Hi everyone,
I’m traveling for the holidays but just a quick check-in to let you know about a few things:
I’m going to be sending out a cute lil Leave postcard soonish. If you want to be included in the send, make sure you’re on my snail mail list! And if you want a stack of 5 or 10 postcards to send your own friends, I would be so happy to send them to you — just let me know. Let’s send more postcards in 2025. 📬
I’ve signed on to review books as part of the 100 Notable Small Press Books initiative. This is a grassroots effort to get more book coverage for, you guessed it, small press books that will culminate in an end of year list next November. I’ve agreed to review three novels or short story collections and to read at least three times that many. If you have any favorite small presses that publish fiction or know of a new small press doing cool things, let me know! 📚
Speaking of lists, Chicago Review of Books published its Best Books We Read in 2024 list, which includes so many writers I love — Ananda Lima! Rita Bullwinkel! — and so many books I want to read — that Bruna Dantas Lobato sounds right up my alley. 🔖
It also includes my own mini review of The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan:
An artist in her twenties wakes up with Sudden Deafness, cause unknown. For the next year, you are her companion as she navigates her life in New York City without sound. This premise hinges on the narration, which was expertly crafted; I thoroughly enjoyed being secluded in this narrator’s head as she considered her unexpectedly altered world.
I’m participating as both an emailer and an emailee in Writing Co-Lab’s 100 Days of Creative Resistance, a daily email with encouragement for writers starting January 20, 2025. Join us! 💌
Last but certainly not least, I’m starting to book events around the launch of Leave! There will be an official launch on February 25, 2025 at Lofty Pigeon in Kensington. I’ll also be at The Rally Reading Series in Williamsburg on February 6. More events to come, and I’m logging them all here. 🗓️
I’ll be back next week with some 2025 writing goals. Using the time between yesterday’s solstice and the upcoming new moon to think about my intentions for the next year. The year has begun to turn!
With love,
Shayne