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…November!
Do you have a writing community?
If you’re a writer, you likely have a love-hate relationship with the craft. And that’s totally normal! Awhile back. A loooong while back, I was struggling with the decision to muster on with this…uh…calling? Vocation? I bumped into a writing friend in the parking lot of the grocery store and he said, “Are you writing?” We had been in a writing group that had since disbanded. “Uh, no.” I said.
He gave me that rolled lip nod and hands-in-pocket stance. “Why?”
Did I really have to go into all of that, in the parking lot, while a brisk breeze whipped leaves at my feet? I shrugged, said it was good seeing him.
“You’re not off the hook!” he called after me. “Get with your butt to a writing group. Get with your peeps.”
I’m with my peeps.
That was several years ago. More than. I lost track. But that’s the thing: it’s easy to lose track of time when you’re writing. The time will pass anyway, you might as well make it worth your while.
How?
It’s called community. People work better when we are in a collective group with similar goals and aspirations. We see the world the same. This grocery store parking lot writing friend had ‘been there.’ He’s had crummy writing days filled with loathing and self-doubt, he’s has top-of-the-world days of feeling pretty damn smug about his work. Why not harness that kind of friendship?
Writing is not easy. It can be soul-sucking. It can be tedious and lonely and ridiculously competitive, but it shouldn’t be. It really should be joyful. The best way, I’ve found, to keep the pleasure in writing is to be connected to a community of writers. How does one cultivate that?
Go to writing groups. You can find them at coffee shops and libraries and maybe even a college campus. Try googling one in your area. Look for one on Facebook. Can’t find one? Start one.
Read. I mean, there’s a community right there in your book! Seriously, read in public. This might help you strike up a conversation. Writers are always readers first. And they may be one or know someone. You never know.
Attend writing conferences and workshops and retreats. Follow-up. Stay in touch. Send a text. Send an email. Be kind.
Maybe you connect with another reader/writer on Goodreads or Instagram or Twitter or Facebook or wherever. It may take time, but if you reach out on a consistent basis, you may find that you are both writers and have other things in common, too. Treasure these friendships, they are absolutely invaluable. Worth their weight in gold. Not that you should be weighing your friends.
Question:
How did you meet your writing peeps? Do you flourish in a community? Have they helped you? Pushed you? Supported you? Yes, I bet so. Tell us!
Respond here in a comment, or find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
xx,
~Leslie : )
P.S. You might totally dig this online offering Crafting Connections: Building Online Communities for Writers with Jen Mann through Zibby Media/Zibby Books on Creating a Writing Community. Fee-based, December 3.
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 Susan Blumberg-Kason on her recently-released biography, BERNARDINE’S SHANGHAI SALON: Meet the Doyenne of Old China (Post Hill Press, November 7 2023). I interviewed the lovely and award-winning journalist Meg Kissinger on her recently-released memoir, WHILE YOU WERE OUT: An Intimate Portrait of One Family During an Era of Silence (Celadon Books, September 2023) in Hippocampus Magazine, plus 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:
- It’s NaNoWriMo and if that’s just whetting your appetite, you might consider registering for Novel-in-Progress Book Camp and retreat in June. A friend of mine went last year for the first time and raved about it. She’s going again. Maybe you’ll be there, too?
- Are you in the midst of seeking representation/looking for a literary agent? I SEE you. Check out this podcast about agent rejection, revision, empathy, and more.
- This isn’t until March, but Kat Falls, MG/YA author will be teaching this one-time class through StoryStudio Chicago on reviving a manuscript, or looking at one that may be on the back-burner. Fee-based.
New! Featured Author|Insights
Susan Blumberg-Kason
BERNARDINE’S SHANGHAI SALON
Meet the Jewish salon host in 1930s Shanghai who brought together Chinese and expats around the arts as civil war erupted and World War II loomed on the horizon.
Leslie Lindsay:
Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say BERNARDINE’S SHANGHAI SALON is about?
