By Leslie Lindsay
A curated newsletter on the literary life, featuring ‘4 questions,’ reading & listening recommendations, where to submit, more
Leslie Lindsay|Always with a Book
~MUSINGS & MEANDERINGS~
Hello, September!
Is this your final edit?
What is final? That’s a big question. Is anything every really finished? Aren’t we all in a state of flux, tweaking, working through barrier and trying to put our best foot forward?
I know, I’m getting a little existential here, but the thing is, a work of art is never finished. Why? It takes not just the artist but the viewer/reader/listener to make it complete. It’s a collaboration. I can make something–whatever it is–a piece of jewelry, a delicious meal, a photograph, a book–but it’s not really fully appreciated until someone else enjoys it. That person brings their own experiences, views, interpretations, and it might be completely different than what the artists/creator/chef intended. That person may offer something new to the creator, something not seen before or during the creation process. How magical is that?! I rather like it.
Question:
In what ways do you feel we are collaborators in art? Is there a true ‘creator’ and true ‘participant?’ How do you know when something is ‘done?’
Respond here in a comment, or find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
xx,
~Leslie : )
This issue of Musings & Meanderings is jam-packed with some really great stuff to get your [writing and reading] year off on the right foot. Coaching, book recommendations, journals to submit to, reading recommendations, author interviews, recently published prose, and a quick 4 questions insights interview with Lynn Alsup on her memoir, TINDERBOX (SWP, September ). I have new poetry up at Ballast, Neologism Poetry Journal, Empyrean, and a photo-essay featuring miniatures in On the Seawall.
There’s more to this newsletter. Keep Scrolling.
By the way, I do not get any ‘kick-backs’ or other kind of payment (in-kind, or otherwise) for mentioning these classes/workshops/books/individuals. Sharing because if helps me, maybe it’ll speak to you, too.
Some Writerly Things:
- Tin House is offering this writing intensive, “Let’s Get Weird” with Marisa Crane on experimental genre October 15. I’d totally sign up but will be out-of-the-country celebrating my 20th (!!) wedding anniversary. The August class — same instructor, same topic — sold out! Check it out now, I don’t think you’ll regret it!
- The conference scene might be more your speed. Check out this Arkansas Retreat and Conference October 12-14. Ozark Creative Writer’s : Writing in the Ozarks
- Maybe you’d like a manuscript consultation? Check out the process with the folks at StoryStudio Chicago. Maybe it’s for an MFA application, a novel or first chapter. Maybe you’re gearing up fall submission season for essays or short stories or residencies?
- Speaking of StoryStudio, I attended the Writer’s Festival last fall and felt so held, nurtured, and inspired. It’s the first weekend of November and offers keynotes, break-out sessions, generative workshops, all genres.
- I like this piece in LitHub by Julia Otsuka about digging through boxes/archives and how that leads to a rich literary experience/experiment.
New! Featured Author|Insights
Lynn Alsup
TINDERBOX: One Family’s Story of Adoption, Neurodiversity & Fierce Love
Lynn watched her beloved Clare, newly adopted from Haiti, crawl the house in a frantic search for her lost mother. Preschool Clare enchanted with belly laughs and shining smiles. Also, thrashed and wailed in her room as Lynn crouched on her own bed–pillow clutched over her head–her past trauma triggered.
Leslie Lindsay:
Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say TINDERBOX is about?
Lynn Alsup :
carving out a path through chaos, confusion, and deep suffering,
healing from trauma,
never-giving-up love,
the superpower of curiosity,
celebrating and accommodating neurodiversity after getting it terribly wrong,
the complexity of adoption,
discovering resilience,
unraveling the mystery of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder,
falling down and getting back up, again and again and again
forgiveness
Leslie Lindsay:
Where did you write TINDERBOX? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?
Lynn Alsup :
I spend most weekday mornings on my sunporch with my dogs running in and out the open back door while I work. I’m lucky to also have a studio we carved out of our garage that has morphed from mucked up concrete floors and no windows to a peaceful place of solitude with giant windows and cork floors. (Teenagers coming and going from the house, loud music, endless Facetime calls, and “Mom, can you…” requests don’t lead to much writing!) In my studio, I sit on the floor, my laptop balanced on a wicker box, or at an old pine table that serves as my desk. That helps my body not get too sore. It’s amazing how hard writing can be on your body. I find I need two or three hours at a time to get much done otherwise I don’t sink in and settle in the still place at my center where the good stuff comes from. Meditating before writing helps with this, too.
