid-19 hit, in fact — instead of the end of last year when it was originally slated. Therefore it was missed by all, including me, and ran with a well-expired headline. But still, check out my coolest apps in cannatech guide (replete with yet another weird infographic) and rest assured the recs are just as relevant as they were a few short months ago. If not more so as we all lean into new ways to stay connected to our community and to our interests. So whether you're totally green to Green or a seasoned pro, a few novel app offerings might be just what the doctor ordered. 

San Antonio, You Rock

Still buzzing (and let's be real, counting down symptom-free days) from this year's AWP 2020 —where I and the intrepid Jen Hinst-White, friends from Bennington College in Vermont, author Ruben Degollado, and the marvelous Milda Devoe of Pen Parentis took San Antonio by storm, talk'n books, art, lit, writing, tacos—and, no joke, sanitizing our hands like maniacs. Little did we know how quickly life would change after we returned from this last adventure.... Now looking back at these photos, I'm cringing at how NOT 6-feet-apart we are! 

10 Things to Know About Cannabis And Your Heart

Oh hey there, your cardiologist called....and wants you to know more about cannabis and your heart health. Article for telehealth client, Marijuanadoctors.com. 

So About That Time I Picked Up A Hitchhiker...

...it yielded this practical little guide for telehealth client MarijuanaDoctors.com!

As I'm vacationing in Kauai with this very article on my poolside-To Do list, waiting for some SME's to call back with their expertise (sadly my own joint-rolling skills, or lack thereof, wasn't going to be sufficient for this assignment—this is serious journalism, people!). So my co-pilot and I decide to head to a remote beach on the far end of the island to watch sunset and spend the evening. We were just off the famous Napali coast, in a rental car heading down miles of unpaved, pot-hole-strewn road when we see this darkly bronzed, dusty man with a backpacker's pack, a pile of gear, and his thumb out. We pass him by, but remark to each other what a drag it must be, trying to hitch in a place like this. For miles we'd seen no other vehicle, nor any sign of life. In fact we wondered if we, too, weren't a bit off from our destination.  

One completely-lost geographical circle later....we pass this man again. This time, my copilot yanks the car over and gestures to him—I'm thinking for directions. But turns out the man's trying to get to the beach we're looking for, and knows the way—it seems natural to invite him to load in. I sort of can't believe this is happening but....c'mon. In a place like the above (see photo for reference), *could* anything truly bad happen?? 

But grateful and good-natured, the man quickly put us at ease. He was out on a research canoe trip, and was back from re-upping on supplies. We'd be the last to see him off as he was about to hike back into the jungle to his canoe. 

Living in isolation must turn you into something of a conversationalist—because before we knew it, we'd learned quite a lot about this man I'll call River (who preferred anonymity). Like about the research he'd been doing for the last few months on the native, DMT-like compound found exclusively in the region, or about his many world travels and spiritual ideas. 

At some point, in exchange for the ride, he also offered us some..... Well, you know. And that's when we learned of his expertise in even more herbal matters: namely, the delicate art of rolling of cannabis flower into... cylindrical perfection. Or so it appeared to me.  

In other words, with this exact deadline looming, I couldn't imagine a more fortuitous meeting. Or memorable—as I'll never forget this man, River, and our hearty conversation on topics big and small. What can I say? The assignment practically wrote itself.  

[EXCEPT, WRITER'S NOTE: The editor annoyingly left in some typos and dropped in a crummy opener—the article *I* wrote starts two 'graphs down with the quotation...] 

Winner of the Pen Parentis AWP Registration Prize!

I just booked the travel for this trip, so it seems like a great time to make the announcement: 

I'm supremely honored to be representing Pen Parentis at this year's AWP (Association for Writers & Writing Programs) conference in San Antonio, Texas. Wow, congrats to me! 

Through a fortuitous romp of six-degrees-of-separation, I (somehow?) became the winner and recipient of the Pen Parentis annual AWP registration give-away—and I couldn't be more thrilled to attend under this organization's much-respected banner. 

Pen Parentis is an amazing non-profit offering support, community, opportunities, and resources to writers who are also parents (and we all know how hard that overlap can be sometimes).

As a result, I'm now a full title member of Pen Parentis with an author's page, and very much look forward to hosting their meet 'n greet reception at the conference in March. And if all goes well, who knows? Maybe this time next year Pen Parentis will have a Long Island chapter...!?!? Stay tuned!

Budding Out in Cannabisland

It's been a while since I've posted, but with good reason. Over the last year I've been seeding clients in the blossoming cannabis industry, and behold — it bore fruit! A busy spring means a summer bursting with published content. 

In fact I went almost entirely GREEN this season — focusing mainly on weed, and money — credits too numerous to list so I'll direct you to some of the choicest. But for more bylines, check out selected articles from the Author's Pages, or simply get in touch. 

Clients include CBD producers, comprehensive resource sites like MarijuanaDoctor.com, and a national physician certification program — content in the form of blog posts, promo copy, doctor Q&As, and deep-dives into the myriad conditions that marijuana treats. 

So while I continue to dabble in healthcare, parenting, media, and love, cannabis has turned out to be something of a copywriting cash cow. Perhaps indicative of the legalized groundswell to come? 

So, I'll be riding this high — professionally-speaking, at least — for as long as a cultural education (and re-education) around cannabis still endures.  Meanwhile, locality by locality, state by state, citizens are voting for their right to access to this powerful, versatile plant medicine — and I find the responsibility of reporting on this topic both intoxicating, and reward enough (though the regular paycheck helps, too).  Larga vida a la flora! 

In other words, stay tuned for periodic updates from Cannabisland. 

Just How Much Does it Really Cost to Have (and Raise) a Baby? A Simple Guide

The necessity for my partner and I to stick to a tight (ish) budget while pregnant and parenting a newborn had its upsides: learning what was important when building a financial roadmap for our family—and what was, in the end, worth a skip. Trial by fire, I guess, and we're still learning (and raising) that kiddo. But I'm happy to report we've emerged out of toddlerhood without having gone completely bankrupt. Does that bit of budgeting hindsight qualify as expertise? SURE, why not. If just a few thoughts, tactics, and tidbits that helped us along our way. 

[Article produced for My Financial Counsel, a client of Toast Media.]

Becoming a Financial Advisor Is Probably Easier Than You Think: 5 Easy Steps

The latest for My Financial Counsel, a company educating and connecting customers with qualified financial advisors. Here I breakdown the different roles, certifications, and training required to work as various kinds of financial planners in the personal and corporate finance industry. 

10 Incredible Uses for Hemp

Forget Marijuana (with all her allure). Her cousin Hemp is proving to be valuable, versatile—and the kind of guy that might just take over the world.  

Feature for Juno Magazine: Love After Childbirth

So proud of this feature for Juno Magazine, my first paid lifestyle byline, about the challenges of motherhood and marriage when they first butt heads. 

I'm not saying I have all the answers—or any answers, for that matter—but the response I got to this article was touching. It's so clear that not enough of us talk about the issues facing new moms, not least of which are those that relate to the care, feeding, and upkeep of a new-parent partnership. 

All I know is that when we do talk about subjects like this, a lot of us feel less alone. Enjoy.

Is CBD Safe?

The next article in my series on cannabidiol, or CBD oil, on both its safety and efficacy.