Rooting for a Stranger With My Same Name
Congratulations to another Jenny Shank, an intrepid raccoon, and Lit Fest kicks off at Lighthouse Writer's Workshop in Denver.
I knew they were out there, the other Jenny Shanks. I kept tabs on them with a Google alert I’d placed on my name over a decade ago, because it helped me determine when articles I’d written had actually been published. This is the life of a freelancer: you write something, you turn it in, you send an invoice, you wait, you wonder if this is going to be one of those articles that just disappears without you ever being paid, and then lo! It pops up in the Google alert, sometimes alongside delightful news of other Jenny Shanks, who were participating in small-town spaghetti dinners, winning teacher awards, or expiring of old age in communities that still offered obituaries in their local newspapers.
The random surprise of discovering work being published and the abundance of Jennys has persisted all these years. For example, received an assignment to review a book in July of 2024. I turned it in October. I went back and forth on edits throughout the winter, then the editor left her position. I thought it was doomed, but then a new editor surfaced, assuring me it would run, and it finally ran in May 2025, long after the author probably thought, well, I guess nobody is going to review my book. I learned about it through the Google alert, which can be more communicative than some editors, and certainly works with greater alacrity than most accounts payable departments. While I was following the saga of the July 2024 book review, a new hero emerged in my Google alerts: a fresh Jenny Shank had arisen in Texas, a young one, preternaturally skilled at softball.
This Jenny Shank was a right-handed pitcher out of Brownsville, Texas. I learned she was a force to contend with from this writeup in Max Preps: “Jenny Shank made a splash no matter where she played. She looked comfortable on the mound, striking out 11 batters over seven innings while giving up just two earned runs off five hits. She has been consistent: she hasn't tossed less than eight strikeouts in six consecutive appearances. She was also big at the plate, scoring a run while going 2-for-3.”
It heartened me that she plays the sport that I was once best at. I was a softball catcher in high school, being named the top catcher in the league on the All-City teams for Denver for two seasons. I like to imagine a time warp that puts both of us together at age 18, her striking out batters, me throwing out runners as we demolish the opposition with our unified Jenny Shank front.
It pleased me that the young Jenny Shank lives in a town where the newspaper still chronicles high school sports, furnishing her mother with some lovely, refrigerator-worthy clippings. And then, during this month of graduations, I learned she’d signed to play softball at Arkansas Tech, where I hope I will continue to hear of her success. The young Jenny Shank is an Arkansas Tech Golden Sun, but in a larger sense, all of us Jenny Shanks are Golden Suns now.
I’d occasionally wondered if the other Jenny Shanks resented me. An inveterate scribbler, I’d dominated the Google search results for decades. As a writer hoping to sell a few copies of my books, I’d clogged most available social media channels with my presence (as I’m doing on Substack right now).
I imagined the friends of these other Jenny Shanks seeking to connect with them, and finding, instead, me, a worst-selling author and marginally employed journalist/teacher/whatever-it-is-I-am from Colorado with three different slightly out-of-date author photos replicated across myriad websites, so much so that if you do a Google image search on my name, the results look like a Jenny Shank-version of the promo poster for the classic 1960 lookalike child replicant film, “Village of the Damned.” (I first watched that film when I was a high schooler employed at Blockbuster Video and could check out any video I wanted for free, a very Jenny Shank-like frugal perk to take excessive advantage of, I realize now.) But did the other Jenny Shanks’ friends give up after a while, deciding that I was the only Jenny Shank to be found on the internet? I hope not.
One day, about 18 years ago, a very special child was born and given a stellar name. She would grow strong and skilled as a softball pitcher, and not even the mediocre and voluminous output of the elder Jenny Shank could suppress her rise. She would arrive, on the third row of the Google image search results and the fourth page of the Google search results, as a shining young presence who could not be denied.
Reader, I’m proud of her. When I learned of her college intentions, I wanted to add her to the list of graduation cards I’ve been sending out over the past month. But no, I have not reached out. My teenagers have taught me that such a gesture would be creepy. But I hope she feels me rooting for her. Rooting for her every pitch to burn with the force of 10,000 suns, to snap into her catcher’s glove with a decisive crack, to strike out every last non-Jenny Shank that dares to attempt to hit off her. The audacity these batters have in trying!
