Tomorrow is tomorrow

And today is today

It’s rare for me to skip sending this newsletter, but last week I did. I sat down to write but I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t feel like noise. In the face of climate catastrophe, ongoing war, and the incoming administration, what? We are going to keep sending our little newsletters?

Well, yes. We are going to keep creating, keep reaching in the direction of beauty, keep looking for connection with other human beings, keep caring. It’s not nothing.

To that end, 100 Days of Creative Resistance starts tomorrow. A letter a day, with a reminder of why we write and create, for 100 days. I’m honored to be part of this project (watch for a letter from me in February) and ready to lean on these reminders, each of which will say in its own way: keep going.

This week in writing

I’m taking part in Word West’s A Write at the Museum, led by David Byron Queen. Each weekend, we visit a different NYC museum and complete a writing prompt, taking inspiration from the art. In the middle of the week, we meet online to read our work and react in real time to each other’s. So far we’ve done the Met and the Whitney. Today we go to the Museum of Natural History.

I used the first two prompts to write in and around my novel. The first resulted in a new and fun scene, something I never would have written without the prompt. For the second, I wrote about something that happens to my narrator after the end of the book, which felt like a different and exciting way to get to know her.

Clockwise from top left: Joan Mitchell’s Hemlock (1956), an untitled work by Ruth Asawa (1955), Elaine de Kooning’s Self-Portrait (1946), Niccolò di Pietro’s Saint Ursula and Her Maidens (~1410)

The other people in the class are doing really cool work. It seems like we’re all surprised by what the art and the prompts pull out of us. Art is powerful!

This week in reading

I read Cold Comfort by Dave Pedersen. Poems from my hometown! My favorite was a sestina called “The Cycle of Cities and their Mother Rivers.” I am a sucker for a sestina and I love lyrical writing about industrial landscapes, and this poem is both. Beautiful.

I read an ARC of Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn, which is a novel about a recently divorced woman living through the early days of the pandemic who, informed by lots of app hookups, decides to design her perfect romantic partner as an AI chatbot. Amy’s writing is funny, sexy, tell-it-like-it-is. I really enjoyed this book.

Now I’m reading Horse Girl Fever by Kevin Maloney, short stories that are hilarious and heart-wrenching at the same time. I saw Kevin read this past Monday at the Franklin Park Reading Series and his reading was fantastic. (It was a particularly good lineup — I got to meet Kristen Felicetti and ask her to sign my copy of Log Off, which I loved so much!)

Finally, I just started an ARC of Better: A Memoir About Wanting to Die by Arianna Rebolini and I cannot put it down. I remember Arianna telling me about her idea for this book in… 2019? I have been eagerly awaiting it for so long and now it’s here and I’m just so excited for her.

This week in Leave news

There’s a lot going on!

Leave was named one of the most anticipated books of 2025 by Chicago Review of Books! WHAT AN HONOR to be included among the next Karen Russell, the next Lidia Yuknavitch, the next Laila Lalami. Floored. Thank you, Rachel. <3

Leave also received this incredibly thoughtful and generous review in Shelf Awareness, which brought tears to my eyes. This part got me:

"Birth is a portal that can take us to other births," Terry reflects, and Leave honors this observation, revealing with a boldness and rawness that her one birth is both deeply personal and entirely universal. It is not hard to imagine that Leave must have been cathartic for Terry to write. What is harder to embrace is the realization that it is also cathartic to read, acknowledging what often goes unsaid and unrecognized, for any reader who has given birth, endured pain, or known someone who has (in other words: nearly everyone).

I feel so lucky to be read in this way. Thank you, Kerry. <3

The pieces of my mini book tour are falling into place. Lots more details coming very soon, but save 2.25.25 if you are in Brooklyn!

Okay, my friends. Tomorrow is tomorrow, today is today. I’m going to go fill my eyes and my brain with art and science, stay soft, and love my people.

Love,
Shayne