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~
Welcome November!
Are you taking stock?
The end of the year is fast approaching. I don’t know about you, but I always get a little reflective, even melancholic this time of year. At least here in the Midwest, the trees have mostly gone bare, the sky remains a skull gray, and well, it’s bleak. As I write this, a strange brew of leaves and rain/sleet slap against the windows.
Are you ready to take stock as a writer?
Have you thought about where you were in January and where you are now? What does ‘success’ look and feel like to you?
You might be a numbers person (I am not), but let’s say you are.
You can measure yourself by how many publications you got this year versus last. Did it go up or down? Does that matter? What if the actual publications went down but the places you were accepted to were more prestigious. Did you read more books this year than last? Did you attend more or fewer continuing ed opportunities? Join writing organizations (numbers people, how many?). Write so many words (who cares if they’re any ‘good?’), increase your newsletter subscriptions (hint, hint!), submit to so many agents? You get the idea. You have been busy!
Not a numbers person? I got you.
Maybe you had some really amazing engagements with a writing friend or two or five. Who are they? Treasure them. Did you push yourself farther than ever? In what capacity? Maybe you stayed up past your bedtime cranking out revisions. Maybe you took a workshop that was a little above your skill set and it kicked your butt but you walked away feeling like a rockstar. Perhaps you did the thing in your writing you never thought you’d do. You went really emotionally deep or dark or something new was revealed about you or a character and it was a total epiphany. Great, great, great! Keep going. Did you get asked to do a reading? An event? Also, awesome. Did you write in a new genre? Read something totally different? All of these are successes.
What about next year?
I have a friend who is great with long-term planning. She knows what vacation she will be taking in 2026. I’m great at the day-by-day thing. But! My daily to-do list is always a stepping stone to the bigger…uh, lake? Like, today, for example. I’m going to set aside time to just read. Reading is like passive writing for me. I’m also going to reach out to some editors at small presses. Reaching out is a step toward publication. I’m going to attend a Zoom meeting about the ‘most anticipated spring fiction,’ by a big-5 publisher. Why? I’m curious about trends and topics and what the industry considers ‘big.’ See? Small things for big impact.
Question:
What patterns emerged for you? Did you discover you are more of a numbers person? A ‘feeling’ person who relies on subjectivity and experience? Did you discover something new to excite your creative life?
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] 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 Celine Keating on her novel, THE STARK BEAUTY OF LAST THINGS (October 24 2023). I have new interview up at Hippocampus Magazine (Alice Carrier’s memoir, EVERYTHING/NOTHING/SOMEONE) poetry in Ballast, Neologism Poetry Journal, Empyrean, photography in Western Michigan Review, 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.
Three Writerly Things:
- Interested in what it takes to write a memoir, well? There’s a lot more to it that just jotting down your ‘memories.’ Check out this class taught by literary agent, Cece Lyra, also co-host of the postcast, The Sh*t No One Tells You About Writing. Fee-based.
- Deadheading, revision rifts, getting unstuck, and more in the Writing Tips Archives from Cleaver Magazine. Be prepared to hone your craft HERE.
- Want to get a glimpse of the quality and style of a TinHouse Writing Workshop without attending the full workshop? YOu’re in luck! TinHouse offers lecture passes for $200/lecture. It’s not exactly cheap, but less than attending the entire workshop. Lots of great offerings from memoir to poetry, agents and book proposals, and more.
New! Featured Author|Insights
Celine Keating
THE STARK BEAUTY OF LAST THINGS
A bartender. An environmentalist. A fishmonger. An orphan. A love letter to a Montauk under threat.
Leslie Lindsay:
Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say THE STARK BEAUTY OF LOST THINGS is about?
Celine Keating:
A love letter and elegy to Montauk, a small coastal town
Leslie Lindsay:
Where did you write THE STARK BEAUTY OF LOST THINGS? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?
Celine Keating:
I wrote this novel over many years. In the beginning I took a notebook to the beach, so I could write with the scent of the sea as inspiration. Mostly I wrote at a butcher block table in the bedroom of the small apartment my husband and I shared. Now I’m lucky enough to have an actual studio in which to write. My ritual is mostly the same – I tidy my desk area, shuffle a lot of paper and rearrange it quite needlessly for a while, and finally settle down. Sometimes I read a passage of prose or a poem to get me started.
