I got (re) published!

So I've had this short story, A Walk by the River, bouncing around in my brain for a while now. Last year, it was published in the wonderful literary journal 50GS and today, it was published in another wonderful journal The Selkie! You can find it here:

http://theselkie.co.uk/a-walk-by-the-river-by-clarissa-wilson/

I've worked with and known a lot of the folks at The Selkie and can say with confidence that they are some of the coolest, most dedicated, most likely to give you a button with a unicorn on it just because you don't have one people I've ever met. If any of them are reading this: thank you so much! If anyone else is reading this: check out The Selkie and all the wonderful authors within it-- one of whom is me!

Diversify!

       So, in true form, this spring brings me into an expanding sort of mood. Therefore I am announcing that I am starting two new blogs! Each will have an actual cogent theme instead of 'things I am doing or have done'. Crystalsmith, which will cover the jewellery aspects of it all, is live now! The second blog is going to house my educational materials and is TBA, because ya girl hasn't gotten all of the stuff from this semester back yet and is always paranoid about putting things online when they're similar to graded work. So for now, delight in the unnatural geometry of it all!

Archaeology Posters!

These posters were created for the Edinburgh Archaeology Outreach Program. They first debuted in February at the Southside Archaeology Day of Fun, but are now available wherever printers are present! 

Here's a blog post I wrote for one of my current projects. It was created for the Geoscience Outreach Blog, but here's a sneak peek:  

Questions for an Archaeologist by Clarissa Wilson

How do archaeologists do what they do and know what they know? This resource, designed by Clarissa Wilson as part of the Geoscience Outreach course at the University of Edinburgh, explores some of the key tools and processes that archaeologists use in their work.

The four posters were created for Archaeology Family Day of Fun, an event hosted by the Edinburgh Archaeology Outreach Program for the Southside community. These posters, available  in a .zip file below, cover three different questions and one glossary section.

 ‘What am I using?’ covers some of the common tools that archaeologists use in the field.

 ‘How did I die?’ explains the osteological paradox, an interesting and frustrating aspect of the study of human remains.

‘Where did I grow up?’ shows how to use oxygen isotopes from dental records to find out where someone spent their childhood.

This glossary helps people with some terms used in archaeology, which will help them learn more about archaeology!

Archaeology Family Fun Day was held on February 10^th at Summerhall in Southside, Edinburgh.

Around 300 people from the community showed up to chat, have fun, and learn more about archaeology!

For more about getting involved with Edinburgh Archaeology Outreach Program (EAOP), click here: https://edinburgharchaeology.wordpress.com/updates/

If you are a local parent whose child wants to know more about archaeology, many places have a Young Archaeologist’s Club. Check out if you have one at  http://www.yac-uk.org/ Also, feel free to email me at morrigan7733@aol.com for posters or advice!

Keywords: archaeology, community archaeology, people and environment, history, science

My hands have been covered in resin too much to write a blog post (or, I'm making jewellery!)

I've been making a sample line of jewellery; here's some of it!



I made the crystalline formations myself; they are an intensely cool and fun process in and of themselves, which I might detail in another blog post.
















The crystalline pieces are from a collection called Cherubim and Chthonica,


while the more plant-based creations are from Anthousai. 

I'll be uploading them to my Etsy shop, thestoryneverends, within the next day or so. There will be more to come as my increasingly hectic schedule allows (gotta love the month before dissertation handin), so keep an eye out!

And Now For Something Completely Different (or, I put my positivity on hold)

I really haven't been in any kind of mood to write what I usually write here on my blog. The massacre in Parkland, FL, has taken up so much of my time and my mind. Here's what I wrote about it on Facebook, which is what I keep going back to:

I’ve been thinking a lot about kids in school these days. Everyone has, but here’s something I haven’t seen put together a lot. The pieces are all there, people have obsessed over it and written articles and books that range from the insightful to the insulting, but so far in the wake of this tragedy I haven’t seen this said in so many words: 
The suicide epidemic among teenagers? Yeah, that could have something to do with the constant pressure of knowing your school could be next, your friends could be next, you could be next. The reason kids these days are more likely to commit suicide might have something to do with the way our society has invited the spectre of violent death into school at every level. 
A disclaimer: I have not done any studies. I don’t analyze gun violence, partly because it is not my field and partly because the U.S. government has made it very difficult for scientists to do so. What I have done is lived as someone who was a toddler when Columbine happened, was 15 when Sandy Hook and Aurora happened, was nineteen when Orlando happened. What I have done is live in a world where terrible things happened in places just like the one I went to five days a week almost every week for what remains the bulk of my lifetime and will always be my formative years. 
I watched as the prospect of massacre by gun grew up with me. I watched as it went from being the kind of tragedy that would rock the world to being a political crisis to being another part of the news, with stock phrases and inertia built right in as if this was a natural disaster. As if we were supposed to be sad but accepting, as if school shootings were like hurricanes or earthquakes, as if all we could do was practice drills and say something if we thought one of our classmates might be the next person to get a gun and kill us all. 
It’s hard to separate my memories of school from my memories of violence. When I think about history and government, I remember debating the second amendment and wondering what the hell any of my pro-gun classmates had in common with a well regulated militia. When I remember going to the movies with my friends, I remember not doing that for a while and buying TDKR on DVD when it came out. When I remember the jokes we told I cringe but I understand because the nasty gallows humor was a coping mechanism, one I would never recommend but can’t condemn because sometimes there is just no way to have good taste. 
When I remember my own depression, when I remember hearing about people my age or not much older killing themselves, I remember never being as shocked as the adults around me. 
Prison guards and veterans have higher rates of suicide than the general population, they say, because of their years in places where there is always the potential for violence. 
Is it really that hard to understand that when school shootings are regular enough that we can all plot the trajectory of the news cycle in response to them, when active shooter drills are undertaken in schools across the country, when teachers have to tell their students that they will give their lives up for them if necessary and other students volunteer because in the words of ten-year-old Dez Benard he “would rather be the one that died protecting my friends then have an entire class die and I be the only one that lived”— when all of these things are part of the background radiation of children’s lives they might carry the same burden and trauma? 
So the next time you hear someone talk about how cell phones or video games or this or that thing is the reason kids kill themselves, treat it like the victim-blaming garbage it is and move on. Kids aren’t dying because they lack the self-control to use technology appropriately. They’re killing themselves because we have made the environment in which they spend their lives into a warzone. They deserve better than that. We deserved better than that.

