Leslie A. Lindsay| Writer & Creative

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Musings & Meanderings: Only your writing friends understand, finding your peeps, DISPATCHES FROM PUERTO NOWHERE, keeping track of your writing/creative time part 2, retreats & workshops

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 March!

Only Your Writer Friends Understand

Occasionally I get asked, “Are you still writing?” or, “How’s the writing going?” Sometimes there’s variation: “Have you anything published recently?”

Maybe you’re not a ‘real’ writer if you have nothing to show for it.

But here’s the thing: writing requires long hours – a long process – to create.

Few people understand what it takes specifically for writers to create.

For example, I’ll bet there are several among your group who don’t get it. (I call them “non-writers,” original right?) They don’t understand that when you’re staring out a window for half an hour, you’re at work. Maybe you’re at work as you’re driving, unloading the dishwasher, even reading something else non-related to what you’re writing (you’re deconstructing how that author did her work). You might very well be staring out that window for half-an-hour or running the vacuum, or walking but perhaps you’re trying to work out a problem in the narrative, how to increase tension or pace. Maybe there’s a passage niggling at you to fix.

These folks have no idea how wounding it is when they say something like, “Are you still writing that book?” They mean well, of course; they love you. They simply don’t get it.

But you know who does get it? Your writer friends. They understand what goes into the work. They know about the time you’ve spent mulling over options, word choices, passages, and more. They know when you love your work and when it think it’s the stupidest thing on the planet Earth, ever. They know about the rejections, the celebrated acceptances, all of it. They know it because they are there with you.

Do you have a network of writer friends? I hope so! It’s not always easy to find, them, but once you do, cherish them. They are with you in spirit on every step of your journey to create. They really do get it.

Some suggestions for finding writer friends:

Retreats/Residencies

I’ve been to a couple and have found likeminded people every time. Get their contact information. Reach out. Maintain that friendship.

Same could be said for…

Workshops/Conferences/Classes/Festivals

Check local places first–a college or writing institute or online communities.

Library Writing Groups

Not all local libraries have these, but some do! Maybe a local bookstore hosts a regular writing group. Check into it.

Online Groups

You might find a Facebook Group for your genre, or region. I like Midwest Writer’s Facebook Group, for example.

Happy writing!

Question:

Where do you find your writing people? Who are they? How do they support you? How do you support them?

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. Classes and workshops, bookstore events, book recommendations, journals to submit to, reading recommendations, author interviews, recently published prose, and a quick 4 questions insights interview with Robert Lopez, author of DISPATCHES OF PUERTO NOWHERE.

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.

Some Writerly Things:

It’s hard to know if you are writing enough, too much (it’s a thing–remember to care for yourself and other parts of your life), check out these great TIPS from Danielle Lazarin, originally published in Catapult Magazine. I love the tracking sheet and just might make my own! P.S. Super-sad to hear Catapult is shuttering.

Have you ever attended a workshop, class, or retreat with Lidia Yuknavitch or Corporeal Writing? I did back in the fall of 2022 and loved it. The trees! The ferns! The ocean! It was a nourishing and dare I say–healing–experience. If you’re so inclined, take a peek at their Spring 2022 offering at the lovely Salishan Coastal Lodge.

If a retreat at Salishan isn’t quite in the cards, I get it. This offering, about mapping the body, telling the book of your body, held later this month, might be of interest to you.
Here’s a virtual class on writing memoir for publication taught by James Tate Hill, contributing editor for LitHub and taught through Writer’s Workshops. It’s an eight-week course beginning March 20. Check it out.

I just registered for this virtual, at-your-own-pace class with Leanne Dunic through Hedgebrook. It’s all about experimentation with form. It’s a pre-recorded class. Here are the juicy details:

“Not all narratives are best-suited to double-spaced, left-to-right, top-to-bottom text, but how does one start experimenting with form? We’ll review published examples of hybrid forms, and together we will deconstruct and reinvent traditional texts to explore exciting ways of marrying form with content. We’ll explore the flexibility of language and discuss ways of drawing on other art forms for inspiration.

Image retrieved from Story Studio website 1.25.23

I plan to attend this event through Story Studio Chicago, An Evening with Courtney Maum, most recently the author of THE YEAR OF THE HORSES, a memoir about depression, horseback riding, and so much more. Plus! Recently announced–Megan Stielestra will now be joining this gathering. She teaches CNF/memoir at Northwestern and is the author of ONCE I WAS COOL and THE WRONG WAY TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. [that link will take you to my previously published interview with Stielstra] Maybe I’ll see you there?!

New!

Musings & Meanderings | Insights

Robert Lopez

DISPATCHES FROM PUERTO NOWHERE:

An American Story of Assimilation & Erasure

“Robert Lopez is one of the most exciting writers working today.”

—Jenny Offill, author of Weather and Dept. of Speculation, on A Better Class of People

“A Most Anticipated Book of 2023” —Chicago Review of Books

Leslie Lindsay:

Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say DISPATCHES FROM PUERTO NOWHERE is about?

Robert Lopez :

It’s about 260 pages, but there’s a lot of white space.

Leslie Lindsay:

Where did you write DISPATCHES FROM PUERTO NOWHERE? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?

Robert Lopez :

I wrote it at the desk in my office in the three different apartments I’ve called home since I started and finished writing this book. Part of it was written in Salt Lake City, Utah, as well. No special routines or rituals. When I feel compelled to work I sit down and work. This is the way it’s happened with everything I’ve done.

Leslie Lindsay:

If you weren’t writing, you would be…

Robert Lopez :

A grifter.

Leslie Lindsay:

What book did you recently read that you can’t stop thinking about?

Robert Lopez :

John D’Agata’s About A Mountain

Image designed & photographed by **L.Lindsay**

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robert Lopez is the author of three novels, two story collections, and a novel-in-stories titled A Better Class of People. His first nonfiction book, Dispatches From Puerto Nowhere, publishes on March 14th from Two Dollar Radio. He teaches at Stony Brook University and lives in Brooklyn.

For more information, to purchase a copy of DISPATCHES FROM PUERTO NOWHERE, please visit Robert Lopez’s WEBSITE.

Browse my Bookshop.org for more books featured on Musings & Meanderings , what I’m reading in 2023, and some of my favorite books on writing...and more!

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

A conversation with Tanya Frank about her new memoir, ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Motherhood & Madness, about her son’s devolve into psychosis at nineteen, how she coped, advocated, and more. It’s a very moving read and interview.

Gayle Brandeis and I sat down for a conversation about her breath-taking essay collection, DRAWING BREATH: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Grief in Hippocampus Magazine. The book is available now from Overcup Books.
It was such a dream to connect with Nicole McCarthy on her equally dreamy and sublime A SUMMONING (Heavy Feather Press, 2022) and be featured in CRAFT Literary for their hybrid contest (now over), but you can still read the interview HERE.

This piece, ANSWERS TO QUERIES, was recently published in the final issue of Scissors & Spackle, part of the ELJ Editions family. Who doesn’t like a family history mystery? Check it out.

THE HOUSE, a love letter of sorts to my late grandfather and our newlywed home, recently released from Heimat Review, which is all about ‘your reflections and nostalgia, your narratives of familiarity and strangeness, the things that draw you back to where you are – and where you hope to be.’ C’mon in.

Y’all, I am 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).

My illustrated review of YOUR HEARTS YOUR SCARS (Bellevue Literary Press, Jan 24 2023) as it appears in DIAGRAM 22.6

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.
A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.
A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022
A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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 interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions
A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.
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:

Architecture, Photography…I mean, this doesn’t ever really change, does it?
Visual writing. Graphic narrative. Hybrid work. You know…there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Filling my cup. Eliminating things that don’t serve me.
Planning my daughter’s 18th?!! Birthday.
Graduation announcements

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Sending spring vibes your way!

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.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

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.

MUSINGS & MEANDERINGS the host of podcast ‘The Only One in the Room,’ Laura Cathcart Robbins talks about her memoir on addiction, STASH; plus micro-memoir classes, visual writing, time management for the writer/creative, Story Studio happenings, Complete Sentence, and more

Published by Always with a Book

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~

It’s Still February, Friends!

Earlier this month, we talked a bit about tracking your writing and creative time. I shared these TIPS from Danielle Lazarin, originally published in Catapult Magazine. I made my own tracking sheet and wanted to share some of my results.

Newsflash: writing is hard.

Newsflash #2: writing isn’t just about writing.

Writing and the creative life is about juggling all sorts of things–emails, deadlines, reading, consulting, learning, experimenting, revising, outreach, networking…you get it.

Here’s my sheet:

For each day of the month, I made a chart with various writing-related tasks down the side. You can probably do this in a Spreadsheet and make it so much prettier. I write all over the place and don’t always compose on a laptop, so I carry this ratty piece of paper around everywhere. What’s on it?