I think of myself as a kind of auntie to her. Rise, young Jenny Shank! Bury my tired visage in the search results. I’m sorry I’ve squatted decisively on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter, Threads and probably some other sites that I’ve forgotten. I’m a catcher, that’s what we do: we squat. I bequeath you TikTok—which I have not yet found the energy to learn how to operate—and all the future social media sites that some greedy young sociopath will soon develop, in perpetuity.
The Assorted Whimsy Portion of The Tumbleweed
If you happen to be in northern Colorado and you need a croissant or a loaf of bread that’s as good as what you can get in France, the place to go is Babette’s Bakery in Longmont. (If you are in Arizona, the place to go is Barrio Bread in Tucson. Ask me for more recommendations—I enjoy breadstuffs!) I stopped by Babette’s this week when my son had a driving lesson in Longmont. We rushed back to Boulder for his track practice, so I didn’t get a chance to enjoy my croissant until after I dropped him off and was sitting in the parking lot of the training center with an hour to kill. I cracked my car door open to enjoy the breeze, and noticed a raccoon about twenty feet away, scrambling around a drainage ditch. I began to eat my croissant, and soon sensed I should look down.
There was the raccoon, inches away from me, right next to the door, raising a paw to climb into the car with me and the croissants. But when he saw me look at him, his eyes indicated YIKES, and he dashed off to disappear into this graffiti hole in the drainage ditch.
So when I tell you that Babette’s croissants are tasty, I mean it. The mere scent of them will draw in all the forest creatures in the vicinity. Be careful while you eat them if you don’t want to find yourself in a Snow White situation.
The Book Recommendation Portion of The Tumbleweed
I recently had the chance to review a wonderful debut story collection, Guatemalan Rhapsody, for America Magazine. I wrote:
The sting of unfulfilled potential unifies the characters in Guatemalan Rhapsody, many of whom strive for love, respect or mere survival in tales that unfold in Guatemalan towns or among immigrant communities in the United States. The characters often work low-paying jobs that keep them mostly out of sight—graveyard shift janitor, laundryman, night bus driver, long-haul trucker, rental cabin manager. These characters eke out lives at the edge of society, regretting their pasts and yearning for better futures, while addictions or mistakes drag them lower.
At the root of the characters’ marginality often lies a familial fracturing—they are orphans, kids left on their own in the United States in the wake of parental deportation, parents who have lost children or exes abandoned after one too many betrayals. Many of the stories begin when a breeze of glamour or possibility enters the character’s lives and stirs it up—a Hollywood film crew arrives to shoot a movie in a Guatemalan village, a once-great soccer pro is hired to coach a mediocre middle school team, a van taxi driver tries to earn a bit more cash by ferrying drugs.
The stories are remarkable for their authenticity, grit and for the kinds of often-overlooked lives Lemus pays keen attention to. Lemus graces even the most knuckleheaded addicts, thieves and cheaters he depicts with the benefit of the doubt and human dignity.
Read the rest of the review here, and find out what Jared Lemus is up to next here.
The Happenings & Links Portion of The Tumbleweed
The Tumbleweed rolled into your inbox a little early this month so I could tell you about the classes I still have open this week at Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop’s annual Lit Fest in Denver!
Today, Monday, June 9, I’m moderating the panel Getting Past the Gatekeepers, with Dzanc Books Editor Michelle Dotter, Electric Literature Editor Denne Michele Norris, and authors Steven Dunn and Kristin Koval, from 12-1 p.m.
I’m also teaching six 2-hour seminars and I’ve got spaces left in four of them, starting with two classes tomorrow! (It’s $75 for members and $85 for non-members.)
The Art of Literary Submission (how to submit your work to literary magazines), Tuesday, June 10, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Beyond First and Third: Playing with Perspectives, Tuesday, June 10, 4-6 p.m.
Freelance Writing: Getting Started and Building Your Career, Wednesday, June 11, 4-6 p.m.
How to Publish a Book (tips and ideas for all the different avenues), Friday, June 13, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
And in the fall I’m teaching a 4-week hybrid class (Zoom and in-person) called Memoir Structure ABCs. It runs September 15 through October 6, on Mondays, 6:30-8:30 p.m. (MDT).
As always, The Tumbleweed welcomes your questions and comments about writing, reading, taco eating, the Denver Nuggets, rabbit wrangling, Deion Sanders, Ralphie the Bison, and baby seals.