Taking care

Find me, for now, in the bath with a book

Oh hi.

How are we taking care right now? A few things I’m doing.

• Baths. Not just regular baths. Epsom salt baths. Have you yet to discover the magical healing properties of an epsom salt bath?¹ Epsom salts are cheap and available in pretty much every pharmacy and a lot of grocery stores. You don’t need fancy ones. The basic ones are fine. In fact, I prefer my epsom salts with just one ingredient (magnesium sulfate) and the fancy ones often have oils and fragrances added.

• Board games. To distract ourselves from the early results, we chose election night to teach our five-year-old how to play Monopoly. I wasn’t sure he would get it, but he did and he loves it. Since then, we’ve had a string of Monopoly games going on our kitchen counter, and it’s strangely soothing. My kid’s favorite properties are New York Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, Illinois Avenue, and Vermont Avenue, because there are people he loves in those states. (Not a board game, but our other favorite game for the last year has been Skyjo, a card game that is the perfect blend of strategy and luck and easy enough for a kid to pick up but still very fun for adults.)

• Walks. On Friday, I had a scheduled call with a colleague where I was pretty sure we wouldn’t need to share screens, so I suggested that instead of sitting through another Zoom we do a walking phone call. I walked three miles in an hour and I am fairly sure my brain worked better for the rest of the afternoon.

• Books. Obviously. I have been weaning myself off the news podcasts I so obsessively followed in October. I don’t need instant updates on every cabinet selection. My brain would be better served by reading.

• Unsubscribing. I’m not unsubscribing from those podcasts, just skipping episodes for now, but I am aggressively opting out of emails, push notifications, and other useless noise. WHY have I been letting Instacart send me daily push notifications when I haven’t used that app in years? No more ignoring because I am too busy to think about turning them off; we’re in purge mode. If taking care of yourself means unsubscribing from this very email, please know that I support you!

One thing I have opted into is Bluesky. I stopped using X a while ago, but an app that was invite-only seemed like too big a hurdle for me. Well, now it’s open to anyone and it really does feel like old literary Twitter (for now). Who knows how long it will last, but we might as well enjoy it. Yesterday I posted a photo of my favorite Natalia Ginzburg book and someone in Turin saw my post, went on a walk, took photos of buildings from the book, and replied to me with the photos. This is what the internet is for. If you’re over there, here’s my profile.

Something beautiful: In the wake of Hurricane Helene,

Niina Pollari

organized Poets for Appalachia, a team effort between poets and publishers to raise money for three North Carolina mutual aid organizations, and they raised over $5500. 👏

niinausea

A post shared by @niinausea

A dream come true: My story “The Rock Is Not a Rock” was named an Other Distinguished Story in The Best American Short Stories 2024.

When I say this is a dream come true, I mean that “Make the back of BASS” was actually one of the 16 goals I once made for my writing career. (I’ve now checked off 8 — halfway there, wherever there is.)

Here’s the backstory of how “The Rock” came to be. (TL;DR the narrator of this story is the narrator of my glass house novel.) This story is my favorite story I have ever written. It’s an absolute honor to even be read by Heidi Pitlor and Lauren Groff, and being included on this list with people like Laura van den Berg and Nicole Krauss and Rivka Galchen — it hasn’t even fully sunk in yet.

This week in Leave news

I’m working on a postcard! And a bookmark! They are going to feature the cover art! I am really into the work that Fireball Printing is putting out there. I know lots of people are into the big cheap printing websites, and no judgment — I use them for my holiday cards because I’m not a designer and they make it super easy — but those sites are then outsourcing most if not all of the printing. Some of those services are better than others, but for my book stuff I want to give the business directly to a printer.

Early reviews are rolling in on Goodreads and NetGalley. Early readers have been SO kind. This review actually made me cry:

This is the book I wish I had when I was postpartum. To feel seen in literature is validating and incredibly healing. These are important conversations that need to be had more openly. I appreciate the author's vulnerability and cadence. Though it's mostly focused on the fourth trimester, it also touches on the opioid crisis and generational trauma in such interconnected ways. The essay format is incredibly accessible. I actually read the entire book in one sitting, which I think is perfect for a topic that will probably be read by many postpartum mothers during their healing process. I will be recommending this to those who have given birth or are considering it (also their partners), but I also believe it'd be helpful for boards/HR considering leave policies.

Thank you, Book Trade Professional 1576018. 🥹

This week in reading

I finished Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began by Leah Hazard and Motherhood by Sheila Heti (very good on audio).

I’m still reading Women by Chloé Caldwell and also started My Lives by Edmund White. I was tickled to learn in the first few pages that he lived briefly in my hometown!

A little miffed that he called Rockford “grim” but you can’t stay mad at Edmund White.

This week in writing

I joined a new writing group that workshops once a month. I’ll be attending my second session tomorrow and I’m up, so I submitted a chapter of the glass house novel. I’m hoping that putting the manuscript out there for feedback will inspire me to finish a draft. I’ve had one foot in (or maybe more like one toe in) for so long and I need to just immerse myself in it again.

What keeps me from going fully back into the novel is that I have all these essay drafts that are in some stage of near-completion. Perhaps I need a new system… work on the novel for thirty minutes every morning and then switch to the essays? If you are a writer who keeps multiple projects in different modes going at once, how do you manage it?

This letter got long. I love you all.

Shayne

1. I am not a doctor and actual doctors say more research is needed about the potential benefits of the transdermal magnesium supplementation, so if you actually need magnesium for health reasons, it would be better to drink it. But sometimes folk remedies have been around for centuries for a reason!