Writing. Submissions/including seeking places to submit work. Pitching outside publications. Consulting/Teaching/Book Events. Writing Biz/website management. Book photography. Collaging/creating visual narrative. Interview Prep. Continuing Education/Classes/Webinars. Reading. Publicist Outreach. Social Media (creating content/sharing content). Revising. Research/Prep for a piece. Personal Stuff (yoga, cardio, meditation). Family (making appointments, texting kids, juggling their sports schedules/driving them places, making dinner, last-minute cupcakes).

Here’s the thing: You are replaceable at work, but not home.

I try to touch several writerly things a day. But I always do stuff for my kids and family and I have to take care of me, too. So that ‘personal’ or ‘self-care’ thing really needs to be tended to.

There’s more, too, but for now, I’ll leave you with this…

Question:

Is there more to the writing life than you imagined? If you did some tracking of your own time, would you be surprised by some of the trends? For me, I started to feel more ‘balanced’ and less exhausted when I got my morning exercise in. I felt drained by trying to do too much literary stuff in one day. Respond here in a comment, or find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

xx,

~Leslie : )

P.S. I’ve got the lovely and talented Laura Cathcart Robbins chatting about her memoir, STASH: My Life in Hiding (March 7, 2023, Atria Books). Keep Scrolling

This issue of Musings & Meanderings is jam-packed with some really great stuff to get your [writing and reading] off on the right foot. Classes and workshops, bookstore events, book recommendations, journals to submit to, reading recommendations, author interviews, recently published prose, and a quick 4 questions insights interview with the lovely and talented Laura Cathcart Robbins chatting about her memoir, STASH: My Life in Hiding (March 7, 2023, Atria Books).

Some Writerly Things:

I’m pretty intrigued by this journal, Complete Sentence, which is like a gorgeous run-on sentence that tops out around 230-250 words. They accept fiction, nonfiction, art.

Do you write hybrid? CRAFT Literary has a call that might really entice and excite. Judged by Nicole McCarthy—who is lovely and thoughtful, I just interviewed her–it’s open now thru Feb 28. Details HERE. There is a $20 reading fee, but it if they are small pieces, you can include two for that price.
You’l; have to be quick to nab this one, but Red Hen Press has a contest open for fiction or non-fiction book-length work 25,000-80,000 words writtenb y people identifying as women thru Feb 28th.
The Rumpus is looking for essays now through March 1.
It’s always a chore to seek placement for your work, right? Jane Friedman’s Electric Speed newsletter alerted me to this downloadable database of 1,000 literary journals, complete with a description (retrieved via Twitter), cost of submission, website, and other great information. Check it out.
APUBLIC SPACE, a pretty prestigious literary journal offers Writing Academy Classes. This one struck my eye, all about revision, making it fun and experimental…a revision lab with writer Anne Elliot, Sundays via Zoom, March thru April. Check it out and REGISTER here.
I’m intrigued by this micro-memoir class taught by Beth-Ann Fennely, the author of HEATING AND COOLING, which is 52-micro memoirs in a collection. Funny and honest. The class is a one-shot virtual deal.

I plan to attend this event through Story Studio Chicago, An Evening with Courtney Maum, most recently the author of THE YEAR OF THE HORSES, a memoir about depression, horseback riding, and so much more. Maybe I’ll see you there?!

New!

Musings & Meanderings | Insights

Laura Cathcart Robbins

STASH: My Life in Hiding

“An irresistibly delicious story.”

—Holly Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author

A propulsive and vivid memoir—in the vein of Drinking: A Love Story and Somebody’s Daughter—about the journey to sobriety and self-love amidst addiction, privilege, racism, and self-sabotage from the host of the popular podcast The Only One in the Room.

Leslie Lindsay:

Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say STASH is about?

STASH is about a 10-month period in my life during which I ended a marriage, battled an addiction, explored new love… (was that what you meant by without responding in complete sentences?)

Leslie Lindsay:

Where did you write STASH? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?

Laura Cathcart Robbins:

I wrote STASH in my home office. For six months, every day I would get up at six-thirty, meditate, work out, and then answer emails. At eleven o’clock I would turn over my phone, turn on old sitcoms in the background (I Love Lucy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, etc), and write until seven o’clock. I ate lunch at my desk. So far, my routine hasn’t changed.

Leslie Lindsay:

If you weren’t writing, you would be…

Laura Cathcart Robbins:

Podcasting! I host a podcast called The Only One In The Room. I love telling my own stories, but I really enjoy guiding people through telling theirs.

Leslie Lindsay:

What book did you recently read that you can’t stop thinking about?

Laura Cathcart Robbins:

B.F.F., A Memoir of Friendship Lost and Found, by Christie Tate. It’s like she got inside my head and exposed all of these feelings about relationships that I didn’t know I had. It’s a must-read.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Laura Cathcart Robbins is the host of the popular podcast, The Only One In The Room, and author of the forthcoming Atria/Simon & Schuster memoir, STASH (March 7, 2023). She has been active for many years as a speaker and school trustee and is credited for creating The Buckley School’s nationally recognized committee on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice. Her recent articles in Huffpo and The Temper on the subjects of race, recovery, and divorce have garnered her worldwide acclaim. She is a 2022 TEDx Speaker, and LA Moth StorySlam winner. Currently, she sits on the advisory boards of the San Diego Writer’s Festival and the Outliers HQ podcast Festival. Find out more about her on her website, or you can look for her on Facebook, on Instagram and follow her on Twitter.

For more information, to purchase a copy of STASH, or connect with the author, please visit Laura Cathcart Robbins’ WEBSITE.

Browse my Bookshop.org for more books featured on Musings & Meanderings , what I’m reading in 2023, and some of my favorite memoirs..and more!

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

Join me in conversation–and enter CRAFT Literary’s Hybrid contest–with Nicole McCarthy, author of A SUMMONING (Heavy Feather Press, 2022), which I just loved.

This piece, ANSWERS TO QUERIES, was recently published in the final issue of Scissors & Spackle, part of the ELJ Editions family. Who doesn’t like a family history mystery? Check it out.

THE HOUSE, a love letter of sorts to my late grandfather and our newlywed home, recently released from Heimat Review, which is all about ‘your reflections and nostalgia, your narratives of familiarity and strangeness, the things that draw you back to where you are – and where you hope to be.’ C’mon in.

Y’all, I am 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.

Gayle Brandeis and I sat down for a conversation about her breath-taking essay collection, DRAWING BREATH: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Grief in Hippocampus Magazine. The book is available Feb 7th from Overcup Books.
Also? Gayle and I will be in conversation IN PERSON at City Lit Books in Logan Square, Chicago Tuesday, Feb 7th 6:30-7:30pm CST. Come join us!

Image retrived from City LIt Books website 1.25.23

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.
A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.
A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022
A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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 interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions
A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.
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:

This piece in the NYRB about the bleak, slightly unsettling art of Andrew Wyeth. Doesn’t it seem like spring is always just on the horizon in all of his works?
The work of Sarah Minor. How she’s a visual writer and so much more. Check out her book, BRIGHT ARCHIVES (Rescue Press, Oct 2020), which was introduced to my by the lovely and talented Kristine Langley Mahler.
This book THE NURSERY by Szilvia Molnar, about a new mother feeling isolated in her apartment.

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Wishing you much comfort and joy in the New Year!

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

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.

Musings & Meanderings: Residencies and Workshops, writing anywhere, writing fragmented memoirs, Rebecca Makkai on boarding schools and murders, and so much more

Published by Always with a Book

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 to February, Friends!

Let’s just say January was a rough start to the year. Did you feel it, too? It felt like every-other-day was another hurdle, and it wasn’t even the weather! I’m not sure if there was something in the air, or what. But I will share that I took a Zoom class on writing your memoir that was hugely validating and supportive. Maybe it’s because the presenter told us what I was doing was the ‘key to unlocking’ narrative.

Okay, it wasn’t just me, but her entire spiel. The idea?

Fragments. Found objects, notes. Lists. Collaging. A mosaic. How does this all work in a book? Does it work in a book? How about lyrical essays? Found forms? A play with structure? Poetry? All of it. Yes, all of it.

Why am I doing this? Will it work for you? It might. Here’s why:

Fragments.

Time is fragmented and precious. We all learned that during the pandemic (hellooo, work-from-home-with-kids), and not just that, but we are continually bombarded by more fragmented things: scrolling. Tweets. Texts. You get it.

Image-obsessed culture.

This is not just about appearances, but that’s there, too. Think: Instagram and Facebook. TV. Billboards.

Trauma.

Many memoirs are rooted in some kind of trauma. It may be death/grief, divorce, mental illness, suicide, abuse, kidnapping, illness, and more. That’s hard stuff. Choosing to write hard stuff in fragments makes it a little easier to work through. You don’t have to construct a straight-on narrative, either. Play with the space.

Memory.

Manipulating documents, calendars, photos, all of that can really help you access memories on a deeper level and make your story as ‘truthful’ as possible. It’s a bit of an investigation.

