Writers have a self-serving interest...

Thoughts on "retreats," defending satire, and The Six Stages of Having Too Many Books.

Eight great things for the first Friday in October:

1. This essay, The Longest Retreat: Ryan Lee Wong on the Intersection of Writing, Meditating, and Community, really spoke to me. “A word common to both meditators and writers is ‘retreat.’ The Latin root means ‘to pull back’: we pull back from our habitual lives and social circles to let a different kind of activity happen.” Yes.

2. The Onion is definitely NOT KIDDING about the 23-page amicus brief they submitted to the Supreme Court this week. “As the globe’s premier parodists, The Onion’s writers have a self-serving interest in preventing political authorities from imprisoning humorists. This brief is submitted in the interest of at least mitigating their future punishment.” Read the whole thing here.

3. New Yorker cartoonist Vi-An Nguyen recently illustrated The Six Stages of Having Too Many Books. I thought I had a problem, but turns out, I’m only at stage one.

4. The finalists for the 2022 National Book Award were announced on Tuesday and I will admit, reluctantly, that every single book on the list is unfamiliar to me, but I’m putting The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School on my TBR list, because that title is awesome.

5. In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day on Monday, thought I’d share how Cornell’s Center for Cultural Humility is running free, virtual weekly workshop sessions through Oct. 24, to highlight the work of Native American writers and help them cultivate the skills to enhance and disseminate their projects. Apply here.

6. Nerd Word of the Week: Acnestis ~ the part of the back (or backbone) between the shoulder blades and the loins which an animal cannot reach to scratch.

7. “Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.” — Kristin Hannah

8. Thinking back on that time Alexa made a few book recommendations. Her taste (by which I mean her algorithmic accuracy) was surprisingly good, which is actually pretty creepy

Happy writing, my friends,

April