Archaeology Fun Day (and other fun days)!

I can't believe it happened! The event we've been planning since I joined EAOP happened last Saturday and it. Was. Fantastic.

I'll try and write more about it in my next post but suffice to say, fun was had by a large amount of people and at least two dogs! Above is the illustrious Koda, support animal to another member of our committee and friend to all. I didn't ask for permission to post pictures of the other little guy, but he was a 14-week-old puppy in training to be a guide dog and he was the cutest thing. 

Things To Do When You Have Too Many Things To Do

Yesterday, I trimmed and cleaned the cacti in my building's common area. That doesn't seem like the most efficient use of time for someone with as much going on as I have, so let me explain.

 I love plants of all kinds, but cacti and succulents have a special place in my heart. They come in so many interesting sizes and shapes, for one, and they fit into my life-- my tiny-apartment, travel-heavy life-- so well. 

Learning how to take care of them is a rare thing for me-- a hobby that doesn't tie in to my more, ahem, marketable interests (looking at you, Art and Design!) but is simply because I enjoy doing it. I love these little guys. So, even though I have a million things to do and about negative seven time to do them in, I took an hour out to repot some cacti, trim the over-crowded Cereus Tetragonus, and clean a few suspicious-looking spots off of a succulent. 

Some cuttings I'm propagating under my sunlamp. 

No regrets; now time to write a chapter. 

Archaeology Fun Day, dissertation ramp-up, and more

It has been an INCREDIBLY busy week and a half. It's really hard to believe that this is only the second week of the semester! Highlights include:

The Archaeology Family Fun day at Summerhall, which I have helped organize and at which I will be giving out the archaeology posters I've been working on this year;

Dissertation writing is in full swing, and... it's a lot. I'm writing about something I love, which is great, but if I never have to do academic-style writing again it will be too soon;

I'm learning more about 3D printing and CNC milling every day at the UCreate studio! This has been really great, both in terms of dissertation and volunteering and just as a general Skill I Want;

The interviews. My gods, the interviews;

My new job as a childminder, which is high-energy but supremely rewarding;

And, as always, my own writing and related endeavours, including a short story that is threatening to become a novella and collecting a list of agents and publishers to send my novel to (a thing I need an extreme amount of spoons to do, and therefore a thing that I do not do often enough). 

So far, this semester is shaping up to be fun and exhausting. Wish me luck! 

New semester, ever-fluid me!

Oof, it’s my last semester as an undergrad. This seemed like an eternity away like… I want to say two weeks ago? It certainly feels like it’s been about two weeks since I got to Edinburgh. 

That’s not to say that nothing much has changed— when I look back on who I was back in first year and what was on the docket of Things I Was Up To (a kind of retrospection I do often, probably too often if my occasional dreams about missing my college application deadlines are any indication) it feels like it has been ages. 

When I came here I was seventeen, ecstatic that I was here doing the thing I had said I would do all the way back in seventh grade when I was asked where I’d like to go to college and I said ‘Scotland!’ for reasons I don’t actually remember, nervous as hell and missing my family even though I had been intermittently trying to move out for fifteen years (story for another time), and wondering what the heck i was going to do and be on my own. 

Now I’m (gods all willing) a few months away from graduation and while so many things are different, a lot are still the same. I still miss my family, I’m still really happy to be here, and I’m still wondering who I’m going to be and what I’m going to do. That’s part of why I’m starting this blog, to record the things I’m doing and being. 

So, here’s to an exciting semester and a good road ahead. May it be full of new understanding, old friends, and accomplished goals. Most importantly, may this semester be kind. 

Hi!

Hi!

I'm Clarissa, an artist, writer, and full-time daydreamer in Edinburgh, Scotland. I wear many hats, in both the literal and metaphorical senses, and I'm always looking to add more in the name of trying new things. Some of those hats include copywriting, editing, graphic design, fiction writing, and so forth.   

I'm open for commissions on all of those subjects, so if you see something you enjoy here please go ahead and contact me! 

Other social media business: My deviantart is here, my twitter is @chthrissa, and my facebook is here!