There’s more, too, but for now, I’ll leave you with this…

Question:

Would this style of narrative work for you? What might you access to write something along these lines? Documents? Hospital records? Yearbooks? Town maps? Would you read something like this? Would it change the way you look at the form?

Speaking of questions, I’ve got the lovely and talented Rebecca chatting about her forthcoming book, I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU. Keep scrolling.

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] year off on the right foot. Classes and workshops, bookstore events, book recommendations, journals to submit to, reading recommendations, author interviews, recently published prose, and a quick 4 questions insights interview with Pulitzer prize and National Book Award finalist Rebecca Makkai on her forthcoming novel, I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU (Viking, Feb 21 2023)

Some Writerly Things:

It’s hard to know if you are writing enough, too much (it’s a thing–remember to care for yourself and other parts of your life), check out these great TIPS from Danielle Lazarin, originally published in Catapult Magazine. I love the tracking sheet and just might make my own!

if you’re interested in seeing what else Writing Workshops has to level your writing practice, check out their FEBRUARY offerings.

If Thursday mornings work for you participate in live Zoom meetings on craft, check out OCWW, that’s off-campus writing workshops, which is celebrating it’s 75th year…you’ll find their February OFFERINGS here with information on how to register.
Do you write hybrid? CRAFT Literary has a call that might really entice and excite. Judged by Nicole McCarthy—who is lovely and thoughtful, I just interviewed her–it’s open now thru Feb 28. Details HERE. There is a $20 reading fee, but it if they are small pieces, you can include two for that price.
APUBLIC SPACE, a pretty prestigious literary journal offers Writing Academy Classes. This one struck my eye, all about revision, making it fun and experimental…a revision lab with writer Anne Elliot, Sundays via Zoom, March thru April. Check it out and REGISTER here.

I plan to attend this event through Story Studio Chicago, An Evening with Courtney Maum, most recently the author of THE YEAR OF THE HORSES, a memoir about depression, horseback riding, and so much more. Maybe I’ll see you there?!
It’s always a chore to seek placement for your work, right? Jane Friedman’s Electric Speed newsletter alerted me to this downloadable database of 1,000 literary journals, complete with a description (retrieved via Twitter), cost of submission, website, and other great information. Check it out.

New!

Musings & Meanderings | Insights

Rebecca Makkai

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023: TIME, The Seattle Times, Good Housekeeping, Today.com, Souther Living, and CrimeReads

The riveting new novel from the author of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist The Great Believers

Leslie Lindsay:

Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say I HAVE SOMEQUESTIONS FOR YOU is about?

Rebecca Makkai:

Ooh, no complete sentences! Hmm. Literary feminist boarding school murder mystery. New Hampshire. 1995. A shrine to Kurt Cobain. Wrongful incarceration. #MeToo. The passage of time.

Leslie Lindsay:

Where did you write I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?

Rebecca Makkai:

This one lived in my head a long time, but I started it in earnest during a residency at the Ragdale Foundation in early 2018. I normally rely on residencies much more, but Covid really interfered with that plan, so I did a lot of housesitting in order to be alone to write. I don’t believe in routines or rituals. If you have some special magic teacup and then your teacup breaks, where does that leave you? I need to be able to write in hotel rooms, on airport floors, at Starbucks…

“[Makkai adds] intriguing layers of complication . . . Well plotted, well written, and well designed.”

—Kirkus Reviews

Leslie Lindsay:

If you weren’t writing, you would be…

Rebecca Makkai:

Probably still teaching Montessori elementary school, which I did in my 20s and early 30s. Every day was different, every kid was different, and it was impossible to get bored.

Leslie Lindsay:

What book did you recently read that you can’t stop thinking about?

Rebecca Makkai:

I’m still figuring out Trust, by Hernan Diaz, and I’m meeting with a couple of friends next weekend to discuss it because we all need to work out our theories. It’s a wonderful puzzle of a book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rebecca Makkai’s last novel, The Great Believers, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; it was the winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal, the Stonewall Book Award, the Clark Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and it was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of 2018 by The New York Times. Her other books are the novels The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House, and the collection Music for Wartime—four stories from which appeared in The Best American Short Stories. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Rebecca is on the MFA faculties of the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe and Northwestern University, and is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.

For more information, to purchase a copy of I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU, please visit Rebecca Makkai’s WEBSITE.

Browse my Bookshop.org for more books featured on Musings & Meanderings , what I’m reading in 2023, and some of my favorite books on writing...and more!

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

Join me in conversation–and enter CRAFT Literary’s Hybrid contest–with Nicole McCarthy, author of A SUMMONING (Heavy Feather Press, 2022), which I just loved.

This piece, ANSWERS TO QUERIES, was recently published in the final issue of Scissors & Spackle, part of the ELJ Editions family. Who doesn’t like a family history mystery? Check it out.

THE HOUSE, a love letter of sorts to my late grandfather and our newlywed home, recently released from Heimat Review, which is all about ‘your reflections and nostalgia, your narratives of familiarity and strangeness, the things that draw you back to where you are – and where you hope to be.’ C’mon in.

Y’all, I am 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.

Gayle Brandeis and I sat down for a conversation about her breath-taking essay collection, DRAWING BREATH: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Grief in Hippocampus Magazine. The book is available Feb 7th from Overcup Books.
Also? Gayle and I will be in conversation IN PERSON at City Lit Books in Logan Square, Chicago Tuesday, Feb 7th 6:30-7:30pm CST. Come join us!

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.
A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.
A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022
A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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 interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions
A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.
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:

Basset hounds. Always.
Are books ghosts? How about bruises? Postcards? Photographs?
Getting my oldest daughter into college. We’ve been accepted…now we just gotta jump through all the hoops!
Getting my younger daughter her driver’s license. Why do they make this so complex and cumbersome?
Houses and homes and this book on architecture.
Clearing clutter. How did the crawlspace get so full, anyway?
This book, STRANGERS TO OURSELVES by Rachel Aviv

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

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.

Musings & Meanderings: Max Seeck speaks about ghosts of one’s past; writing as a calling, sharing your traumatic life stories, bending time, SINKHOLE, ‘Clinics of the Past,’ exciting books of 2023

Published by Always with a Book

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 2023, Friends!

Sometimes it’s daunting to write. If it’s your life story, or something of equal weight and power, it might be really hard. What if there’s trauma? I guarantee there’s trauma. I recently heard this phrase, ‘nested in trauma,’ and I found that so evocative. The idea is that all story–and all life–is somehow bookended and infused with trauma. Also? The degree of trauma is subjective.

Back to writing.

It’s hard to back away from a story you’re compelled to share. I know, I’ve been there. I’m there right now. It’s feels like a calling, but I also wonder: is it stupid? Will anyone else care?

It’s terrifying and joyful and challenging. It’s creative and vulnerable.

What if you hurt someone you care about?

What if you open too many cans of worms?

What if it’s too traumatic to relive the past? You certainly don’t want to invite more pain and heartache, right?

And also? It’s overwhelming.

For me, it’s a calling. I tried setting this manuscript aside. I told others it was dead, done, gone; it was not going to be published. Ever. In any form.

Here’s the thing: I can’t not share this story.

I can’t not stop thinking about it, making connections in my daily life, and I cannot stop being obsessing with houses and homes, families, memory, architecture, art, and mental health. It’s just part of me.

The call to turn and face your story is a universal one. It’s part of how you’re hardwired, your legacy. It doesn’t mean you have to do it all at once, or even alone.

Just do a little each day.

Maybe it’s not even writing, but reading. Sometimes I ‘count’ my ‘touch it daily’ goal as just reading about interiors and homes. Sometimes it might look like culling through old photos or doing a little research into a topic. A Google search counts!

Tell me what you’re doing to propel your writing?

Respond here in a comment, or find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

xx,

~Leslie : )

This issue of ‘Musings & Meanderings is full of insights, ideas, and more, including a quick Author Insight from Finish thriller writer, Max Seeck, some of 2023’s biggest books, according to lists put out by Penguin Random House (PRH), my interviews with various authors, including Gayle Brandeis, Juliet Patterson, Kristin Keane, Kathryn Gahl, and also an illustrated review in DIAGRAM.

Check it all out! Let me know what ‘speaks’ to you. I’m glad you’re here.

New! Featured Author|Insights

Max Seeck

THE LAST GRUDGE

While her colleagues investigate the brutal murder of a prominent businessman, Jessica Niemi must battle demons from her past in this terrifying new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Witch Hunter.

Leslie Lindsay:

Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say THE LAST GRUDGE is about?

Max Seeck:

Not sure if I understand this question right – do you mean something like summarizing the novel in one or two words? Then it would be maybe… painful memories.

Leslie Lindsay:

Where did you write THE LAST GRUDGE? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?

Max Seeck:

I do have an office downtown Helsinki where I do 90% of my writing. I don’t find it convenient to write elsewhere – here I got my own peace and inspiring environment. Also since I have two young kids at home it would be nearly impossible to do anything creative there.

