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~
Fresh & New
Brand-new Year…blank slate…what are your obsessions?
I recently had the opportunity to learn and write alongside the fabulous Nami Mun and Eula Biss, real-life writer friends and creative writing instructors. One focuses on fiction, the other nonfiction, one is kind of wacky, the other more serious, both are brilliant. Together, they balanced one another perfectly. That’s really what I think this is about: balance. And also: obsession.
How does obsession work in your writing–or creative pursuit–does it?! It should! Here’s an exercise I gleaned from Nami, which I am going to attempt to share with you. Six questions. Go ahead, number your papers one through six, just like you’re still in grade school.
- What is the title of a childhood book you loved? What is a scene(s) that stands out to you? Write that down.
- What is the title of a story you wrote as a child?
- What was your favorite childhood toy? Something you might still think about?
- When was the last time you ‘lost your shit?’
- What was the title of the last book you read? A couple of words that summarize it…
- What do you believe is your chronic conflict?
Got your list? Now, the fun part. You might immediately see the patterns that emerge, maybe not. Maybe you can circle some keywords in that list and create a new list from your list.
Mine sort of went like this: haunted house, dollhouse, family, motherhood…I mean…none of this is a surprise, right?! Key scenes: when the ghosts were revealed. The stormy night at Meg Wallace’s house; how things aren’t always what they seem. Chronic conflict stumped me. I mean…I have MANY!!! Failure? Abandonment? Isolation?
The point here, is all of these things fuel our writing. They may inform our literary choices in terms of what we read, the characters we create, the settings we explore, the narrative arc.
I’ll probably never write anything that doesn’t have to do with homes on some level–a neighborhood, interiors, the structure, even if it’s not inherently visible on the page, it informs my writing.
Keep going!
Question:
What are some of your obsessions? Can you honestly answer these questions. You might try having someone else analyze your responses to the six questions. Let them ask probing questions to get to the heart. You might be surprised what is revealed, what was under the surface all along.
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 Kate on her gritty investigative domestic thriller, RABBIT HOLE (Soho Press, January 2 2024). I interviewed Susan Kiyo Ito for her debut memoir, I WOULD MEET YOU ANYWHERE for Hippocampus Magazine, which looks at closed adoptions, Japanese culture, writing the very difficult, and took her 30 years to finish! Plus poetry in Ballast, Neologism Poetry Journal, Empyrean, photography in Western Michigan Review, and a photo-essay featuring miniatures in On the Seawall.
Musings & Meanderings is a labor of love. Lately, it’s been more labor than love. I’m going to try just one per month in order to focus on my own work. Find me on IG and Twitter, where you’ll find recently-published interviews, essays, photography, and poetry.
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:
- Want to try your hand at a historical novel? I can’t lie, the genre definitely interests me. Check out this one-time Master Class PJ Seminar with Samantha Silva through StoryStudio Chicago. Fee-based, February 27.
- Newsletters and email lists (ahem) area big thing these days. Are you doing all you need to keep a robust one? Check out this class offering from publishing insider Jane Friedman. Fee-based, Feb 8.
- Curious what Time Magazine considers the top-reads of 2023? What constitutes a ‘top read?’ Is it a popularity game? Something that is timely and topical? Good writing? Celebrities? How many of these have you read? [I read five from this list] Here’s the thing, reading makes you a better writer. Read, read, read!
New! Featured Author|Insights
Kate Brody
RABBIT HOLE: A Novel
A twisty debut exploring the dark side of true crime fandom and the blurry lines of female friendship, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, My Favorite Murder, and Fleabag
Ten years ago, Teddy Angstrom’s older sister, Angie, disappeared. Now Teddy’s father, Mark, has killed himself. Unbeknownst to his family, Mark had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, and Teddy can’t help but fall down the same rabbit hole
Leslie Lindsay:
Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say RABBT HOLE is about?
Kate Brody:
Grief, family, growing up, stagnancy, paranoia, longing …
Leslie Lindsay:
Where did you write RABBIT HOLE? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?
