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~
“We do not act upon the world. We are the world in its unspeakable tensions, contradictions, experimentations, creativities, and messy alchemies.”
– Bayo Akomola
We can officially say it’s fall. And I don’t know about you, but I love fall. It’s cozy. It’s bookish. It’s a reminder that there is so much going on in the world. And by that, I mean, the natural world. We might float along not taking notice of the changes that are happening under our very feet, but they are there, tiny, imperceptible until they are. Just because the leaves are changing (and dropping), does not mean it’s all gloom and doom. It is not summer’s funeral. It is a transition. And you, too, are transitioning. We cannot improve if we don’t transition, like a threshold.
What does this even mean?
It means that in order to grow, to be better, bigger, more colorful–whatever–you might have to shed some of your ‘old’ parts. Just as the leaves have one last show, so do you. It doesn’t have to be all at once. It’s gradual. It’s a tweak or something new. It’s one new thing, not fifty. It’s one bad habit gone, not one hundred. It’s one page of your manuscript. It’s two changes to your character. It’s one leaf, one pumpkin spice latte, one book. That’s it.
You can do this. One thing you add or change will help something bigger grow.
This is the good part!
What Brought you here?
Let’s talk about that. Where to you hope to go and share and be?
Find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and let’s chat!
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 Cynthia Swanson on grief, intuition, music, and so much more. I have a new author conversation in Fugue Reviews, 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. I also have a piece in the BECOMING REAL anthology, edited by Laraine Herring (Oct 1 2024) Regal House/Pact Press), which benefits Girls Write Now, a mentorship for young women who want to write.
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:
- How does it feel to finally become a published author after years of ‘covering’ books? Check out this piece, On the Anxiety of Finally Publishing, by Maris Kreizman.
- Getting to the Truth: A Craft & Practice. I’m always up for a good craft book…even if we are disciplined writers, sometimes we need a refresher, right? Check out this book from Hippocampus.
- Maybe you’d like to write in the Himalayas? This retreat nestled in the mountains of India is being offered through Writer’s International in 2025 with the lovely and talented Abby Geni leading. I can attest to her great instructional style and crisp writing. It’s nearly all-inclusion, with the exception of your flight. Sounds like an amazing opportunity! Learn more HERE.
New! Featured Author|Insights
Cynthia Swanson
ANYONE BUT HER: A Novel
“Suzanne’s story, both past and present, is an unflinching portrayal of a family gone haywire, when, in the face of tragedy, communication lacks and secrecy builds.”
Set in 1979 and 2004, Anyone But Her tells the story of Suzanne—named for the Leonard Cohen song and adored by her mother, Alex, who is killed during a robbery at Alex’s record store when Suzanne is 14. Both as a teen and later in adulthood, Suzanne searches for clues about unresolved circumstances around Alex’s death. But what happens when she discovers what she thought she wanted to know?
Leslie Lindsay:
Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say ANYONE BUT HER is about?
Cynthia Swanson:
Knowledge, intuition, and grief. ANYONE BUT HER tells the story of Suzanne Parry, whose mother, Alex, is shot and killed in 1979, when Suzanne is 14, during an armed robbery of Alex’s small indie record store in Denver. A clairvoyant since childhood, Suzanne is unsurprised when Alex’s ghost appears—but she struggles with the task Alex gives her: intervening in the relationship between Suzanne’s father and his new girlfriend, Peggy. The repercussions of Suzanne’s investigation into Peggy are long-lasting—and in 2004, when adult Suzanne returns to Denver with her husband and children, the ghosts of the past intermingle with present-day challenges and threats to Suzanne’s and her children’s safety.
Leslie Lindsay:
Where did you write ANYONE BUT HER? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?
Cynthia Swanson:
It took me nearly five years to write ANYONE BUT HER, which means I wrote in a lot of places. Most often, I write at home, but as a Denverite, I also like escaping to the mountains for a few days whenever I can, to get in some solid writing time without distractions. Also, because this book takes place in specific Denver neighborhoods – namely, Capitol Hill and Cheesman Park – I often wrote in coffee shops in those parts of town.
Leslie Lindsay:
If you weren’t writing, you would be…
Cynthia Swanson:
Hmm, I can’t imagine not writing. That being said, when I was Suzanne’s age, I aspired to be an architect and write “on the side.” While I gave up studying architecture in college, my passion for design still comes through in my books, which often feature one or more distinctive homes. In ANYONE BUT HER, that home is the Parry family’s 1888 Queen Anne Victorian in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
[Leslie’s Note: Same! I totally wanted to be an architect. Seems like Evan Friss, our September Insights Author, did too. One might think the idea of writing and design/architecture is related to this concept of creating something, building a world, much like we do when we write].
Leslie Lindsay:
How do you balance writing with research?