Leslie Lindsay:

If you weren’t writing, you would be…

Max Seeck:

I always wanted to be a professional ice hockey player but I never was any good. I also wanted to become a film maker – a dream that has in fact now come true since my debut feature film (THE KNOCKING) is premiering in cinemas in February 2023.

Leslie Lindsay:

What book did you recently read that you can’t stop thinking about?

Max Seeck:

I just finished reading the Finnish author Maria Turtschaninoff’s SUOMAA, which was an amazing episodic description of people living in Finland during the centuries. A truly magnificent book that is now being translated to several languages

About the author

International and New York Times bestselling author Max Seeck writes novels and screenplays full-time. He lives with his wife and children near Helsinki.

Find him online at www.maxseeck.com/books; Twitter: @maxseeck; Instagram: @maxseeck; and Facebook.com/maxseeck.

You can shop for THE LAST GRUDGE by visiting my Bookshop.org storefront. Browse all the books I’m interested in reading in 2023.

More Reading Recommendations:

Curious what PRH is predicting will be BIG literary fiction in 2023? Check out their LIST.

More into nonfiction? Biography, Memoir Science? Check out THIS list.
Maybe BOOK CLUB fiction is more your speed?

P.S. I’ve definitely added a few of these to my lists=! Check back here to see who might appear on Insights | Musings & Meanderings

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

Y’all, I am 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).

This conversation-in-review of Kristin Keane’s AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BENDING TIME (Barrelhouse Press, 2022), which appeared in The Florida Review, December 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.
A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.
A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022
A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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!

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.

Coming soon:

A photo essay in On the Seawall featuring miniatures, houses, and a family besieged by mental illness.
A prose piece in Heimat Review, which is sort of a love letter to my late grandfather, my newlywed days, and an old house.
A a hybrid flash non-fiction piece about the mysteries of ancestry in ELJ Editions Scissors & Spackle.
A conversation-in-review with Nicole McCarthy on her genre-defying A SUMMONING (Heavy Feather Review, September 2022) to appear in CRAFT Literary in 2023.
A conversation-in-review with Jamila Minnicks, on her PEN/Bellwether Prize-winning debut, MOONRISE OVER NEW JESSUP (Algonquin Books, January 10, 2023) to appear in The Rumpus.
Tanya Frank’s ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Motherhood & Madness (W.W. Norton, Feb 28 2023), a review and conversation to appear in Hippocampus Magazine, spring 2023.
A review-in-conversation with Gayle Brandeis, DRAWING BREATH: Essays on the Body, Writing, & Loss (Overcup Press, February 2023)

I’ll be sharing my published interviews here, after they’ve ‘gone live’ with their various publications.

There’s more to this newsletter. Keep scrolling.

What’s Obsessing Me:

Houses and homes, but you know…they always do! I just heard something about Clinics of the Past and I can’t stop thinking about this concept of creating old towns or homes from eras past to help people diagnosed with dementia. Pretty cool, right? [this idea is largely drawn from the imagination and writings of Georgi Gospodinov, as interviewed by David Naimon on the Between the Covers podcast.]
You might also like this one, as mentioned in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
[Grateful to David Naimon for sharing these with me]
Crumbl Cookies...I mean, yum! They really have nailed their buttercream icing.
Story as shelter. Time as place. Memory as a palace.
A Man Called Otto/Ove. I’m a little obsessed by the way the title shifted a bit from book to movie, and also, my hubby and I recently played hooky one weekday to see the movie…and swooning! Have you seen it yet?
Clutter. Clearing it. Why we have it in the first place.

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Photo by Alissa Nabiullina on Pexels.com

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

Musings & Meanderings: A Curious month, January. Derek T. Freeman on BUILDING UNSTOPPABLE SELF-CONFIDENCE IN TEENS, purging, writer self-care, hybrid writing contests, workshops, retreats, more

Published by Always with a Book

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 2023, Friends!

January is a curious month. Is it a coming or a going? New and fresh or letting go of the old? I struggle with this every year. In the Midwest, it’s cold. I don’t feel like opening doors and windows to ‘let in the new year,’ likewise for ‘spring cleaning.’ It’s not really spring, either–anywhere. Maybe we ought to rename it ‘New Year Cleaning?’

This year is off to a rough start. When I put it in perspective, it’s not so bad…but let’s just say it’s not flowing like usual, mostly in a personal sense, but a few professional hiccups, too. I’ll get through it!

Here’s a little secret: raising kind humans is hard work.

Being a kind human is hard work.

We’ve got lots of ‘firsts’ happening–all in one week! Sweet Sixteen, college acceptances (and indecision), first jobs, a trip to the city, and…getting dumped by a longtime boyfriend, a dear person who became part of the family…that’s just the kid-raising stuff…which has left little precious time for creativity and work-related things. Invisible and emotional labor is a real thing!

So what am I doing about it? Two things.

1. I checked myself into an Air B&B where I’ll catch-up on my writing projects and hopefully make progress…I have a list…but I also have intentions of taking a bubble bath, doing yoga, reading, and meditation.

2. For the kids, I have a book that will help immensely. I think you’ll love it, too. As a former child/adolescent psych R.N., this book really ‘spoke’ to me…it’s rooted in research, approachable, relatable, and offers such great tips and ideas. Reading through it helped me remember what it was like to be a teenager myself. It helped relate to what my daughters might be feeling. In fact, one of them is reading it now.

Scroll down a bit for a quick 4 Questions Insights Interview with author Derek T. Freeman.

3. I know I said two things, but here’s an allusive third…we are going to work on this purging thing. Less is more. Clutter is stifling. It’s time not just scrub and reorganize, it’s time to eliminate. We need space. To think. To breathe.

Question:

How do you feel this time of year? How do you settle into January? Any special retreats or rituals? Do you feel like we need a space between the flurry of December and the ‘fresh start’ of January…a time when we can just regroup and recharge and not feel the pressure to make lists and goals and manifestations and lose weight and clean house? To just BE?

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] year 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 Derek T. Freeman on his self-help book for teens, BUILDING UNSTOPPABLE SELF-CONFIDENCE FOR TEENS

Some Writerly Things:

Looking ahead in your 2023 writing year, check out these offerings from HEDGEBROOK, which is a dreamy writing retreat and class space in the PNW
This poetry workshop intrigues me…it’s probably too late to join, but I am particularly taken with the idea of line breaks, tiny details, more.
Really, it’s too late for that one, but if you’re interested in seeing what else Writing Workshops has to level your writing practice, check out their FEBRUARY offerings.
Do you write hybrid? CRAFT Literary has a call that might really entice and excite. Judged by Nicole McCarthy—who is lovely and thoughtful, I just interviewed her–it’s open now thru Feb 28. Details HERE. There is a $20 reading fee, but it if they are small pieces, you can include two for that price.

New! Featured Author|Insights

Derek T. Freeman

BUILDING UNSTOPPABLE SELF-CONFIDENCE FOR TEENS

“Building Unstoppable Self-Confidence for Teens is a candid, conversational guide to navigating adolescence that comes from a place of hard-won wisdom and deep compassion. — John B. Valeri, Author, Book Critic & Host of the web series Central Booking

Leslie Lindsay:

Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say BUILDING UNSTOPPABLE SELF-CONFIDENCE FOR TEENS is about?

Derek T Freeman:

Empowerment for youth…inspiration. A focus on self-growth BEFORE adulthood! Raising awareness and consciousness.

Leslie Lindsay:

Where did you write BUILDING UNSTOPPABLE SELF-CONFIDENCE FOR TEENS? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?

Derek T Freeman:

This is my first book. To be honest, it flowed quickly. I like to create a detailed outline first, then work down from there. I usually start each section with a “brain dump” – I’ll just write and write, letting it flow without looking back (a glass of red wine pairs nicely with this!). Then, I’ll take a break, go back, and revise. I edited the whole book three times – I’m very picky about wording, punctuation, and the use of bold/italics/capitalization. I like the challenge of getting it to read the way it’s intended to be received.

Leslie Lindsay:

If you weren’t writing, you would be…

Derek T Freeman:

Playing with my cats. Video games and hikes with my kids & wife. In the music studio. Reading. Playing pool, darts, cards, or board games. And definitely, always, eating.

Leslie Lindsay:

What book did you recently read that you can’t stop thinking about?

Derek T Freeman:

I liked Deepak Chopra’s new one You Are the Universe. I had to read many sections over to digest it. It’s hard (impossible) to put reality into words, but I think he comes close.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Derek T Freeman is the author of Building Unstoppable Self-Confidence for Teens.

His work aims to inspire tweens, teens, parents, and families by providing motivational content and guiding them through the years that are often seen as the most challenging parts of both parenting and growing up.

