<p>A few days ago, I got a piece of advice: to write a letter to my eight-year-old self. We know that we&#8217;re shaped, as children, by the people around us. We imitate their speech and behavior, and we base our goals and dreams on what they show us. We want to be like a parent, &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2017/03/04/zen-for-ten-17-past-and-present-sight/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Zen for Ten 17: Past and Presen

<p>&#8220;Hello darkness, my old friend&#8230;&#8221; &#8211; Simon and Garfunkel, &#8220;The Sounds of Silence&#8221; Today I had one of those mornings where I didn&#8217;t want my husband to leave for work, because I didn&#8217;t want to be alone with myself and my old frenemy, depression. I suppose it has to be a friend because it comes &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2017/02/21/zen-for-ten-16-5-bonus-track/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="

<p>It&#8217;s hard to stay away from political commentary these days. After a while I start to feel like a four-note wonder: fear, anger, depression, anxiety, scrub, rinse, repeat. Like so many of us, I&#8217;m thinking a lot about where my place is in &#8220;all of this.&#8221; Activism doesn&#8217;t come naturally to me, but I&#8217;m glad &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2017/02/16/zen-for-ten-16-meditation-with-bach/" class="more-link">Continue reading <spa

<p>Like so many of us, I&#8217;ve spent the last couple of weeks completely absorbed in politics. Every day, when I check my Facebook feed, I get caught up in the headlines and the passionate responses to them. It&#8217;s easy to spend hours staring at the computer, seesawing between worry, fear, hope, and anger. Again like &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2017/02/02/zen-for-ten-15-mental-health-break/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-rea

<p>[Note: this post expresses political opinions.] And the three men I admire most &#8211; the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost &#8211; they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died. &#8211; Don McLean It&#8217;s been a long, rough, crazy week. We&#8217;ve learned about &#8220;alternative facts.&#8221; We&#8217;ve watched branches of our &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2017/01/26/zen-for-ten-14-american-pie/" class="more-link">Continue readin

<p>Today is the launch day for my Kindle e-book Unraveled Souls. Celebrating with a reading from the title story. &nbsp; If you&#8217;d like to order the book, which you can read on your Kindle or with a Kindle smartphone app, you can get it here. Half of all proceeds will benefit 826 National. You can &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2017/01/19/zen-for-ten-13-unraveled-souls/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Zen for Ten 13:

<p>New Year 2017. Challenges and opportunities ahead. I don&#8217;t often do straight-up political posts, but this time, I&#8217;m going to start with politics. Like many of us, I&#8217;m concerned for our country&#8217;s future. Like many of us, I was disappointed and scared after November&#8217;s presidential election. Over the past several weeks, I&#8217;ve been thinking a &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2017/01/12/zen-for-ten-12-jazz-stories-and-resistance

<p>[Note: this week&#8217;s post takes a brief break from music, to honor the memory of one of my favorite writers.] British writer Richard Adams, who wrote the international bestseller Watership Down, died this past Christmas Eve. He was 96. I remember: Waking up in the middle of the night, in my grandparents&#8217; house, in the &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/12/28/zen-for-ten-11-for-the-storyteller/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="scr

<p>This post is a day late&#8230;and I&#8217;ll start by admitting it&#8217;s been a tough week. Like all of us, I try to keep up with what&#8217;s happening in the world, but lately it seems like everything is going from bad to worse. There&#8217;s chaos and destruction everywhere you look. I don&#8217;t know about you, but &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/12/16/zen-for-ten-10-finding-hope/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-te

<p>They&#8217;re here! This past Friday, the advance reader copies of my novel arrived. A moment nine years in the making! 🙂 Yay! To celebrate, today&#8217;s blog post includes a reading from the book, along with more of Maurice Ravel&#8217;s suite Ma Mere L&#8217;Oye, which I introduced in last week&#8217;s post. This week&#8217;s excerpt is the &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/12/08/zen-for-ten-9-its-a-book/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span cla

