Updates - June 2024
Spring has sprung, and expired immediately (it's fully summer).
Hi, it’s double-digit June already, I’ve almost finished a new manuscript and Things Are Going On 🗣️
THE UNBECOMING OF MARGARET WOLF is just under seven (7!) months away, and you can prepare for impact if you’d like: preorder, and/or read now & crow about it on NetGalley / Edelweiss
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Readers in Texas have some positive progress to celebrate in the latest appeals court issue: “government actors may not remove books from a public library with the intent to deprive patrons of access to ideas with which they disagree.”
The fact that very serious lawyers had to very unseriously say “butt and fart books” in a court of law is a nice silver lining to this whole circus.
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The latest in cinephilia:
Challengers (2024) could have been hornier [enjoyed it greatly]
The Phantom Menace 25th anniversary screening (I Heart Alamo Drafthouse) was hornier than I remember it being [enjoyed it greatly]
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) on rental was Just Right
Big recommend if you’re also drawn in by narratives about horribly confused actors (might I interest you in that preorder link above?)
I would die for Meryl Streep
[enjoyed it greatly]
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Spent some time cooling off in northern NM with some people and places I love:
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I’m within striking distance of finishing a novel I’ve been calling BABY — who knows what it might turn into or what I’ll end up titling it by the time all is said and done, but I’m having a great time developing its voice so far. I’ve been too shy of nuance to write a real parent-child story until now, and I think this one will end up having interesting things to say about all that.
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Books! New and well-loved alike sit at the top of my lately-pile:
Lauren Groff - VASTER WILDS
Patrick Nathan - THE FUTURE WAS COLOR
Kathe Koja - STRANGE ANGELS
Emily Wilson - THE ODYSSEY, which is the best translation since Fagles imo
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I’ve been listening to plenty of…
🎶 Torres - Sprinter (forever a sticky summer album to me)
🎵 new Katy Kirby single - Headlights
🎼 Wilsen - I Go Missing In My Sleep (June makes me moony, and I think often of 2017).
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Otherwise, south TX is elbow-deep in heat. Most of my being-an-active-body these days is happening before the sun comes up. The unbroken triple-digit days are permanent guests and no longer just passing nuisance—we manage, we deal, we have a lot of ceiling fans, we vote.
All my best to you,
- i
"Any one of them might bark, and he aches for the herding." How dare you ruin my entire day so early in the morning with this one glorious sentence.