As a young teenager, Derek struggled with self-esteem, bullying, and fitting in. As a father, he has attended countless groups and school functions and, along the way, has realized just how common his school experiences are. He is determined to make the turbulent waters of adolescence easier to navigate for other young people.

For more information, to purchase a copy of BUILDINGUNSTOPPABLE SELF-CONFIDENCE FOR TEENS.

You can connect on Instagram HERE. Find Derek T. Freeman on TikTok and Facebook.

Browse my Bookshop.org for more parenting books, what I’m reading in 2023, and some of my favorite books featuring mental health…and more!

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

Y’all, I am 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.
A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.
A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022
A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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!

Image designed and photographed by L.Lindsay

An interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions
A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.
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:

Jane Friedman recently brought this search engine to my attention and I am obsessed–ddmm is all about stock images for whatever your heart desires. You can filter to show results for creative commons only. I searched up ‘floor plans,’ and was instantly drooling.

Along those lines, I have started thinking about a playlist for my WIP. Many writers do this to get in the writing mood/mindset, and while that might work for you, I’m using it as an accompaniment for the book itself, sort of a multi-sensory read. Check out the Natural Language Playlist, which is an AI-generated mixtape concept you can download right to your Spotify account. Pretty slick!

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

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.

Musings & Meanderings: Lauren Camp on TOOK HOUSE, tips for reading more in 2023, how to read literary journals, stock images, playlists, book recommendations, interviews with authors, more

Published by Always with a Book

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 2023, Friends!

Many folks ask how I read so much in a year. Trust me, there are others who read far more than I! My goal for the last couple of years has been 80 books a year. That’s roughly a book-and-a-half a week. It would be disingenuous not to say that reading is part of my job; I treat it as such. I have a pretty active lifestyle–and mind!–and so I sometimes struggle to keep up. In fact, this last year, I was scrambling to get all 80 books in before the end-of-the-year, but I did it!

Here are some gentle tips and encouragement, if you need it:

Carry a book with you at all times.

It doesn’t have to be a physical book, but maybe something on your Kindle or phone. You never know when you might be ‘stranded’ somewhere without something to do (or no Internet).

Stop with the scrolling.

Wait…that wasn’t very gentle. But seriously, how much are you really getting out of the constant bombardment of images and clutter? Can you squeeze in a few pages of book instead?

Give yourself social media/phone ‘rewards’ for completing a chapter or some other reading goal.

I do this! I find that once I reach my reading goal, I’m no long itching to check my phone. Sometimes I’ll read something I want to ‘look into’ and so I have a Google moment. That helps.

Limit Television.

I know, I know…there are SO many good shows these days…plus streaming! I get it. We all need a little escape. How about just one show a day? Two hours of viewing a day? Think about all the reading you could accomplish in two hours! Maybe, like social media, use TV as a reward and no a default?

Match your Mood with your Reading.

Who says you ‘have to’ read this book now? What piques your interest now? Read that.

DNF.

That stands for did not finish. It used to be that I read every book I started, front to back, never missing a beat, never sitting aside if it wasn’t jiving for me. I don’t do that anymore. If something just isn’t striking me at that moment, I sit it down and try something else. I always give it another shot. If it’s still not working for me, I might skim it or just stop. No harm, no foul.

Poetry.

I read chapbooks and poetry all the time now. It used to be that I didn’t–gasp!–and what a disservice. Poetry is concise and beautiful and while it might be a ‘short’ read, it’s rich in interiority. I can often visualize more and better with poetry; it helps me round out text with narrative, daydream a little, helps with vocabulary and my own writing. A few books of poetry a year can help boost those reading goals.

Speaking of, I’ve got one I’m highlighting in today’s Insights|Author Interviews.

Keep scrolling!

Audiobooks.

Sometimes busy minds need something to focus on while working on simple, repetitive tasks like walking, putting together a puzzle, waxing the car, mowing the lawn, driving, cleaning, etc.

Exercise.

I have been known to read on the exercise bike. It helps the time fly and it’s a win-win: pages turned, calories burned.

Want to know what I struggle with? Literary journals!

I have several that I really want to read…but…I don’t know…since they aren’t actual books, do they ‘count?’ If I’m reading a journal, I’m not reading a book. Reading takes time, as you know, and sometimes I must prioritize my reading material.

Question:

how and when do you read literary journals? The second they make their way into your life? Do you set aside a day or time for reading them? A few minutes each day? Do you read them cover to cover or pick and choose high-interest pieces?

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] year 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 poet Lauren Camp on her chapbook, TOOK HOUSE (Tupelo Press, 2021).

Some Writerly Things:

A writer friend of mine brought this retreat/residency to my attention and it looks pretty dreamy. It’s application process is in three-parts throughout the year with the first deadline Jan 15. Don’t worry if you miss that one, there’s two more this year.

Amy Shearn is open for manuscript consultations, coaching…micro/macro, developmental, and more. She’s wry and smart and just might have the magic bullet for your WIP. Tell her I sent you. Check out our chat about her book, UNSEEN CITY, which I loved. Here’s more information and to snag one of her 15-min FREE consultation spots check this out.

Nicole McCarthy will be judging CRAFT Literary’s hybrid writing contest now thru March 1. You can check out the submission guidelines HERE. Also! I’ll be interviewing her for CRAFT Literary in February, so stay tuned for that.

Check out When Poetry Meets Memoir, a 4-week generative class hosted by Catapult/Anastacia Renee, starting Feb 2, which really speaks to me right now.

One Story will be accepting submissions starting today, January 15th, until the cap is reached. Check out their guidelines HERE.

New! Featured Author|Insights

Lauren Camp

TOOK HOUSE

Image designed & photographed by L.Lindsay **Connect on IG**

“It’s as if Camp is holding a magnifying glass in the light until the page beneath it catches fire.”

— Washington Independent Review of Books

Leslie Lindsay:

Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say TOOK HOUSE is about?

Lauren Camp:

desert predators, contemporary art, and a relationship, danger and attention, versions of home

Leslie Lindsay:

Where did you write TOOK HOUSE? Do you have any special writing routines or rituals? Do they change with each project, or remain constant over time?

Lauren Camp:

I began Took House at my home in Santa Fe, then reshaped the poems at a few residencies. I worked on the poems (and later, the manuscript as a whole) from 2005 until Tupelo Press claimed it. Much of what I began with is no longer included, or has shifted dramatically from its early form. Start to publication, this was a 15-year process.

I don’t have routines or rituals. I claim whatever bits of time appear, and I focus well. I love revision for its surprises. Not much is sacred with me in the process. I will shift poems until something clicks. Very often, this means I am choosing to settle in to a long process—because what I am really waiting for is a new me to approach the work. I am seeking some other vision, connection or understanding than what I originally thought was important to say.

Leslie Lindsay:

If you weren’t writing, you would be…

Lauren Camp:

hiking, stargazing or admiring my cactus garden

Leslie Lindsay:

What book did you recently read that you can’t stop thinking about?

Lauren Camp:

I would like to name two here:

Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City

and George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

For more information, to purchase a copy of TOOK HOUSE, or to connect with the author via social media, please visit her website.

Browse my Bookshop.org for more poetry, what I’m reading in 2023, and some of my favorite books featuring houses & homes…and more!

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

Y’all, I am 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.
A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.
A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022
A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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 interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions
A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.
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:

Jane Friedman recently brought this search engine to my attention and I am obsessed–ddmm is all about stock images for whatever your heart desires. You can filter to show results for creative commons only. I searched up ‘floor plans,’ and was instantly drooling.

Along those lines, I have started thinking about a playlist for my WIP. Many writers do this to get in the writing mood/mindset, and while that might work for you, I’m using it as an accompaniment for the book itself, sort of a multi-sensory read. Check out the Natural Language Playlist, which is an AI-generated mixtape concept you can download right to your Spotify account. Pretty slick!

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

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.

Musings & Meanderings: A shout-out in P&W, houses of artists, where to submit, upcoming workshops, retreats, reading recommendations, manuscript consulting, more

Published by Always with a Book

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 2023, Friends!

I’m writing this from a snowy-ish Chicago and reflecting on the year that just passed while gearing up for 2023. It’s a slower pace, and I welcome that.

My plan is to clear up the flurry that became my December office as we were preparing for an International trip, the holidays (my birthday is tossed in there, too…my daughter’s is next week…the celebrations just don’t stop!), and all of that year-end stuff. I find liberating to let the past year settle, yet there’s a collusion of seasons that make for a mess.

I’m in that collusion stage.

Surrounding me–on my desk–at least fourteen books, one literary journal, and some poetry chapbooks. I have notes from a book I am reading (whichis in the other room, next to my reading chair), on my desk with the intention to look up things I read about–you know, dig deep to find those primary sources.

That book I’m reading is all about artist’s and their homes…it wasn’t until more recently (say in the last 200-300 years), that we humans created rooms for various tasks. It used to be that the home was one big space for eating, sleeping, creating/working, and…lounging. I find that pretty fascinating. So it’s interesting (and a luxury) that I have a reading room and a writing room, a lying on the couch room, an eating room…

Have you thought about those things before? How the home is sort of a container for the stuff of life?