Susan Blumberg-Kason:
1930s literary scenes
Mother/daughter relationships
Independent women
Theater and ballet
Cross-cultural friendships
Leslie Lindsay:
Where did you write BERNARDINE’S SHANGHAI SALON? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?
Susan Blumberg-Kason:
When our schools went remote in 2020, I assumed I would have to put my writing on hold for a year or more. But our middle school teachers were amazing and kept my kids captivated from morning to mid-afternoon. We bought desks for them to put in their rooms and I ended up getting a desk to put in mine! That’s where I wrote the book. A decade before that, I wrote my memoir sittings cross-legged on my living room chair because two of my kids still napped upstairs and I didn’t want to do anything to wake them up, but with Bernardine I wanted to be near the kids upstairs because they inspired me to focus on this book! My only routine is that I like to exercise in the morning before I start writing, even if it’s just 20-30 minutes. I feel like it’s best to get that out of the way first!
Leslie Lindsay:
If you weren’t writing, you would be…
Susan Blumberg-Kason:
I’d be dreaming of opening a little independent bookstore!
Leslie Lindsay:
Everyone asks about book covers, titles, themes. What can you tell us about the dedication, an epigraph, the foreword, or acknowledgements section in your book?
Susan Blumberg-Kason:
I dedicated the book to Bernardine’s two cousins in California, Nancy Lilienthal and David Szanton. They both invited me into their homes to go through hundreds of pages of Bernardine’s unpublished writings and dozens of photographs, many of which were taken more than 100 years ago. I never could have written this book without Nancy and David. And the best part is that we have become close friends, as if we’d known each other for years.
“Blumberg-Kason navigates the intricacies of Bernardine Szold Fritz’s biography with great sensitivity.”
Brian Haman for the Asian Review of Books
For more information, to purchase a copy of BERNARDINE’S SHANGHAI SALON, or to connect with the author via social media, please visit her website.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China (Post Hill Press, 2023) and Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong (Sourcebooks, 2014). She is also the co-editor of Hong Kong Noir (Akashic Books, 2018). Susan is a regular contributor to the Asian Review of Books, World Literature Today, and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. Her work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and PopMatters. Born, raised, and now based in the Chicago suburbs, Susan can be found on Instagram @susanbkason.
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.
- What if you just walked away? Left your husband and child and checked into a hotel down the road? Is it negligence or reinvention? This book was recently brought to my attention and it definitely has piqued by curiosity.
- “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you,” If this quote from Maya Angelou resonates (same!), then I urge you to take a peek at Susan Ito’s interview in Datebook, her 30 year struggle to write and publish her adoption memoir, and more.
- Not new, per se, but new to me! I recently attended StoryStudio 2023 Chicago’s Writer’s Festival and Nami Mun was one of our featured presenter’s (on revision, which was fabulous). I discovered her 2009 novel, MILES FROM NOWHERE and cannot wait to read. And…I’ll be attending her Ragdale Master’s Retreat with Eula Biss in December. So, looks like I have homework. ; )
Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:
- Such an important and affirming interview with the lovely award-winning journalist Meg Kissinger about her recently-released memoir, WHILE YOU WERE OUT (September 2023, Celadon Books), about a large family with mentally unstable parents, a family plagued by suicide, plus a plea to improve housing for mentally ill. In the November issue of Hippocampus Magazine.
- 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:
- Little Free Libraries. Seriously cute, seriously cool. I want one. Have you got one? Does it create community? Is it adorable?
- Winter greens. Making things beautiful with natural elements.
- Creating connections with the writing /art world. And not just creating but maintaining, which is the key.
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.
Sneak Peek: In December, you’ll find a 4Qs Insight Interview with Jami Nakumura Lin, author of the wildly-anticipated speculative memoir, THE NIGHT PARADE (Mariner Books, November 7 2023)
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:
I’m back to my tried and true podcast, the one that always gets me in the mood for writing, the one that allows my thoughts to shift and bend and open. It’s David Naimon’s Between the Covers and the episode I’m intrigued by is Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. Her new book, TOUCHING THE ART, just released earlier this month from Softskull Press.
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.
Learn more HERE.
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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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