Cynthia Swanson:
I love research as much as I love writing, and here’s a confession: I enjoy it more than I enjoy writing first drafts. Because of this, I do very little research while working on a first draft of a book. I only research what I need to hammer out the basic story. Other than that, I make lots of guesses and take lots of notes. Getting that first draft written is my “carrot on the stick,” because at that point I allow myself a deep dive into research. Sometimes that changes certain aspects of the plot, but I still find it the most efficient way to work. If I didn’t use this methodology, I’m afraid I would do tons of research while writing very little.
For more information, to purchase a copy of or to connect with the author via social media, please visit her website.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cynthia Swanson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the psychological suspense novels The Bookseller, The Glass Forest, and Anyone But Her. Cynthia is also the editor of the award-winning anthology Denver Noir, which features dark, morally ambiguous stories set in and around Denver, written by 14 notable literary and mystery authors. She lives with her family in Denver. Find Cynthia online at www.cynthiaswansonauthor.com and follow her on Facebook (Cynthia Swanson, Author) and Instagram (cynswanauthor).
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.
- What does ‘your best self’ even mean? Mary Gaitskill tackles illusion and invisibility and more in this piece, The Pnuema Illusion, which originally ran in Granta in July 2024.
- Fall is the time for the heavy-hitters. Books, that is. Here’s a fun, back-to-school themed flowchart on what you should read next. From Lit Hub.
- ‘Mad Love,’ an essay featured in BLR by
Acamea Deadwiler will knock your socks off. It’s about a young woman and her little brother surviving their mother’s severe mental illness, about hungering for all the things…
Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:
- BECOMING REAL: An Anthology (Regal House/Pact Press, Oct 1 2024). My work is featured in this glorious anthology about the speculative, edited by Laraine Herring. I am proud to share that purchase of this book benefits Girls Write Now organization.
- What if you went to a writer’s retreat/workshop and the unspeakable happened? What if you were berated and torn to shreds and then worse…you went missing? Were presumed dead? That’s what happens in this novel by Andromeda Romano-Lax, THE DEEPEST LAKE, whom I interviewed for Fugue Review. Seriously, you don’t want to miss this one. It’s also about writing craft and the workshopping experience.
- I spoke with Barrie Miskin about her mysterious mental health struggles during pregnancy, the broken mental health system, and maternal mental health in Hippocampus Magazine. Check out her raw and moving memoir, HELL GATE BRIDGE (Woodhall Press, June 2024) and eavesdrop on our conversation, too.
- Suzanne Scanlon appears as if she has it all together in a literary sense–and she does–but there’s a darker history under the surface. She was once hospitalized in one of the nation’s most well-known psychiatric institutions. I loved COMMITTED: On Meaning and Madwomen. Check out our conversation in Hippocampus Magazine.
- Susannah Kennedy, author of READING JANE: A DAUGHTER’S MEMOIR (Sibylline Press, September 2023) and I chat about the archives we’ve read, carried, and made sense of after our mothers died by suicide, but we also discuss so many others in this February 2024 interview in Hippocampus Magazine.
- Identity and closed adoptions, plus a thirty-year journey to publication, Susan Kiyo Ito and I discuss her award-winning memoir, I WOULD MEET YOU ANYWHERE (Mad Creek Press, 2023) in the January 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 2023 issue of Hippocampus Magazine.
Click HERE for more of my published writing.
There’s more to this newsletter. Keep scrolling.
What’s Obsessing Me:
- I’m still thinking about a recent trip to Southern Italy, the people I met there. Umberto in Sicily, Serena in Napoli/Capri, the woodcarvers Guisseppe and son Salvatore, Claudio the hiker/biker/bartender in Matera, Pino at the bike shop, Rosa the chef/singer in Palermo. I’m thinking about the Sicilian flea market where I sorted through hundreds of Italian snapshots from the 1950s and 1960s and the receptionist at our hotel with the beautiful silver bob.
- I’m swooning over the Bell House in Southern Metcalfe County, Kentucky, which was built between 1907-1909 for a man’s daughter and new husband as a wedding gift (I think I got the history right), and it just so happens to be right at the intersection of where my great-grandmother, Cora Belle, grew up in Red Lick, Nell, and Elroy/Breeding, Kentucky.
- Really? Isn’t that enough?! Also? Are you familiar with my postcard project? Let’s get some mail flowing. Check out my IG stories and highlights for more details and instructions.
Drop me a line!
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 November, I’ll chat with Mark Haber about his new novel, LESSER RUINS.
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:
As I sift through this new project, which combines genealogy, legacy, and untold stories, I’ve found the Photo Detective Podcast (Maureen Taylor) quite helpful and inspiring. Each episode offers little tidbits of research hints, photo tips, organization ideas, and more. I get mine through Spotify.
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.
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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Wishing you all the best this fall
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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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