Respond here in a comment, or find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

xx,

~Leslie : )

By the way–super-duper-over-the-moon pumped about this mention in the Jan/Feb 2023 print issue of Poets & Writers in their ‘Reactions’ section. I was working out at my gym reading back issues of the magazine, ripping out sections I needed to do something about (order, read, submit)–when I got off the exercise bike, it all looked pretty artistic. I snapped a photo, shared on IG and boom–blown over when I saw it in the front pages of the new issue! No idea this would happen. Pleasantly surprised. So thanks, Poets & Writers! You know how to make a writer’s day.

This issue of Musings & Meanderings is jam-packed with some really great stuff to get your [writing and reading] year off on the right foot. Artifacts, yoga, coaching, book recommendations, journals to submit to, reading recommendations, author interviews, recently published prose, stuff that’s coming up…so check it out.

Some Writerly Things:

Check out these 2023 retreats with Nancy Stohlman, who focuses mostly on flash.

If you act quick, you can get your work submitted to Ploughshares before their Jan 15 deadline. There is a $3 submission fee.

The Cincinnati Review is closed for print submissions thru May 1, but they are always open for their miCRo series, which yes–I love the stylization of, but also the form. Check out what they are looking for HERE.

ONE ART: Poetry is open on rolling submissions for poetry. Check out their submission guidelines HERE. Subs are free.

Amy Shearn is open for manuscript consultations, coaching…micro/macro, developmental, and more. She’s wry and smart and just might have the magic bullet for your WIP. Tell her I sent you. Check out our chat about her book, UNSEEN CITY, which I loved. Here’s more information and to snag one of her 15-min FREE consultation spots check this out.

Writing Workshops is offering a class on Yoga + Writing. It’s a 6-week generative Zoom workshop with supplemental readings starting Feb. 20th.
I’ll be attending Kristine Langley Mahler’s class on artifacts and writing: Artifacts into Art, taught via Zoom through the Lafayette Writer’s Studio. What do we keep and how does it inform our work? See my interview with Kristine Langley Mahler, which recently appeared in Brevity featuring her recently-released CURING SEASON: Artifacts (West Virginia Press, 2022).

This writing retreat in Iceland has definitely piqued my interest…
Zibby Owens, book influencer extraordinaire, is now offering an array of classes for writers…whether you’re just starting out or looking to get super-serious…published…whatever that means for you. Prices start at just $29.

Some Readerly Things:

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

I’m currently reading HORSE: A Novel (Viking, June 2022) by Geraldine Brooks and I love it! It’s a lovely mash-up of literary fiction meets history meets art + science. I’ve never been much of a horse and pony girl, but this book has a little something for everyone. It reminds me a teeny bit of Seabiscuit, but different. HORSE is fiction but based on a true story. I think you’ll love it.

This book has captivated my interest, too. It’s not a sit-and-read-at-length-for-pleasure-book, but one I like to digest in little snippets. It’s all about houses of artists, not so much their studio, per se, but sometimes that’s there, too. This one is so well done, with lots of great information and photos! Homework for my WIP!

Speaking of that WIP, I devoured Cormac McCarthy’s new book, STELLA MARIS, which came out at the tail-end of November. Apparently, he turned in the manuscript to this one 8 years ago! His editors really kept quiet about it. How is it related to my WIP? It’s basically a transcript between a psychiatric patient and her psychiatrist. Fascinating!

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

Y’all, I am 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.
A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.
A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022
A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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 interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions
A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.
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.

Coming soon:

A photo essay in On the Seawall featuring miniatures, houses, and a family besieged by mental illness.
A prose piece in Heimat Review, which is sort of a love letter to my late grandfather, my newlywed days, and an old house.
A a hybrid flash non-fiction piece about the mysteries of ancestry in ELJ Editions Scissors & Spackle.
A conversation-in-review with Nicole McCarthy on her genre-defying A SUMMONING (Heavy Feather Review, September 2022) to appear in CRAFT Literary in 2023.
A conversation-in-review with Jamila Minnicks, on her PEN/Bellwether Prize-winning debut, MOONRISE OVER NEW JESSUP (Algonquin Books, January 10, 2023) to appear in The Rumpus.
Tanya Frank’s ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Motherhood & Madness (W.W. Norton, Feb 28 2023), a review and conversation to appear in Hippocampus Magazine, spring 2023.
A review-in-conversation with Gayle Brandeis, DRAWING BREATH: Essays on the Body, Writing, & Loss (Overcup Press, February 2023)

I’ll be sharing my published interviews here, after they’ve ‘gone live’ with their various publications.

There’s more to this newsletter. Keep scrolling.

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

Musings & Meanderings

Published by Always with a Book

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, Friends!

I am getting excited for the winter solstice, this gentle turning-in, these cozy darker days. What is it about the darkness that conjures creativity? Maybe it’s the way it encourages a hibernation, a slower pace, a time to go fallow? For me it’s a bit like crawling into the cave of creativity, having nothing else vying for my attention–at least outside–no garden to water or plants that require nurturing. Reading, contemplating, playing on the page, listening, looking out the window, observing patterns.

Just this past weekend, I took a workshop with Esme Weijun Wang, most recently the author of The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays (Graywolf Press, 2019), and it was so warm, generous, validating, with really great tips for setting intentions and looking back on the last year.

Here are just a few things that we discussed, which I wanted to pass along to you:

What song would you say embodied 2022 for you? It doesn’t have to be a song that was released this year.

What three words shaped your year?

Can you draw a doodle of the year?

Those could be just anything, for anyone, ‘creative person,’* or not.

*we’re all creative!

We also talked about our limitations.

These could be ‘Big L’ limitations like differently-abled, loss of employment, physical health issues/illness, mental health issues/hospitalizations, financial hardship, natural disasters, etc. or smaller things, like time, children, pets, caregiving. All of these things can affect our creativity, right?

For me, I said it was time. My life is pretty jam-packed and I like it that way…to an extent! But, if I don’t carefully plan and map out my time, there’s no opportunity to indulge in a key aspect of myself: creativity.

Here’s another question:

How can you use your limitation in your art?

My brilliant suggestion: since my time is already fragmented, why not compose my manuscript in fragments?!

Why not turn your limitation into art?

Let me know what you’re doing!

Do you have a word or phrase for the year that just passed? How about one(s) for the year ahead? How might you capitalize on your limitations to take your art/creativity to the next level?

Respond here in a comment, or find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

xx,

~Leslie : )

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 it helps me and maybe it’ll speak to you, too.

I’ll keep my obsessions short because this time of year…our bandwidths are, too.

What’s Obsessing Me:

This super-inspiring and ooh lala place Artemesia, their tagline: “collage with nature.” They are all about terrariums (who couldn’t use a little green this time of year?), rocks, making your own perfume, and more.

Image retrieved 12/10/22 from Artemesia.com

Some Writerly Things:

Check out these 2023 retreats with Nancy Stohlman, who focuses mostly on flash.

Relatedly, she offers a lovely rabbit-hole of flash-style books you may fall in love with. See “Readerly Things” for her ever-evolving list.

Psst! I ordered a few myself!

Corporeal Writing has some inspiring winter offerings–both in-person and virtual–to level up your writing.

If you just need to some prompts/portals for your work (and maybe not a class), check out these new Corporeal Writing Portals. A deck of 54 full-color cards which might help you dive deeper into the story under the story. From the website description:

“More than just writing prompts, these portals are collected together with the intention of helping you cultivate a deeper relationship to language, your environment, and yourself.”

Psst! I got myself a deck.

Some Readerly Things:

This list of flash was originally compiled by Nancy Stohlman. I really did just copy-and-paste from her lovely descriptions because 1) I probably couldn’t do any better 2) it saves time 3) why reinvent the wheel?

Tommy Dean: Hollows
In Hollows, Tommy Dean reveals the crawlspaces and attics of American families, the places we dread and the places we yearn for—moments we didn’t know we needed until they were already lost. These fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, brothers, wives, and best friends crack and bend under the pressure of conventional love, running away and toward one another, longing for a space to call home, often giving in to the hollow securities of their lives.

Renuka Raghavan: Nothing Respendent Lives Here The struggle is real. These 33 tales of flash and micro fiction are rife with the intensity of desolation and heartache. We are introduced to a motley array of characters clinging to hope as internal and external forces put a strain on their lives. Do they find the light, or do they succumb to the darkness? Through brevity and clarity of prose Raghavan’s stories carry weight and deliver punches. Just when you think you know where the story is going, the narrative takes an unexpected turn.

Chelsea Stickle: Breaking Points
In thirteen slick, innovative, and gut-wrenching flashes, the young women and girls in Breaking Points, the debut chapbook from Chelsea Stickle, hit the walls around them—walls constructed by family, friends, significant others, and insidious cultural perils.

