The Book of Alchemy
I was first alerted to The Book of Alchemy, A Creative Practice for an Inspired life, when my substack feed featured a post by Suleika Jaouad. She is a memoirist (Between Two Kingdoms) and a columnist for the New York Times and the creator of the weekly newsletter and global community, ‘The Isolation Journals’ on Substack.
‘When I was diagnosed with leukemia at age twenty-two and spent four harrowing years in cancer treatment, my journal was a lifeline. Rather than shutting down or feeling hopeless, I could trace the contours of what I was thinking and feeling and gain a sense of agency. So when Covid hit in the spring of 2020 and the world went into lockdown, I knew what to reach for: my journal. This time, I invited strangers from all over the world to join me.
The response was astonishing. By the end of the first 100 days, there were 100,000 of us: writing, searching, seeking, connecting, making sense of our lives together. It was call and response, reverberations begetting reverberations. Through the essays and prompts, which were interpreted in so many ways—from a typical diary entry to sonnets to songs and drawings—the alchemical properties of journaling showed us how to turn isolation into creative solitude, confinement into connection, and confusion into clarity and calm.’
The Book of Alchemy came out of that project. It contains one hundred essays and prompts and the reader is invited to participate in their own 100-day project. The diverse essayists include poets, novelists, philosophers, children’s writers, visual artists and even a late prisoner on death row. Some names a casual reader may recognise include, George Saunders, Salman Rushdie, Oliver Jeffers, John Green and Elizabeth Gilbert.
This is an ongoing reading and participating project for me – I’m only on to Day Two but I do love a structured journaling practice – saves me from repeating on endless loop my usual whinges in my journal and some prompts may become larger pieces of work – either poems or creative nonfiction pieces. I’m on board! I’ve picked out my journal and it’s sitting under my bed.
(This is actually book 6 of my winter reading – but I wanted to share it now so I keep myself accountable.)