Leslie Lindsay:
If you weren’t writing, you would be…
Celine Keating:
Gardening.
Leslie Lindsay:
What advice would you give to your younger writing self?
Celine Keating:
I’m an introvert and don’t like to ask for help or favors. I’ve learned to change this attitude over time, but wish I’d done so sooner. Here’s what I’d say to my younger writing self:
“Find a supportive community of writers to be part of, and spend the money for professional help when you get as far as you can on your own. You’re going to need the comradery, networking, and smarts that only being a part of a writing community can give you. Plus it’s way more fun.”
“An intelligent, psychologically astute, and beautifully written tale about the relationship of man and nature with not one predictable or cliched sentence or situation in sight.”
–Baum on Books, NPR
For more information, to purchase a copy of THE STARK BEAUTY OF LAST THINGS or to connect with the author via social media, please visit her website.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Céline Keating is an award-winning writer living in Rhode Island. She is the author of Layla (2011), a Huffington Post featured title, and Play for Me (2015), a finalist in the International Book Awards, the Indie Excellence Awards, and the USA Book Awards. Her newest novel, The Stark Beauty of Last Things, will be released on October 24, 2023. Céline’s short fiction and articles have been published in numerous literary journals and magazines.
Browse my Bookshop.org for more books featured on Musings & Meanderings, and see what I’m reading in 2023…and more!
Three 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.
- As a person who interviews plenty of authors, you’d think I might not want to read interviews. You would be wrong. It’s great to see how other interviewers pose and structure their questions. For example, Jonathan Lethem really wants you to ask him about his dedication, more about his process, and other readerly/writerly insights.
- Banned Books is a big thing right now, right? My childhood rockstar, LeVar Burton tells us we should read what they don’t want us to read; that’s where ‘the good stuff is’ in this video.
- Read National Book Award finalist Monica Youn’s From, From “A svelte, intrepid foray into American racism. . . . In reflecting and refracting the fantasies and absurdities, dark secrets and blatant cruelties by which American racism invents and maintains itself, Youn counters our brutal imagination with flammable, superior dreams.”—Joyelle McSweeney, The New York Times Book Review.
Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:
- It was an honor to speak with Alice Carriere about her new memoir, EVERYTHING/NOTHING/SOMEONE (August 29 2023, Spiegel & Grau) about family dysfunction, mental illness, art, houses, among other things, for Hippocampus Magazine. Check out our conversation, and grab yourself a copy of the book!
- 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:
- Images + Text has been an obsession of mine for awhile now, and I love the way The Comfort of Crows (Margaret Renkl, S&G October 24 2023) integrates art with narrative, the visual pieces are created by Renkl’s brother! Gah. I am swooning over this collage.
- My pediatrician wrote another book! I love her. She’s a mom of four (her first book was about raising twins), an d I had NO idea she was working on another. I missed the event, because I was out-of-town, but she was in conversation at my local bookstore, Anderson’s with Chicago Tribune newspaper columnist, Heidi Stevens. While this link takes you to the October 15th bookstore event (which has obviously already passed), you can learn more and maybe order the book, if you’re interested–NURTURING BOYS TO BETTER MEN.
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.”
I love this insight from Jami Attenburg’s Craft Talk, which I am totally stealing from her newsletter (you should subscribe-it’s FREE!)
“[…]Novels to me are just neighborhoods full of lively people to visit. You can walk in their front doors and see people sitting at their kitchen table and say hello and then walk straight through to the yard to see who is playing out back. Novels are about open doors. But locked doors, too. Trying the handles, to see which ones you can get in. You gotta keep trying until you find someone home.”
I mean, how great is that?!
Until next time, happy writing & reading.
Sneak Peek: We’ll feature Susan Blumberg-Kason’s BERNARDINE’S SHANGHAI SALON in the Musings & Meandering’s Insights.
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.
What I’m Listening to:
This fabulous podcast, The Next Big Idea with author Susan Cain, the author, most recently of BITTERSWEET: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole (Crown, April 2022), how we often need and gravitate toward melancholy, but also she talks about music affects us, how we don’t always have to be ‘happy,’ a troubled relationship with her mother while she was away at college (which I really resonated with), and you can even take the bittersweet quiz, to see where you rank on this characteristic. [Note: I’m pretty high, in case you were curious].
Get the book HERE
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 fall 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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Sending you all happy November vibes!
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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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