All posts tagged: prose

Musings & Meanderings: A spring re-set for writers, designing interiors of tiny homes–Julie Carrick Dalton on her new book, THE LAST BEEKEEPER, found family, going home; poetry prize judged by Maggie Smith, Corporeal Writing’s Tree Retreat, Courtney Maum, fragments & more

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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 I’m thick into the memoir-writing-process and it’s been sort of a re-set. But before we get into all of that, welcome, new folks! I’m glad you’re here. If you’re a reader and writer, you’re in the right place. Thirsty for more details? The long and short of it is this is a newsletter about the craft of writing/process, reading recommendations, author interviews (some long form, others shorter). ‘Musings & Meanderings’ comes out about twice a month. I live in the Chicago suburbs. Creating and making things beautiful is my jam. Yoga, cardio…rinse, repeat. So, a reset. It’s March. We’re ripe for a change. Once, an intuitive person [psychic!]–told me I needed a getaway every quarter…it didn’t have to be ‘big,’ just a night or two, maybe near water. She wasn’t wrong! Water feeds me. Getting away is always a …

National Book Award-winning and NYT bestselling author Jacqueline Woodson’s RED AT THE BONE, about family, history, ambition, and a teen pregnancy

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By Leslie Lindsay  Beneath the trouble, lies a very powerful and poignant tale about race and class, ambition, and more. RED AT THE BONE is destined to become a classic.  ~Wednesdays with Writers: SPOTLIGHT!~ The thing with ‘classic’ literature is that it is typically polarizing; that is, not everyone is going to love it, there will be themes that make readers squirm, that make us uncomfortable. Classic literature does that. That’s exactly what we’ll find in this bestseller from Jacqueline Woodson, RED AT THE BONE (September 17 2019). Told in a forward-and-backward momentum, Woodson tells the story of two African American families from different social classes who come together because of a teen pregnancy and the child it produces. We begin with a sixteen-year-old’s coming-of-age party in somewhat contemporary (2001) times. Melody is that baby from sixteen years ago, when her mother was an unmarried pregnant teen. Adoring relatives look on, but what we don’t know is the pain each of them has carried. “In less than 200 sparsely filled pages, this book manages to encompass issues of class, …

A magician with words, poet Sarah Blake wows the world with her her debut fiction, based on the ancient re-telling of Noah’s ark from his wife, NAAMAH’S, POV

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By Leslie Lindsay  Exquisitely rendered, astonishing read about the mother of all great disasters–the Great Flood–NAAMAH is as gorgeous as it is frightening. Teeming with allegory, metaphor, and more.  Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by THE RUMPUS,  THE WEEK,  READ IT FORWARD,  THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER,  and more ….And Blake is named one of BOOKPAGE’S  FIFTEEN WOMEN TO WATCH IN 2019 This book. This book. THIS BOOK!! I am in awe. I can’t stop thinking about it. NAAMAH (Riverhead, April 9th) is a stunning foray into one of the oldest and most well-known Bible stories–that of Noah and the Ark, but this telling is from the POV of Noah’s wife, Naamah. In the Bible, she is unnamed, but in Sarah Blake’s hands, she is truly actualized. She’s a wife, a mother, a mother-in-law, a lover, a caretaker, and she has worries– struggles on what it means to be a woman, faith, her purpose, and so much more. Sarah Blake’s background as a poet is evident. Her prose is lush but stark, weaving in plenty of lyricism, but make no mistake, NAMMAH is …