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(i) Anyone else just kind of ready to do things differently but feeling like things are kind of (or about to become) an unending string of the same? No? Just me? Last month I was in Mexico on research and right before my return to Eau Claire I felt like I was heading into a solid six months of hibernation. Not necessarily because I wanted to, but because (a) winter and (b) the number of COVID-19 infections climbing each day. Wisconsin took seven months to hit 100,000 cases, and then 36 days to double that to 200,000. Although I'm actively limiting my news and social media intake at the moment, it's impossible to ignore these numbers. And although I've already had COVID, I'm not especially keen on contracting it again, nor am I particularly stoked on the idea of someone I know getting sick.
Cosmically-speaking, we're in for some shifts: this weekend marked a full (blue) moon in Taurus; Mercury moves direct on the 3rd, alleviating some tension in tech and communications but I bet it'll go out with a bang, leaving us with some election uncertainty (to say the least); meanwhile action-oriented Mars moves direct on Nov 13, after a lengthy retrograde in its ruler Aries (since September); and Jupiter and Pluto meet up in Capricorn Nov 12, a rendezvous that happens every 12 or so years. Jupiter has a tendency to magnify everything, and Pluto represents power, transformation, and what's hidden or taboo. These two met up twice already this year, in April and June, and their third and final encounter occurs on the 12th -- all taking place in Capricorn, which represents structure, tradition, men, masculinity, long-term goals and ambition. So, yeah, perfect time for an election between two white males! Which, in all seriousness, I think will continue to reveal the cracks hidden in our societal structures. The USA is currently nearing its "Pluto Return," which means Pluto is returning to the place in the sky where it was when the nation was established in 1776. So we're in the mist of a rebirth. The ruler of power and transformation has a long transit, so the exact return isn't until February 2022, but much like there were years of struggle before the actual establishment of the nation, we're already feeling its effects.
(ii) So about a week ago I thought, I'll sit down and write a little newsletter about what I'm reading, and then it exploded into this longer piece, A Crisis of Knowing in 44 Fragments. Everything I'm writing lately is running long (it's almost as if I'm spending a ton of time alone...). Perhaps you'll notice this piece grapples with an embarrassing abundance of alone time, questioning my aforementioned social media intake, and is rooted in a place of not knowing: what's to come, and whether the current status of sameness in my life is the new normal, the new forever.
You might also note that this (this!) missive is perhaps a new normal -- how usually I serve a big slice of writing right here in your inbox with no distracting links (ugh, links!), but this piece got so big and unruly, it exceeded its usual container. It required a new way of being. (A phrase from Richard Seymour's book The Twittering Machine, mentioned in aforementioned fragments, and my new favorite phrase.)
So! Speaking of new! I've got a new online workshop offering, with plans for more in the future.
For starters, you (or someone you know, or someone you don't know) can watch the replay of a free one-hour webinar on creativity, writing, and publishing I ran for the Red Letter Grant back in May. Then check out the first course offering, which is 100% online, at your own pace, pay-what-you-can goodness (and feel free to email me with any questions).
(iii) I'm also really chuffed (I think it's a British saying?) about this interview I conducted with Barrett Swanson, whose debut essay collection comes out in May 2021 (something to look forward to).
A little backstory that didn't fit into the interview intro: I first encountered Swanson's work in Harper's Magazine last year, and signed up for his mailing list on his website. In July, he announced he had a new piece in the latest issue, so I ran (okay, drove) to the PO Box I rarely check, retrieved my copy, and went straight home to read it. I liked it so much I emailed t to tell him so, and then emailed the publisher of his essay collection to ask for a review copy of his forthcoming book. The piece that had me quite literally running to the mailbox in July was about Swanson's visit to Disaster City in February, as the pandemic escalated. In August, I opened the PDF version of Lost in Summerland from the publisher (even though I hardly have the attention span for e-books) and wasn't even halfway through reading the first essay when my phone rang. It was the Health Department. Calling to say I tested positive for COVID-19. Which is another story altogether, one I'm still trying to wrestle into narrative form, but reading a book I was drawn to precisely because of a pandemic-related narrative and then getting a phone call telling me I was now infected with said pandemic was one of those "stranger than fiction" moments.
