I Didn’t Disappear. I Went Underground.

The last time I wrote here, I shared a book review. Since then, I’ve been living inside a story of my own, one that unfolded across airports and ballrooms, quiet hotel rooms and early mornings, volunteer floors and blank pages.

I didn’t disappear. I went underground, building the world I’m finally ready to share.

Over the past months, I’ve traveled coast to coast with OCMG and US Hunger, helping produce events that pack a million meals at a time. From the West Coast to the East and back again, I’ve watched thousands of strangers become a single, beating heart of purpose. I’ve seen what happens when people show up for each other, how a room can change when hands move in rhythm, when service becomes story.

There is something humbling about standing in the middle of a cavernous space—an arena, a convention hall, or aboard the Queen Mary—and watching it transform into a place where hope is physically made. Long tables stretch in every direction. Volunteers line up shoulder to shoulder. Music pulses. Hands move in rhythm. And by the end of the day, a million meals exist that didn’t before. Food that will travel farther than any of us. Proof that collective action can be both massive and intimate simultaneously.

In between those days on the road, I am home. I am a stay-at-home mom. I’m helping with homework, doing laundry, driving carpools, and holding the rhythm of a family together. This work I do with OCMG for US Hunger is part-time for me—woven into the margins of ordinary life. Which means everything else happens in the in-between spaces, too. The writing. The thinking. The becoming.

Those days are loud and fast and full of motion. The nights are quiet. And in that quiet, in hotel rooms, between flights, before dawn, after school drop off. I’ve been writing. Not dabbling. Not dreaming. Building.

There’s a strange poetry to it, moving through cities with a crew whose mission is to feed the world, then returning to a small desk lamp and a blank page on my laptop, trying to feed something else entirely. Both require faith. Both ask you to believe that what you’re doing matters, even when no one is watching.

At the same time, something deeply affirming happened in my own creative life: my second story was published in a new Chicken Soup for the Soul collection. Shortly after, that story was featured on the Chicken Soup for the Soul podcast, read aloud, shared with listeners everywhere. Hearing my words spoken into the world felt surreal, like a door opening.

It reminded me that stories do travel.
They cross rooms.
They cross lives.
They meet people where they are.

And so I kept going.

This season has been about becoming, not just doing.

Becoming disciplined. Becoming brave. Becoming someone who treats her creative life with the same seriousness she brings to every other part of her world. I stopped waiting for the “right time.” I stopped thinking of writing as something that fit around life. I let it become part of how I live.

I’ve been building something long-form. Layered. Emotional. Suspenseful. A story about women, secrets, identity, and the families we inherit versus the ones we choose. It’s the kind of work that needs quiet. It needs time. It needs the underground. You can’t rush it into daylight. You have to let it become what it wants to be.

So if you’ve wondered where I’ve been, the answer is simple:

I’ve been living.
I’ve been serving.
I’ve been writing.

This wasn’t a pause. It was a deep inhale.

And now, I’m stepping back into the light, with stories to tell.

Love,

Emma