Making Magic

there are opportunities all around us

Good Food Jobs

Jun 16, 2026

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issue no. 788

ON JUNE 9th . . .

I had the great pleasure of watching my dear friend Dorothy fulfill her life’s dream: to publish a book of her writing. Sam (the third member of our GFJ team, who you’ll often hear from if you send something to our email inbox) drove down from Vermont, and then she and I followed the contours of the Hudson river from my home in Columbia County almost 2 hours south to Dorothy in Hastings-on-Hudson.

While we were coming to celebrate her, we didn’t realize how she’d crafted such a meaningful gathering for us. Everything about the evening was rooted in generosity. Before the book launch party, she treated a table full of her most ardent supporters to a dinner, where she graced our plates with a small envelope in which she had tucked a meaningful quotation from her favorite thinkers and writers, custom tailored to each of us. We read these aloud, as we shared our connection to, and love for, Dorothy. What a gift to sink into the supportive web of connected threads being spun underneath us in real time.

After dinner we skipped across the street, hand-in-hand, to watch Dorothy weave more magic - this time with a crowd that had ballooned in size. I will share with you the transcription of her opening, which felt like the type of sorcery we all need . . .

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I am Dorothy Neagle (wahoo, cheering from the crowd). I’m so thrilled to welcome you all tonight to the celebration of Imagine a Woman being published today, June 9th.

It’s a magical night, isn’t it? Do you all feel it? I feel it.

I have been wanting to write books and share them with the world since I was small. And there’s something about a lifelong dream coming true . . . of course there were so many practical things that went into the making of this book . . . people who helped me along the way, decisions that had to be made, paper, printers, UPS . . . but there’s something about the magic of a dream coming true that I really don’t want to let go of too quickly tonight.

So I am going to ask you, just for a minute, to dwell in the magic with me. I’m going to ask - if you’re comfortable you can close your eyes, or you can look down on the floor or into your lap - I want you to picture in your mind, a moment when you experienced magic. It can be a very small thing, a moment that pops into your head quickly is probably the best, but if you’re not sure, you might think about a time when you experienced art or music, maybe a time when you were in nature . . . something that you saw or felt . . . maybe it was an experience you had with another person . . someone that you know and love, or even a complete stranger.

As you picture that magic moment, I want you to see it like it’s in a clear globe, and you can walk all the way around it, noticing every detail - sounds, smells, colors. And as you notice all of these details about your magic moment, also notice that the globe is as light as air. It’s actually floating in the air, like a soap bubble. And imagine that it is floating through the doorway, into the room with us tonight.

And it’s not alone. Everyone’s magic moment is floating into the room with us, and gathering on the ceiling. And as you see all these magic moments collecting on the ceiling, I want you to imagine that they are crowding out every molecule of hatred, cruelty, shame. Imagine that they are very softly, and very gently, raining down on all of us. And as you open your eyes and look around, imagine that you can see how everyone in this room is infused with a magic that we all carry with us.

This is one definition of poetry.

So the magic of a dream coming true - it was not an overnight miracle. And it’s really important for me to emphasize that - especially these days, when everything is instant gratification - but also because especially I am someone who experienced creative block and believed that to be able to put a book into the world, it had to be a certain way, or look a certain way. or take a certain amount of time…

I experience the process of writing as an act of accumulation, and time is an essential ingredient for that accumulation.

Imagine a Woman contains poems that I started writing about a decade ago, and more than three years ago I started submitting it. And it took that amount of time before my publisher, Gnashing Teeth, picked it up. And all that time I was revising it, and improving it, and making it better. This process, I think, exemplifies something that is counterintuitive, but true, which is that we are our stories and we are not our stories.

What do I mean by that?

Every story that we’ve ever been told . . . it never really ends. It goes on with us. And our favorite stories we can read over and over again. We can find new versions of our favorite stories to enjoy, and as much as we’re captivated by those stories, it’s also possible to write our own.

In fact, every moment of our lives, as we live it, contains endless possibility to re-write your story.

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Imagine a woman,

Tay + Dor

This newsletter breathes life into me every time I open it. Thank you.

- Angelica

tidbits...

resources on anti-racism, environmentalism and food culture AKA stuff we’re reading / listening to / watching / noticing / thinking about / captivated by this Tuesday . . .

Do One Small Thing . . . what did you imagine in your magic bubble? We are so curious to know. Reply to this newsletter, share in the comments, or email us at info@goodfoodjobs.com to let us know.

Be a part of Dorothy’s lifelong dream, and get your own copy of her book of poetry, Imagine a Woman. Order a copy online, from your favorite local bookstore, ask your local library to carry it, or request it on the Libby app…

…And subscribe to Dorothy’s monthly newsletter, What the Wolf Wore, to keep up with this and other publications.

One of my favorite parts of Dorothy’s book launch was the Q&A with Dorothy and Jamie Kay MacKenzie, the painter whose work graces the cover of Dorothy’s book. To hear how each artist channels magic through their medium was medicine.

And if you like Dorothy’s book, be sure to check out Perdita Finn’s latest book Mothers of Magic.

You won’t want to skip a second of Andrea Gibson’s speech to their high school alma mater’s graduating class, published posthumously on Things That Don’t Suck.

Not Our Farm is selling beautiful t-shirts to benefit the Farmworker Emergency Fund.

“We were handed a set of goggles many generations ago, and we’re still wondering around thinking they’re our eyes” - Chloe Hope summing up the human condition, beautifully as ever, in Death & Birds

Do you love poetry? Have a book club where you already read poetry collections, or would like to? Interested in having Dor drop in - virtually or in-person depending on locale - for a book club discussion? Reach out and let us know.

View and share this free guide to How to Write a More Equitable Job Post, and stay tuned for new resources to deepen this work.

got a tidbit? drop it here for us and we’ll share it in next week’s newsletter.