Honestly I often wish my life were boring so I could write fiction.
I selfishly wanted to interview Swanson because I wanted to learn from him, and he was so generous with his answers, many of which have already been incredibly helpful for me as I work on a few other, longer pieces. Check out the interview on the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild website, and preorder Barrett Swanson's forthcoming book at your local indie.
(iv) And speaking of books! As the holidays are upon us (what? already? how?) I hope you'll connect with your local independent bookstore for all your paper-related, gift-giving needs. I'm partial to Dotters Books, of course. If you live in a place where there is no local independent bookstore, there's now this lovely new website Bookshop.org which supports indies. I'll be keeping rotating lists of what I'm reading and recommending, but you can find everything and anything on the site. Yes, EVERYTHING! I recently searched for an obscure 800-page poetry book and found it (but have yet to buy it).
That said, all previous installments of this newsletter abstained from "affiliate" links of any kind, because I happen to think that, despite what "influencers" say, money does influence one's opinion, even subconsciously. The Bookshop.org links will be affiliate links, which means if you buy a book mentioned on my page I will receive a percentage of the sale, which has the bonus of keeping this missive free, and is very much appreciated in this year of admittedly humble earnings.
Earlier this year I sort of stopped reading. Not intentionally. I just couldn't find my way into a book. I kept finding my way to the river instead. And now, perhaps because the weather turned cold, or perhaps with all the uncertainty, I found myself wanting to hold and stare at these fixed, bound things. Elena Ferrante wrote in Frantumaglia, "writing is also the story of what we have read and are reading, of the quality of our reading, and a good story, finally, is one written from the depths of our life, from the heart of our relations with others, from the heights of the books we've liked."
But really, truly, honestly, I'm not trying to convince you to read anything, agreeing wholeheartedly with Rachel Cusk, who wrote in Outline, "As it happened I was no longer interested in literature as a form of snobbery or even of self-definition -- I had no desire to prove that one book was better than another: in fact, if I read something I admired I found myself increasingly disinclined to mention it at all. What I knew personally to be true had come to seem unrelated to the process of persuading others. I did not, any longer, want to persuade anyone of anything."
To be free from persuading others sounds like such a luxury in a year where a public health crisis is inexplicably viewed as a partisan issue.
So read. Or don't. Or do. Or... what were we talking about? In all seriousness, I'm feigning flippancy because I feel somewhat conflicted about affiliate links and book recommendations, mainly because I don't like mentioning my favorite books. It's as though, if I don't mention them, they somehow belong to me and me alone. The way I feel about it was once described by Nicole Krauss in Great House (who publishes her first short story collection this week), in a passage that felt plucked from my own mind:
“Like most music that affects me deeply, I would never listen to it while others were around, just as I would not pass on a book that I especially loved to another. I am embarrassed to admit this, knowing that it reveals some essential lack or selfishness in my nature, and aware that it runs contrary to the instincts of most, whose passion for something leads them to want to share it, to ignite a similar passion in others, and that without the benefit of such enthusiasm I would still be ignorant of many of the books and much of the music I love most... But rather than an expansion, I've always felt a diminishment of my own pleasure when I've invited someone else to take part in it, a rupture in the intimacy I felt with the work, an invasion of privacy. It is worst when someone else picks up the copy of a book I've just been enthralled by and begins casually to thumb through the pages.”
However, given that we find ourselves in this new world, questioning the old ways, demolishing outdated structures, and living our lives at a great distance, I think it's time for me to revise my habit. Instead of feeling a rupture in the intimacy I felt with the work, I'll see it as a kind of connection, a reach through the screens and the social distancing, against all odds. And how incredible it would be to watch someone else pick up a copy of a book I've just been enthralled by and begin casually thumbing through the pages. With an uninterrupted string of days spent alone sprawling out both behind and before me, seeing such a sight sounds like a hallucination.
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