Annie Bien: Messages from Under a Pillow
Messages from a mother to her child, notes sent from beyond to here, the appearance of drawings on a page, words that conjure up history, another place, kept alive by words, which are both a type of silence and conjurers of images. Annie Bien’s tender and layered Messages from Under a Pillow is a collection of seven prose poems or flash fictions, intentions or explanations for drawings the recipient should look out for.

Jude Higgins The Chemist’s House
A collection that pokes softly at the spaces between people: sister, brother, father, mother, neighbour, friend. Higgins’ stories reveal moments where small truths, and lies, dwell. Understated and quiet, these small fictions paint lives gently, but oh so colourfully. / In interconnected, finely wrought flash fiction stories, Jude Higgins creates a coming-of-age tapestry — of family love and conflict; and of a girl’s passage into womanhood. Higgins’ flash pieces blend into one masterly and moving whole: poignant, loving, and profound in emotional impact.

Meg Tuite White Van
The fifty pieces in this book make up a collection of prose, poetry, and hybrid pieces that unflinchingly examine the worst we humans have to offer. You’ll meet serial killers, pedophiles, and child pornographers and the women they seek to victimize as we struggle to make sense of our brutal species. With a beautifully foreboding cover by Adam Robinson, this book will take you all the places you’re most afraid to go.

Michael Loveday: Do What the Boss Says: Stories of Family and Childhood
A daughter nervously visits her father who has now become a stranger; a young Irish girl substitutes a cardboard cut-out for her presence within her own family; a naive schoolboy is tricked by a more streetwise passer-by; a child tries to impress her village by breaking the world record for stepping in and out of a doorway. This chapbook offers you a kaleidoscopic view of the pressures, conflicts and joys of childhood and family life: from surreal fables to memoir, to idiosyncratic realism, to ghost stories about weird encounters.

Michael Loveday: Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash
Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash: from Blank Page to Finished Manuscript is the first ever full roadmap for creating your own novella composed of flash fictions, or very short stories. Whether you’ve written a novella-in-flash before, or are a beginner newly experimenting, this flexible, step-by-step craft guide will support you to produce a high-quality manuscript of linked narratives

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

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.

A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.

A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022

A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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 interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions

A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.

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.

Coming soon:

A book review of YOUR HEARTS, YOUR SCARS (Bellevue Literary Press, January 2023) by Adina Talve-Goodman in DIAGRAM

A photo essay in On the Seawall featuring miniatures, houses, and a family besieged by mental illness.

A a hybrid flash non-fiction piece about the mysteries of ancestry in ELJ Editions Scissors & Spackle.

A conversation-in-review with Nicole McCarthy on her genre-defying A SUMMONING (Heavy Feather Review, September 2022) to appear in CRAFT Literary in 2023.

A conversation-in-review with Jamila Minnicks, on her PEN/Bellwether Prize-winning debut, MOONRISE OVER NEW JESSUP (Algonquin Books, January 10, 2023) to appear in The Rumpus.

Tanya Frank’s ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Motherhood & Madness (W.W. Norton, Feb 28 2023), a review and conversation to appear in Hippocampus Magazine, spring 2023.

A review-in-conversation with Gayle Brandeis, DRAWING BREATH: Essays on the Body, Writing, & Loss (Overcup Press, February 2023)

I’ll be sharing my published interviews here, after they’ve ‘gone live’ with their various publications.

There’s more to this newsletter. Keep scrolling.

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

Musings & Meanderings: What writers need, where to submit, an archive of author interviews, book lists to tempt, building teen confidence, more

Published by Always with a Book

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, Friends!

I recently had dinner with my extended family. They don’t really ‘get’ the writing life. Maybe they think writers are all heads-in-the-clouds dreamy type people, or maybe they just don’t understand it, respect it/value it, but it got me thinking about what we–readers and writers–need, as a way to sustain our art. Let this be a wish list for you…now and in the New Year.

We all need support.

This doesn’t have to be financial, but that’s good, too! What I’m getting at is someone who says, “yep–I support this.”

We all need time to think, because half (more?) of all writing is thinking.

So clear the clutter in your mind. Meditate. Walk. Exercise. Journal. It’s never ‘wasted time.’

We all need the time to write.

This could be a few minutes a day, a weekend, or however you determine it. Carving out a time and space for our work is important.

We all need feedback, even if it’s just from one other person.

Sometimes that person may just be your partner, but that’s okay. Some feedback is better than none. You can always step it up a notch and join a critique group, work with a writing/accountability partner, submit to journals, agents, etc.

We all need to read.

I cannot emphasize this enough! Read widely. Read often. Read stuff slightly out of your comfort zone. Read stuff at a higher caliber than you write. It will catapult you to the next level. Read like your life depends upon it. It does.

We all need to feel valuable or recognized.

Yep. Writing can be a slog. There’s plenty of rejection and naysayers. It’s subjective, too. When we don’t feel valued or recognized, it can feel like screaming into a void. Surround yourself with supportive and accepting individuals who value you and your writing/art making.

We all need to feel safe.

This sort of goes back to the point above about feeling valued and recognized. No one can create art, take risks, or even be themselves if safety is compromised.

We all need a vacation.

So, so true! It’s hard as a creative to fully unplug because you are connected to your brain all the time. You can’t just turn off the creativity like a switch, even on vacation. Still yet, I will often get emails from editors and publicists and authors while I’m away. They don’t know I’m on vacation. So, here’s what you do: you set an out-of-office response on your emails. You stop checking. You can still do what you want while away–maybe it means journaling, reading, snapping photos, collecting ideas/stories.

How about you? What kinds of things do you feel you need to pursue your art? Is is different than what’s above?

Respond here in a comment, or find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

xx,

~Leslie : )

I’ll keep my obsessions short because this time of year…our bandwidths are, too.

What’s Obsessing Me:

Retreats! There’s a fabulous yoga retreat I am interested in attending this fall in Montana and also Ragdale has several throughout 2023 and I’m drooling over this historic home in Lake Forest, IL. And yes…all of that.
Lake Geneva, WI Ice Castles! I mean, how cool would that be?!

Some Writerly Things:

Writing Workshops has some great offerings coming up in the New Year you want want to check out. Add it to your holiday wish list!

Off Campus Writing Workshops (OCWW) is new-ish to me at the suggestion of several writerly friends. OCWW offers in-person or virtual–depending on where you are/comfort level–to level up your craft. Check ’em out!

Visual Verse is open for Ekphrasis work now.

Archetype is interested in seeing your essays, poetry, fiction, interviews, reviews, impassioned musings, photography, and art by both emerging and established writers and artists now thru Jan 7 2023.

If you have some poetry, CNF, Fiction, or photography (bonus if it includes blues, greens, and teals–totally my jam!), Solstice Literary Magazine is seeking submissions for Spring 2023.

The Ninth Letter is looking for CNF and poetry for their next print issue. Subs are open thru Feb 28, but FREE until December 31.

Arvon 5-day Hybrid Writing Challenge Sign up to join the free Arvon 5-day Hybrid Writing Challenge.Each day, between Monday 16 January to Friday 20 January we will email you a writing prompt with supporting materials, guided by Tania Hershman. By the end of the week you will have a draft of a brand-new hybrid writing piece, all ready to be polished and prodded as you see fit. Tania’s 5-day Challenge will inspire you to get curious about your writing, and give you the freedom to write whatever you want to write in the way you want to write it, without worrying about labels.

Some Readerly Things:

Books make great gifts! Check out this list from LitHub ‘s staff featuring their favorite books of 2022. Consider ordering from or visiting your local bookstore and give everyone on your list a book this year. Inscribe it. It’s better than a card. Beats even a gift card. No local store nearby? Try Bookshop.org. My shop is Always with a Book.

More of a non-fiction reader? Check out this list from Bookmarks on the best reviewed nonfiction of the year.

I’m in the midst of reading Lauren Camp’s award-winning poetry collection, TOOK HOUSE (Tupelo Press, 2020) which is about so many things, and sort of hard to describe, but the cover is a pretty good indication that it’s about space and what dwells there, along with nature. Here’s a gorgeous description from the back of the book,

“TOOK HOUSE navigates a landscape of bone and ash, wine and circumstance.”

Can’t make book club this month? One person I know, who’s book club I am not in, says they don’t read a book for December. Instead, they go out to dinner and chat about books for the upcoming year. What a great idea!

Being a teenager is tough! We were all one once before…maybe we’re raising teens now…this book might be just the ticket and makes a great gift this season. Check out Derek T. Freeman’s BUIDLING UNSTOPPABLE SELF-CONFIDENCE FOR TEENS.

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

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.

A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.

A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022

A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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 interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions

A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.

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.

