Full brain, full heart
Photos from Philly and a note from my journal
A note I wrote in my journal last week:
I’m sure many of you can relate! I have no advice for this. Just telling it like it is.
But with everything going on in the world, it’s actually a great time to be doing book events. Full brain, but also full heart.
This week in writing
Scrivener tells me I wrote 129 words of the novel this week, but my mind has been working on it way more than that. I’m in the middle of a breakthrough on this project that I’m not quite ready to talk about yet… but I’m beginning to see a way to finish that doesn’t take another ten years.
This week in reading
I’m reading Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book. Exquisitely beautiful.
My friend Anna and I went to a 92nd Street Y panel on Monday where Kate Zambreno, Alexander Chee, and Leanne Shapton discussed Jansson’s work and some Finnish and Swedish people in the audience schooled us all on how to say “Tove Jansson.”
This week in Leave news
Thursday was the Philly launch of Leave: A Postpartum Account at The Head & The Hand Books. I was in conversation with
, who brings the very best energy.
We talked about unconventional memoir formats (Jiordan’s fantastic book Disappearing Act is a YA true-story-in-verse recounting the aftermath of her father's imprisonment), grief books, and intergenerational trauma, and you may not believe me based on that list of topics but the vibes were high and many laughs were had! H&H Books was a fantastic host — totally recommend for anyone book touring. Thank you to all who came out. 💞
Up next: more stops on this very spread-out mini-tour!
My family is heading to AWP early to see friends in San Diego and then bop around LA a bit on our own before the conference starts. No newsletter next week — see you on the other side!
Love,
Shayne