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~
…In and Out…
Changing it Up
As a mother to late-teenaged daughters, I am starting to feel old, dated, out-of-touch. They have slang that I don’t get or use correctly. Slay! Mid. Ate. Shirts that barely seem legitimate. Vintage Nikes from…1993?!
I got to thinking about Spring and how it’s a natural progression of growth, newness, vitality. How maybe it’s better to think of Spring as a time to kick-start your year, not January.
Here’s a list of what’s In and what’s out:
In:
- Supporting local, independent bookstores.
- Solo reading dates in coffee shops, or even bars! Or the park.
- Admiring book jacket art. Someone put a great deal of time, effort, creativity, and thought into the way the book is presented. Be grateful that this piece of literature is also a work of visual art.
- Sustained Silent Reading (SSR). Remember this, from when we were kids?! I got so many stars on my Pizza Hut badge that I earned like, five deep dish pizzas! Seriously, try reading for a full hour with no interruptions, that means, put. the. cell. phone. away!
- Attending in-person book events, talks, etc. GO TO THE BOOKSTORE, the event venue, the library. Say ‘hello’ to the event organizer and the author. We love that kind of thing. And we’re not scary. I mean…maybe a little?
- Nice reviews on GoodReads and Amazon. If you can’t say something nice, please say nothing. If you just want to check off that you finished reading, fine. But seriously, these ratings and rankings help get books into the right hands.
Out:
- Big box bookstores and that one shall-not-be-named online retailer. If you must order a book, do it directly from the publisher (yep, they have websites), Bookshop.org, The Center for Fiction, or your local (or not local), indie.
- Turning books backward on the shelf for ‘aesthetic’ reasons. If you like symmetry and design, why not stack them artfully or organize by color?
- Doom-scrolling. Scrolling in general. Better: create your own content. Better yet: comment meaningfully. Engage and interact with the people/accounts you follow. Best: Offer something of value unique to you.
- Zooming Events. Look, I get it. They are convenient. Sometimes you don’t want to leave your house or you think your hair is dumb or you have nothing to wear (you do). But it’s 2024 and the world has changed a lot since that pandemic thing. Get out. Show your support. But if just can’t…the bookstore is too far away, like in another state, fine. Sit at home in your pajamas and watch, but also? Participate.
- Snarky Reviews, anywhere. If you really didn’t like a book–I get it, it happens!–just don’t say anything. All reading and writing (all art forms) are subjective. Don’t be a troll and sabotage someone’s book. That actually reflects poorly on you. Your only real recourse is to write your own.
That’s so lit!
Action Item:
The arts need our support, friends. Can you find something in your local area to support something artsy? It could be as simple as going into a new bookstore and purchasing something (it doesn’t have to be a book!). Post about it on social media. Attend a free gallery or opening. If you can donate (even a small amount goes a long way), do. Shop at an art co-op. Buy handmade jewelry, notecards, candles, perfume. Not for you? Maybe a gift.
Question:
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 D.J Green NO MORE EMPTY SPACES (SheWrites Press, April 9 2024).
…scroll down to read!
I interviewed Susan Kiyo Ito for Hippocampus Magazine about her adoption memoir, I WOULD MEET YOU ANYWHERE, Japanese culture, writing the very difficult, meeting her birth mother, and how it 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:
- Midwest Writer’s Conference is coming July 11-16 in Muncie, Indiana. Check it out and be inspired…it’s a great place to meet likeminded folks, get writing advice, inspiration, jump-start a project, or re-discover an old one.
- Writing for solace? Writing about trauma? You’re not alone. This article by Ruth Wilson and published by Authors Publish, provides 4 steps on how to make the most of this practice.
- Check out the FREE archives from Writer’s Bridge. You’ll love these 1-hour sessions in which writers talk about writing…memoir, craft, publicity, characters, more.