<p>The ARCs are coming! My novel&#8217;s advance reader copies are making their way from Toronto to Baltimore. Soon, I&#8217;ll get to see and hold my first book. Can&#8217;t wait!! 🙂 To celebrate that, today&#8217;s blog post features some of the music that worked its way into To Love A Stranger. Today&#8217;s feature: Excerpts from Ma &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/12/01/zen-for-ten-8-telling-the-story/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class=

<p>Today&#8217;s features: Sonata in B flat Major and Sonata in D Major, by Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) Welcome back! Today&#8217;s video highlights two of my favorite short pieces by Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti. About the music: When we think about the word &#8220;Sonata,&#8221; we usually think about a long piece of music, often divided into &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/11/17/zen-for-ten-7-a-dose-of-sun/" class="more-link">Continue

<p>Today&#8217;s features: Sonata Op. 13 &#8220;Pathetique,&#8221; mvt. 2, by Ludwig van Beethoven; Prelude no. 2 by George Gershwin This week I&#8217;m breaking the blog&#8217;s pattern. Last night was the end of our long and difficult presidential election cycle here in the US. It&#8217;s an intense time full of intense feelings. I woke up this morning &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/11/09/zen-for-ten-6-the-world-needs-each-one-of-us/" class="more-link"

<p>Blog Subscriber Bonus! When you subscribe to the blog and join our email list, you’ll receive a PDF of my flash-fiction story “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” which I wrote in response to Charles Mingus’s jazz tune of the same name. Subscribe (using the black button on the right), read the story, and then listen here &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/11/03/zen-for-ten-5-want-to-change-the-world-start-here/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-r

<p>Blog Subscriber Bonus! When you subscribe to the blog and join our email list, you&#8217;ll receive a PDF of my flash-fiction story &#8220;Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,&#8221; which I wrote in response to Charles Mingus&#8217;s jazz tune of the same name. Subscribe (using the black button on the right), read the story, and then listen here &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/10/27/zen-for-ten-post-4-brahms-for-your-heart/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span

<p>Welcome to Zen for Ten: Storytelling and Sound. New posts go up every Thursday and include a short piano-performance video, commentary about the piece and composer, and (often) a storytelling thought-exercise to go with the music. Take ten minutes, enjoy some music, and refresh your mind. If you like today’s post, please SUBSCRIBE to the &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/10/20/zen-for-ten-post-3-bach-for-your-brain/" class="more-link">Continue reading <s

<p>Welcome to Zen for Ten: Storytelling and Sound. New posts go up every Thursday and include a short piano-performance video, commentary about the piece and composer, and (often) a storytelling thought-exercise to go with the music. Take ten minutes, enjoy some music, and refresh your mind. If you like today’s post, please SUBSCRIBE to the &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/10/13/zen-for-ten-post-2-a-taste-of-baroque/" class="more-link">Continue reading <sp

<p>Today marks the launch of my new feature blog, Zen for Ten: Storytelling and Sound. Every Thursday I&#8217;ll post a short piano-performance video, along with commentary about the piece and composer, and (sometimes) a storytelling thought-exercise to go with the music. Take ten minutes, enjoy some music, and refresh your mind. If you like today&#8217;s &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/10/06/new-storytelling-and-sound/" class="more-link">Continue reading

<p>This entry first appeared on Kaaterskill Basin Journal&#8216;s blog, and was written in response to their 100 Rejections in 100 Days Challenge. Maybe I should start with the good news. My first novel, To Love A Stranger, is coming out next summer from Blue Moon Publishers in Toronto. If I added up all the rejections &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/09/27/the-100-rejections-challenge/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">T

<p>Where does hate come from? What makes a person want to take a weapon and go into a crowded place, full of people trying get an education or watch a movie or have a night out, and open fire? Why would someone want to destroy so many strangers’ lives? In this country, we’ve asked that &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2016/06/13/after-orlando/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">After Orlando</span></a></p>