If I’m writing new scenes for a project, I rummage around for a used notebook or the end of a legal pad that my kids have discarded and grab a pen. I write longhand without stopping—no crossing out or changing words—for about 30 minutes to discover what I have to say. If I’m stuck, I turn to some writing exercises and use the scene to complete them. Alternating between picking up a pen to freewrite, typing in scenes, editing, and research keeps my brain fresh and working. Once my thinking gets fuzzy, it’s time to take a walk. Or maybe a nap. Did I mention there’s a couch in the studio, too?
I also read a lot of great writing in whatever genre I’m working on. So many memoirs while writing Tinderbox. It keeps my mind flexible and full of great words and structures that come through my subconscious into my fingers and land in my notebooks.
I found with Tinderbox I needed regular writing retreats. Immersion and a chance to binge write. My brain doesn’t multitask, so being able to focus on just the book project was a great gift. I’d load up my orange Subaru with notebooks, piles of research, and food and head to far west Texas where wide-open spaces and desert beauty conjured their magic. Two or three days to balance sleep, meditation, long walks, simple, good food and hours and hours of writing got lots of words on the page. Add in a bit of dark chocolate, copious cups of coffee and tea, and a glass of wine at the end of the day—Pinot Grigio or Vino Verde for summer and Cabernet ALL other times—and voilà, a book came to life.
Leslie Lindsay:
If you weren’t writing, you would be…
Lynn Alsup :
I love a long walk along a lonely beach, barefoot in bluejeans—preferably with a sweater on— eating straight from my backpack after wandering a farmer’s market. If its a work day, I’m on a Zoom screen offering hope and tools to folks struggling with the challenges of neurodiversity in our one-size-fits-everyone-world. Our webinars on the FASCETS Neurobehavioral Model truly change lives; I’m privileged to facilitate them. You might find me meditating or guiding meditation, too. Another life-changer.
Leslie Lindsay:
What ten words do you use on a daily basis—either in spoken or written languge?
Lynn Alsup :
Neurodiversity
Grateful
Respect-and-kindness
Shhhhhhh
Good morning, Bryn.
Breathe
Hi there
Love
Nap
Yum
“I LOVED this book! It’s a story that desperately needs to be heard. Lynn brilliantly captures two decades of her adoption journey. . . . With openness and grace, she shares her spiritual journey and hard-won wisdom. I recommend this book to families and mental health professionals struggling with children’s extreme behaviors.”
–Julia D. Rivera, Esquire, board director of Learning Disabilities Association and cofounder of North TX FASD Network
For more information, to purchase a copy of TINDERBOX or to connect with the author via social media, please visit her website.
About the Author:
Lynn Alsup is a social worker, spiritual director, and meditation teacher. Her three extraordinary, neurodivergent daughters led her to FASCETS, where she now trains parents and professionals in the Neurobehavioral Model; a paradigm that fosters celebration and accommodation of neurodiversity. She lives with her family on the edge of the Chihuahuan desert in Midland, TX, building resilience and joy through writing, yoga, wide-open spaces, and snuggling her four-legged rescuer, Bryn the Bassador.
Purchase Tinderbox HERE.
Browse my Bookshop.org for more books featured on Musings & Meanderings, and see what I’m reading in 2023…and more! See Memoir Recs HERE.
Some Readerly Things:
What’s on your fall reading radar? I want to know : ) You can respond in the comments or shoot me an email or connect on IG.
- In the meantime, this might be of interest
Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:
- This piece, MODEL HOME: A Study Under Compression, in On the Seawall, is something I am so proud of. It was conceived in a craft store when I wandered down the model train aisle. At home, I already had the moss and tiny house and vials. I wanted to depict something with words and photography that would spotlight my family falling into disarray…my mother’s mental illness, the ‘perfect’ home, the family divided. This was my answer. It’s my first text + image publication. Here’s a sampling:
- I am bowled over by the reception my poem, CREVASSE, received by Luke Johnson in the Spring 2023 issue of Ballast. Check out our dialogue about one another’s work HERE. Also, that landing page! Swooning.
- You can find some of my other poetry at Empyrean Literary Journal. This piece was conceived in a workshop at StoryStudio Chicago in which the prompt was to combine two totally different things with one’s childhood street. I chose my grandfather’s profession as stained-glass artist and the year 1989. The resulting piece is COLLAPSE.