New! Featured Author|Insights
AUTHOR
NO MORE EMPTY SPACES: A Novel
It’s 1973 and Will Ross, a divorced American geologist, has signed on to work on a troubled dam in a remote, rugged part of Turkey. He decides to take his children with him, but they think they’re only going for their usual two-week stint of shared custody, not to live there.
“Green’s prose is tender and keenly observant . . . . A fascinating and frequently moving novel of family and geology.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Leslie Lindsay:
Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say NO MORE EMPTY SPACES is about?
D.J. Green:
Finding home—in ourselves, in our families, and in the landscape.
Also, how do we define progress, and is all progress as positive as we’d like to think.
Leslie Lindsay:
Where did you write NO MORE EMPTY SPACES? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?
D.J. Green:
Mostly in my writing space, which I call my library, at my home in New Mexico, but also on my sailboat, and at a few much-appreciated writing residencies. I don’t have a set schedule to write, because my life doesn’t have a set schedule. But I do a Yoga-As-Muse practice (that I learned years ago from Jeffrey Davis, and I still use his book, The Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies and Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing) to focus before all my writing sessions.
Leslie Lindsay:
If you weren’t writing, you would be…
D.J. Green:
Doing more bookselling at the local independent bookstore where I’m a partner, Bookworks in Albuquerque. Taking longer daily hikes. Sailing my boat all the way to Alaska, but I’m going to do that one of these days along with my writing.
Leslie Lindsay:
What are you working on next?
D.J. Green:
I’m working on my second novel. Its working title is Chances, which is the name of a sailboat. It’s the story of a woman taking the helm of her life as she learns to command the helm of her sailboat, as told by the fair little ship’s First Mate, who also happens to be an intrepid boat dog.
‘
“No More Empty Spaces is a wonderful read, with some of the best prose I’ve seen regarding the intractable forces of nature. This struggling blended family faces every kind of overwhelming challenge, from love to liquor to the great dam at Kayakale in Turkey. The book made me want to go there and see this extraordinary landscape for myself!”
—A. R. Taylor, author of Jenna Takes the Fall and Call Me When You’re Dead
For more information, to purchase a copy of NO MORE EMPTY SPACES, or to connect with the author via social media, please visit her website.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
D. J. Green is a writer, geologist, and sailor, as well as a bookseller and partner in Bookworks, an independent bookstore in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She lives near the Sandia Mountains in Placitas, New Mexico, and cruises the Salish Sea on her sailboat during the summers. No More Empty Spaces is her first 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.
- Getting Creative with book bans…
- Ever wonder how Nelly Bly made CNF a ‘thing’ before it was a thing? Check out this article in LitHub.
- Ever wondered what a book publicist does? I collaborate with them daily. This interview (not by me, but borrowed from Authors Publish) with Megan Fishman, VP/associate publisher and senior director of publicity at Softskull Press answers some questions about her role.
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.
- 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.
There’s more to this newsletter. Keep scrolling.
What’s Obsessing Me:
- Giant mansions of Lake Forest and Lake Bluff, IL. I found one that is (only?!) 29,000 square feet (and built during The Great Depression, of all times)
- Appalachian Photography ala Shelby Lee Adams
- Puppy Yoga. Happiness really IS a warm puppy.
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 May I’ll be hosting Amy Shearn, author of (most recently) DEAR EDNA SLOANE. But this book (below) is Lily King…even though ‘winter’ is in the title, it look spring-y…right?!
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:
Richard Marx. Yep, the 1980s-1990s music star…I recently attended his concert in Chicago and man, can this guy still rock! He’s writing and singing, playing the guitar (and piano), and totally inspiring. Yep–I’m the only dork who attends a concert and walks out with a signed copy of a book.
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.
Hey…let’s sit on the patio and read books.
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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That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )
Wishing you warmth and renewal this spring.
Find me on Instagram for this exclusive content: @leslielindsay1| Booknerd
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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| Writer & Creative 