Author: Kristen
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A Summer Reading Adventure! Let’s Do It!
I’m going to post updates here all summer, including resources, additional details, and links to the subscribers-only posts. Let’s get reading! I am probably going to regret this, because who has the time? I have freelance work to do, and a thesis to research, and reviews to write, and this newsletter to keep up. Do…
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Today Was a Good Day
As I opened my book to read for a while before going to bed, I realized I had had a very good day. I made a list in my bullet journal to remind myself what made it good; I thought it might be worth sharing and spelling out—briefly!—why these were good things. The Morning Run…
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Review: The Understory
The UnderstorySaneh Sangsuk, translated by Mui PoopoksakulDeep Vellum, March 2024, $17.95How did I get this book? Library There are a few basic questions to ask of any book, and The Understory answers them in intriguing ways. Questions like: Does this book use paragraphs? No! Is there a plot line to follow? Not so much! Is…
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Review: Glorious Exploits
Glorious Exploits Ferdia Lennon Henry Holt, March 2024, $26,99 How did I get this book?: Library This is not a properly critical review. The review is five stars, 12/10, would read again, no notes, you will not be sad to spend your time and money with Lampo, even if he is sometimes a frustratingly selfish…
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Review: Seven Steeples
I wrote this more than a year ago and apparently never published it. So enjoy! Seven Steeples Sara Baume HarperCollins, April 2022, $18.99 How did I get this book? Library There are many good reasons to read a book where nothing much happens. If your own life has a lot happening, a quiet book can…
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Review: I Cheerfully Refuse
I Cheerfully RefuseLeif EngerApril 2024, Grove Press, $28 The most effective post-apocalyptic fiction and climate fiction (cli-fi) doesn’t feature One Big Disaster that annihilates half the population and resources of the Earth with a Galactus-like snap. These stories are more like mid-apocalypse, and so more realistic, and maybe more existentially frightening. It’s difficult to imagine…
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A Newsy Newsletter
I have reached a trifecta of tiredness this week. I have a huge deadline looming for my thesis proposal at school, I have my first in-person book event since the pandemic coming up (see below!), and I have a family concern that’s weighing on me. So I don’t really have the brainpower to write something…
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Anyway, It Was Spring Break
Last week was my spring break from school. I did not spend it at a beach — I’ve never done that, not even when I was doing my undergrad in Florida, a state that is 97% beach, in the 1990s, a notorious time for spring break parties. I am very glad I skipped that whole…
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Who You Are, When You Are
One day last week, it was brought to my attention twice that as an artist, a craftsperson, a creative person, that you can only be who you are, when you are. When a concept snags in my mind like stringy algae on a stick in a stream, I tend to swirl it around in the…
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For International Women’s Day: Books About Publishing
I just got out of an online seminar on running a small business that I was really looking forward to, but it turned out to be largely irrelevant to my weird little business. So let’s make lemonade out of these lemons by looking at my favorite books about writing and publishing by women. The Business…