READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
Dayswork
Some real literary figures feature in Dayswork, a novel by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel (who are married to each other). Namely, Herman Melville, but also Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Lowell, literary critic Elizabeth Hardwick, and the still-living and Pulitzer-winning Melville biographer Hershel Parker (thinly veiled as “The Biographer”). They aren’t characters, exactly, as they play the historical figures that they actually are only through the lens of the protagonist’s internet deep dive as she becomes obsessed with Melville during the early days of the pandemic — that time when we were all sequestered inside with our computers as our only tethers to the outside world.
A Book Recommendation Party
We were so happy to have a handful of people over last night. It was mostly just a way to rev up entertaining again, but as I try to suss out the hows and whats of possibly starting up some literary/book events in Charlotte after doing so in MetroWest Boston, it also served as an easy way to start dipping my toe in that world. I mean, I’m talking in a verrrrry minor way because the only book-ish thing about the evening was that it was requested that everyone bring a book recommendation to share.
Quiet and Careful
Here’s what I noticed within two months of moving to Dublin: People here are considerably less angsty than Americans about anything identity related. Although I’m asserting this as an outsider, when you come from a place that necessitates pigeon-holing its citizens—for political reasons, mostly—less emphasis on categorizing sings to me. America: the land of Buzzfeed quizzes that don’t even make any sense! (What Country Should You Live In?/Which U.S. President Are You?/Which Super Power Should You Actually Have?) Ireland: the place where everything is “just grand”!