Kate Brody:
When I started RABBIT HOLE, I was living in Astoria, Queens. I was teaching English at an all-boys high school, and I wrote mostly at night. In 2019, I went on maternity leave with my first son, and that’s when I completed much of the first draft of the book. Then, we moved to LA and I finished RABBIT HOLE there. I’m not sure there is much routine involved in my writing practice. I usually write in a big reclining chair, with my laptop balancing on a lap pillow, like a slob. I try to fit the work in wherever I can, around the kids and my other work. Sometimes that means days of prolonged productivity, and sometimes weeks pass with very little to show.
Leslie Lindsay:
If you weren’t writing, you would be…
Kate Brody:
I was teaching English before I sold the book, so I suppose that answer makes the most sense. But going way back–before I got derailed by creative writing in college, I planned to be physician. In another life!
Leslie Lindsay:
What book did you read recently that you can’t stop thinking about?
Kate Brody:
I have been recommending Jennifer Belle’s SWANNA IN LOVE to absolutely everyone. It comes out at the end of January, and it is phenomenal. It was pitched as an inverse Lolita, as it follows a teenage girl who pursues a married man, but that description doesn’t do justice to just how hilarious and heartbreaking the story is. Every detail feels so fresh, and Belle’s dialogue is razor sharp. I will be carrying her characters with me for a long time.
“I absolutely loved this book. Rabbit Hole is an unflinching portrait of grief and obsession, as well as a genuinely gripping mystery. The characters feel raw and real, the story is dark and timely. I couldn’t put it down.”
— Ainslie Hogarth, author of Motherthing and Normal Women
For more information, to purchase a copy of RABBIT HOLE or to connect with the author via social media, please visit her website.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kate Brody is a novelist, living in LA. She holds an MFA from NYU, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New York Times, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, CrimeReads, Electric Lit, The Literary Review, Write or Die Magazine, and Noema, among others. RABBIT HOLE is her debut novel.
Browse my Bookshop.org for more books featured on Musings & Meanderings, and see what I’m reading in 2024…and more!
Three Readerly Things:
What books or essays you’ve read and enjoyed or felt energized by lately? Is there a book you’ve been consistently recommending? If nothing comes to mind, can you make a plan to pop by your local bookstore for a second? I promise, you will find something. You can respond in the comments or shoot me an email or connect on IG.
Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:
- Thirty years to write and publish a memoir?! Yep! And I am so honored to have spoken with Susan Kiyo Ito for Hippocampus Magazine, about her debut memoir, I WOULD MEET YOU ANYWHERE, about her closed adoption, finding her birth mother, and unlocking secrets about her paternity.
- What IS speculative memoir?! That was a question that came up at a recent writing retreat by a fellow writer? It sounds like it might mean it’s ‘made up,’ but if it’s memoir, isn’t it also true? We talk about that and more in this interview with Jami Nakamura Lin, author of THE NIGHT PARADE (November 2023, Mariner Books), as well as grief, mental illness, and Japanese folklore. Plus, it’s illustrated by her sister, Cori! In the December issue of Hippocampus Magazine.
- 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:
- Lake Forest, Illinois. It’s home to many large homes designed by world-famous architects. I love them. I loathe them. When I did a little digging on the history of Lake Forest, I discovered it was originally one of the first desegregated places. In fact, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s niece taught at one of the first integrated schools.
- The architecture school and archives at The Chicago Art Institute Definitely going to make an appointment to cull through the archives.
- My great-grandmother. Here she is in front of her Kentucky home. The photo is undated, but we’re guessing this might be the 1940s or 1950s.
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 February, I’ll be at AWP in Kansas City, so be sure we’re connected on IG, where I’ll be sharing snippets and highlights. I’ll also be in conversation right here with Robin Oliveira, whose historical fiction, A WILD AND HEAVENLY PLACE (Putnam, Feb 13) will be out, about the birth of Seattle, sisters, a secret, and more.
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 Reading:
I recently had the great opportunity to write and study alongside Eula Biss at Ragdale. While I’m familiar with her work, I had yet to read ON HAVING AND BEING HAD (2020), which is nothing short of amazing. It braids personal experience with research on home ownership, property, economics-lite, and more, told in lyric short fragments.
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.
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Wishing you a warm and cozy winter 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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Wishing you the very best this New Year.
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Leslie A. Lindsay 
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