For ten years, Carrot Ranch Literary Community wrote weekly 99-word story challenges. Founder and Lead Buckaroo, Charli Mills suffered a series of setbacks. After experiencing homelessness, she settled on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan to get her husband, a former Army Ranger, into the VA system. She knew something was terribly wrong. The family suspected CTE, and it's still likely, yet the devastating diagnosis is (bv) FTD. In addition, he has neck damage from paratrooping that is also causing strokes. Charli has accepted the small world of caregiving that has left her life in ruins. Unable to live large, she's studied Jungian dream tending to understand her own brain (and soul), find beauty in the ashes, and develop a rich inner world of art through imagery, words, and dream figures (known to writers as the characters that talk to us). 

Right here, right now is where life is. Brain degeneration does not get the last say. What degenerates, opens up to new regenerative possibilities. Charli has returned to Carrot Ranch to rebuild an art studio and portal to the imagination. Each page will be a project that she will tinker with the way artists do in their sacred space of creative impulses. Yet, each project will also invite the community to play, reflect, imagine, and even collaborate. Some prompts will be instructive, such as creating an annual author bio. Some will be reflective, such as exploring gender fluidity and Eros as art. Dreams, stories, visual art, caregiving, whimsical queerness, craft teaching, Jungian journeys, deathcare, and more will populate the pages at Carrot Ranch. Weekly Challenges to write 99-word stories will return without the publication of the stories created by the community. The Keweenaw Interactive Art Walk--an annual project Charli has co-founded with artist, TOJ of Red Rabbit Studio--will accept submissions from the greater Carrot Ranch Literary Community. Saddle up. We ride into the dawn!