Sasha Martin

Happy 17th birthday to the sweetest lil’ baker in town. Watching you step through so many milestones this year—like driving, your first job as a baker’s apprentice, performing on stage in rock band—has been a total joy. Most of all, I’m in constant amazement of your big, beautiful heart. You cracked mine wide open when you were born and I’ve been cheering for you ever since. You’re a gift to me, your family and this world.

Love you to the moon—and back.
xxoo
Mom

Whenever the sun is everywhere gold, seeming to soak into the furniture and food, and even into me, I think of this passage from Boris Vian:

“The corridor leading to the kitchen was light because it had windows on both sides of it, and a sun shining behind each of them because Colin was fond of bright things. There were metal taps, brilliantly polished and gleaming, all over the place. The suns playing on the taps produced fairylike effects. The kitchen mice liked to dance to the sounds made by the rays of the suns as they bounced off the taps, and then run after the little bubbles that the rays burst into when they hit the ground like sprays of golden mercury.”

—Boris Vian (translation of L’Ecume des Jours / Mood Indigo) This is one of my MOST favorite books I read while in the French school system.

💛💛💛

xxoo
Sasha

“Was it cathartic to write?” This is one of the most common questions people ask about my memoir. It’s a tough question to answer. This week on substack I try to tackle all of it: memoir, pain, Frida Kahlo, and the myth of Catharsis. Link in bio.

1. My keyboard. Thinking about replacing it, but last night a friend gasped— “never!” After all my years of toiling, alone at my desk, I felt seen in the best way.

2. When I saw my memoir in print for the first time (with the most lovely notes from my editor and then 5-year old).

3. Substack details. See you over there!

I sometimes don’t know how to approach the blank page. But what if beginning isn’t so much about invention as it is about returning to something I already know?

I am a woman in the studio AND I am that little girl in a makeshift kitchen, wondering about my next meal. Both enter into making these tiny artist books bound with cinnamon and nutmeg.

I wrote about Beginnings this week.
You can read it at the link in my bio.

xxoo
Sasha

Happy to let you know I’ve just launched “Abecedarium: letters for Writers & Artists.” This Substack is a space where I’ll share weekly ideas, essays, and creative invitations, each corresponding to one letter of the alphabet.

The first post, “A is for Attention,” is now live.

If you’d like to read, the link is in my bio.

xxoo
Sasha

creativeprocess