Coming soon:

A book review of YOUR HEARTS, YOUR SCARS (Bellevue Literary Press, January 2023) by Adina Talve-Goodman in DIAGRAM
A photo essay in On the Seawall featuring miniatures, houses, and a family besieged by mental illness.
A a hybrid flash non-fiction piece about the mysteries of ancestry in ELJ Editions Scissors & Spackle.
Other interviews forthcoming in HippocampusMagazine…Juliet Patterson’s SINKHOLE: A Natural History of a Suicide (Milkweed, September 2022).
A conversation-in-review with Nicole McCarthy on her genre-defying A SUMMONING (Heavy Feather Review, September 2022) to appear in CRAFT Literary in 2023.

A conversation-in-review with Jamila Minnicks, on her PEN/Bellwether Prize-winning debut, MOONRISE OVER NEW JESSUP (Algonquin Books, January 10, 2023) to appear in The Rumpus.
Tanya Frank’s ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Motherhood & Madness (W.W. Norton, Feb 28 2023), a review and conversation to appear in Hippocampus Magazine, spring 2023.
A review-in-conversation with Gayle Brandeis about her forthcoming memoir, DRAWING BREATH: Essays on Writing, The Body, and Grief (Overcup Press, Feb 2023) to appear in Hippocampus Magazine

I’ll be sharing my published interviews here, after they’ve ‘gone live’ with their various publications.

There’s more to this newsletter. Keep scrolling.

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.

Get occasional bookish news delivered to your inbox.

Musings & Meanderings: Taking risk with your art, going hybrid, planning your 2023 writing year, classes and workshops, where to submit, author interviews, reading recommendations

Published by Always with a Book

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, Friends!

I shall now tell you an embarrassing story about myself.

You may know this, but I am a Type A Personality. I am also very stubborn. I usually have my reasons. [If that doesn’t sound stubborn!].

Listening to others is important because I like to consider lots of alternatives, because, also: I am an overthinker.

Most of the time I ignore these thoughtful folks and do what I want anyway. I am a grown woman and responsible for my own life, right? Often I lead with my gut–my heart–my intuition, and it turns out swimmingly. Sometimes not. I’m totally okay with that, I would regret not trying or doing or saying something.

You might be wondering what the thing was that I did…and while it doesn’t really matter, it made me pause.

Did I do something wrong? No.

This person and I are just different. We have different expectations, different modes of being, different experiences. I could dwell on the negative things, because that’s what humans do. But really, there are positives here. I know who I am. I operate out of heart and compassion.

We have about three-and-a-half weeks of the year. That’s plenty of time to take risks with yourself and your art.

If you’re not ready to take a risk, who the eff cares? You do! Why not gear up for the risk?

I have this idea to write about something in an unconventional way. It will involve narrative of course, but some experimental stuff, too. Vignettes. Maybe some visual elements–photographs, collages, floorplans–and I love this idea. I tell others and they just kind of look at me as if I have six heads.

But then I discover books like this and think–aha!–they did it! I can, too.

I made a binder for this project (did I mention Type A?). I hate outlines, so I created a ‘guide.’ Just that word alone makes me feel like I am not in HS Honors English all over again! I secured a writing partner.

She said she loved it. She said, “I LOOOVE what you’re doing here…you could tone it down to make it less weird and more commercial, but I don’t think you should. The readers who need it will find it.”

I’m going to keep that in mind.

When she mentioned that the experimental stuff was good, but a little distracting, I’m going to listen to that. Maybe less of it. Maybe it’s about placement within the narrative.

I really want to some fun stuff, some risky stuff. Where I spend my time approaching the book from different angles that have more to do with aesthetics rather than nuts and bolts.

So here’s what I’m doing:

Reading lots of poetry every day.

For one, I gotta attain my reading goal for the year (Type A!). Two: It helps with writing concisely. It helps with really cool words.

Sometimes just researching.

That means digging into the internet to look at images of my childhood home, going to Ebay and finding this Colorforms set I loved as a kid featuring the cross-section of a house. Maybe it means coming up with a playlist for certain sections of my book.

Visiting with a childhood friend.

I spent time with a friend whom I have not seen or spoken to in at least twenty-five years this past fall. Oh the memories! We picked up right where we left off and it was crazy-fun how much we remembered from some of our really young years. I mean, like, when we were five!

Discovering art & literature from the time period I am writing.

I just read (well, haven’t finished) Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing and it was published in the 1990s. That’s approximately when I am setting this story. I also came across other work–art installations, sculpture, movies, that were popular then, too. It helps.

How about you? What kinds of things are you doing to take your work to the next level? Are you taking some creative risks?

Respond here in a comment, or find me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

xx,

~Leslie : )

I’ll keep my obsessions short because this time of year…our bandwidths are, too.

What’s Obsessing Me:

Lights. I don’t know…I’m noticing them everywhere. In bathrooms, lampposts, in tiny houses (like figurines), fairy lights, in trees…maybe it’s because the winter solstice is fast-approaching, maybe because I just like twinkly little things.
Books that use unconventional narrative, flash, that kind of thing.
Collage and art. How fragments make up a whole.
Speculative non-fiction…and is that like creative non-fiction? Is that splitting hairs?
Ragdale. Pretty sure I’m going to attend a retreat there and I really cannot wait.

Photo by Izabella Bedu0151 on Pexels.com

Some Writerly Things:

Writing Workshops has some great offerings coming up in the New Year you want want to check out. Add it to your holiday wish list!

Visual Verse is open for Ekphrasis work now.

If you have some poetry, CNF, Fiction, or photography (bonus if it includes blues, greens, and teals–totally my jam!), Solstice Literary Magazine is seeking submissions for Spring 2023.

The Ninth Letter is looking for CNF and poetry for their next print issue. Subs are open thru Feb 28, but FREE until December 31.

And if you’re writing stuff that’s kind of on-the-edge, or maybe a hybrid thing, you might want to check out the U.K.-based Fieldnotes.

This class offered through Story Studio piqued my interest. It starts Jan 11 fee-based, but online.

Some Readerly Things:

Books make great gifts! Check out this list from LitHub ‘s staff featuring their favorite books of 2022. Consider ordering from or visiting your local bookstore and give everyone on your list a book this year. Inscribe it. It’s better than a card. Beats even a gift card. No local store nearby? Try Bookshop.org. My shop is Always with a Book.

And this one, too: ZIG-ZAG BOY (W.W. Norton, Feb 2023) by Tanya Frank, who’s youngest son develops psychosis while away his Freshman year of college.

Can’t make book club this month? One person I know, who’s book club I am not in, says they don’t read a book for December. Instead, they go out to dinner and chat about books for the upcoming year. What a great idea!

Some Recently Published Interviews, Prose, Etc.:

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.

A conversation-in-review with the EIC of Salon, Erin Keane, about her memoir, RUNAWAY: Notes on the Myths that Made Me (Belt Publishing, September, 2022), in Autofocus Literary, November 12, 2022.

A conversation with Sheila O’Connor about elegantly exploring the nonlinear, (a total obsession of mine), in her EVIDENCE OF V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019), in Fractured Literary, October 25, 2022

A review-in-dialogue with Su Cho about her debut book of poetry, THE SYMMETRY OF FISH (Penguin Poets, October 2022) in The Cincinnati Review, November 1 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 interview with Lauren Acampora about the pursuit of art, the suburbs, growth and stagnation, more as related to her highly anticipated novel, THE HUNDRED WATERS, in The Millions

A review-in-dialogue with Kristine Langley Mahler about her debut, CURING SEASON: Artifacts, in Brevity. We unpack home, displacement, found forms, more.

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.

Coming soon:

A book review of YOUR HEARTS, YOUR SCARS (Bellevue Literary Press, January 2023) by Adina Talve-Goodman in DIAGRAM
A photo essay in On the Seawall featuring miniatures, houses, and a family besieged by mental illness.
A a hybrid flash non-fiction piece about the mysteries of ancestry in ELJ Editions Scissors & Spackle.
Other interviews forthcoming in HippocampusMagazine…Juliet Patterson’s SINKHOLE: A Natural History of a Suicide (Milkweed, September 2022).
A conversation-in-review with Nicole McCarthy on her genre-defying A SUMMONING (Heavy Feather Review, September 2022) to appear in CRAFT Literary in 2023.

A conversation-in-review with Jamila Minnicks, on her PEN/Bellwether Prize-winning debut, MOONRISE OVER NEW JESSUP (Algonquin Books, January 10, 2023) to appear in The Rumpus.
Tanya Frank’s ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Motherhood & Madness (W.W. Norton, Feb 28 2023), a review and conversation to appear in Hippocampus Magazine, spring 2023.

I’ll be sharing my published interviews here, after they’ve ‘gone live’ with their various publications.

There’s more to this newsletter. Keep scrolling.

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.

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.

Browse the Archives | Donate

Learn more HERE.

Are you following us on Instagram?

That’s where you’ll catch bookreels, cover reveals, & bookmail : )

I support writing organizations, authors, publishers, and more. Occasionally, you’ll get a peak behind-the-scenes, too.