The simple joy of attending a bookstore reading
I got to hear Mike Albo talk about his sci fi YA novel on the first night of my Martha's Vineyard vacation
This is my newsletter about my life, interests, and work, including my books, writing, and classes. To show your support consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. For $5/month or $50/year, paid subscribers get access to my full archives. I hope you’ll also check out my Substack personal essay publication Open Secrets, which publishes an original essay every week.
I’m spending the week visiting family on Martha’s Vineyard, working in between hanging out with cousins I haven’t seen since before the pandemic.
I recently wrote an essay on becoming an obsessive worrier for the site Gloria, and in the wake of that, I’m trying to shed myself of things I tend to worry about.
Case in point: One major way I’m trying to improve in 2023 is to embrace the fact that my best in actual life is rarely going to be the “best” I envision in my mind, and rather than waiting until all the stars align before sending a newsletter or pitching a story or starting a new piece of writing without knowing exactly how it will end, I can just do the thing, and move on to the next thing. That sound simple, but for an overthinker like me, it never is, but I’m looking forward to wrapping up some deadlines in the next few weeks so I can properly assess what I want to work on next rather than always feeling behind.
So it doesn’t get buried, one of my upcoming deadlines is finishing up my Cleis Press anthology of erotic flash fiction; I just updated the call for submissions and extended the deadline to September 1 or when I get enough stories to complete the book, whichever happens soonest. If you’ve already submitted, your story is still being considered, but if you haven’t and have any original, 1,000-1,200 word erotic stories that fit what I’m looking for, please send them my way. I especially hope to publish lots of writers I haven’t worked with before, because then I’ll be taking a little erotica anthology editing break.
Last night I arrived and a few hours later went to hear the wonderful and hilarious writer Mike Albo discuss and read from his new YA novel Another Dimension of Us. It was such a simple pleasure for me as a book lover, to go to a reading and listen to an author share the backstory of their work, which in this case included bringing props like his high school literary journal and a book on astral projection he’s owned since 1998.
Going to readings is something I used to do all the time in New York and don’t get to do very often these days, since my town doesn’t even have a downtown, let alone a bookstore. Being able to walk to a bookstore and hear about a book I wouldn’t have picked up if I hadn’t heard the author talk, to get it signed and say hello to a writer I know from New York literary circles felt like a little throwback to my old life. Even though I don’t write sci fi or YA, I still got inspiration from some of the imagery Mike conjured, and from hearing him talk about taking his book from an idea into an actual manuscript. Plus there was a bookstore cat! It was a lovely way to start my trip and help get me out of the shame-blame-guilt cycle I fall into often when it comes to my own writing.
I’ll keep this short, because I want to simply enjoy the breeze from the water and take some time to read this book instead of feeling like I should be working all the time. I like all the work I do, but I don’t like the part of my mind that tells me that if I’m not at least partially mentally engaged in plotting or planning or brainstorming work, then I don’t deserve a vacation. That’s a) not really a vacation and b) isn’t how creativity works, for me, anyway. I need time away from my computer to ponder and think (and sometimes dream, or at least toss and turn somewhere in between waking and sleeping and let images and wordplay seep into my consciousness) before returning full of ideas. And to relax.
Speaking of creativity, my next Essay Writing 101 class is this Saturday, July 29, 1-3 pm ET/10 am-noon PT, and there are still some spots left. For some standout essays that I’m proud to have published at
, check out these.“The Catheter Lady” by Jordan Sara Kurtzman - This is exactly the kind of essay I started Open Secrets to publish, about an invisible illness and the toll that secret can take.
“An Ode to Old-Fashioned Letters” by Joshunda Sanders - As someone who loves sending snail mail, I found this piece a delightful and fascinating look at the pleasure of sending and receiving mail.
“Am I My Pen Name?” by Ben Goodwin - If you write erotica and/or have used or considered a pen name, I’m 99% sure you’ll get a lot of out this powerful essay about giving up his pseudonym, Guy New York. I certainly found it insightful about the blurry line between our writing self and our real life.
And if you haven’t subscribed to Open Secrets yet, I’d love if you would. It’s free (extra thanks to those who’ve become paid subscribers), and truly makes a difference, as does liking posts and commenting. Open Secrets has been my 2023 literary experiment that has helped me get through some hard times by giving me a project to shape and craft and caretaker, to work with writers I’m familiar with and seek out ones I’m not.
I’m very proud of what the writers I’ve worked with have shared so far, and I’m hoping to get enough funding to continue into 2024. The more subscribers, the more people who read it, the better the chances of that happening. I also would love to one day edit an Open Secrets-related anthology, and getting the number of subscribers up into the thousands would help increase the chances of that happening (we’re at 651 right now).
Hope you’re enjoying your summer, wherever you are!
What I’m up to:
July 29, 1-3 pm ET, Essay Writing 101 Zoom Class. $25/person. Limited to 20 people.
September 9, 1-3 pm ET, Erotica Writing 101 Zoom Class. $25/person. Limited to 50 people.