- This interview with poet Pattiann Rogers in LitHub was such a dream. Pattiann is 82-years-old and still writing and publishing poetry. This piece is about nature, curiosity, and the flickering that happens in all creatures.
- Super-excited about this illustrated review in DIAGRAM, which has sorta been like a dream place of mine to get work published. It’s a beautiful melding of all things that bring me joy: fonts, words, ideas, art, books, and the human body. I mean…the only obsessions missing for me is architecture, travel, nature, and basset hounds. Check it out and the book, YOUR HEARTS, YOUR SCARS: Essays by the late Adina Talve-Goodman (Bellevue Literary Press, Jan 24 2023), which happens to be a Powell’s pick for January.
- Hippocampus Magazine…Juliet Patterson’s SINKHOLE: A Natural History of a Suicide (Milkweed, September 2022).
- Kathryn Gahl in conversation with me about her poetic memoir, THE YELLOW TOOTHBRUSH (Two Shrews Press, September 2022), about her incarcerated daughter, perinatal mood disorder, more in MER, November 28, 2022.
- Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s HALFWAY FROM HOME (Split/Lip Press, Nov 8) in Hippocampus Magazine, about her working-class unconventional childhood in California, moving across the country to pursue writing, home, displacement, and so much more November 13, 2022.
- Prose in SEPIA Journal Oct/Nov 2022 issue. Interiors is about an Appalachian family, black bottom pie, trains, and ear aches. It was inspired by my own family lore, and also: this journal is STUNNING!
- An essay about an experience at a workshop/retreat, featuring design/architecture, and how we are all works-in-progress, in The Smart Set.
- Speaking of Apraxia: A Parents’ Guide to Childhood Apraxia of Speech, 2nd edition (Woodbine House, 2021) through some online retailers, your local library, used bookstores (it’s now officially out-of-print), and the audio edition is downloadable (with additional PDFs, resources) through Penguin Random House.
There’s more to this newsletter. Keep scrolling.
What’s Obsessing Me:
Much of writing is made up of obsessions. We might use our obsession as catalyst, something that gets us writing and, if lucky, keeps us writing.
Sometimes we write about our obsession directly, hoping (perhaps futilely) to be purged free of it, once and for all.
Susan Sontag, while talking about writing and the writer’s life, said it simply:
“You have to be obsessed. It’s not something you’d want to be—it’s rather something you couldn’t help but be.”
What subjects do you keep returning to—from harmless infatuations to downright obsessions? Is it a piece of art of music? Why are you (okay, me) so obsessed with houses and homes? Old photographs? Paper and erasers and pencils? Basset hounds? Postcards? Old letters? Miniatures? I mean, really….the list could go on and on.
Until next time, happy writing & reading.
You are reading Musings & Meanderings, a consistently inconsistent weekly newsletter about the literary life from Leslie Lindsay, and home of an archive of bestselling and debut author interviews. I’m also on twitter and instagram. I try to answer comments as best I can. Feel free to find my book suggestions on bookshop.org, and also check out the authors I’ve hosted in in-depth interviews HERE.
In the meantime, catch me on:
Reviewing books and talking about them with others on-line and in-person is one small way to engage with & support the literary community.
Thank you for letting me guide you on your bookish journey.
One more thing! Let’s talk about this beautiful book. Field Guide to Graphic Literature from Rose Metal Press. It’s all about writers and artists on creating graphic narratives, poetry, comics, and collage. I can’t get enough. Edited by Kelcey Ervick and Tom Hart, this collection gives readers insight into the techniques of 28 of today’s most innovative creators of poetry, comics, graphic narrative, and image-content hybrids. Craft exercises, full-color examples, craft lesssons, exercises, and more. It’s definitely a joy to flip-though and is packed with all kinds of great tips, insight, and more.
Let’s walk this bookish path together.
THANK YOU!!
Some of you have been reading my reviews, interviews, and meanderings for more than a decade now. That’s huge and I am so humbled. Thanks for being here.
More than 2,800 folks read Musings & Meanderings.
Wishing you a lovely late summer season
Created by Leslie Lindsay. I’m a proud book nerd. Connect with me on Instagram, and Twitter. See what I’m reading on Bookshop.org. Find my reviews on GoodReads. I’m also a Zibby Books Ambassador.
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One last thing: I love Between the Covers podcast with David Naimon. Not listening yet? If you’re a serious reader and writer, I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Leslie A. Lindsay 
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