hello again

Hi, you might know me from a few other social media platforms that have lost currency. I’m trying this now, only because it might matter later on.

My intent with this newsletter was originally to publish and promote the minicomics I was making a couple years ago, but I’m doing less and less of those because I got serious about one big project that happily takes up most of my creative energy. More on that later.

But I liked the idea of writing something longer than 140/280 characters (but not as long as a novel) on a sort of regular basis, so I pretty much flat out stole the 3 book reviews format that Marisa Grizenko uses in her excellent newsletter, Plain Pleasures. I stop short of emulating her hand drawn covers for the books she reviews, though I certainly admire those as much as her fine writing.

It looks like 2025 is going to be a challenging year on just about every single front, so I’m making plans to have outlets for good. Maybe this newsletter will be good. It could happen.

I’ve been reading:

kayas nohcın / ᑲᔮᐢ ᓅᐦᒌᐣ: I Come from a Long Time Back by Mary Louise Rockthunder, part of the U of R Press’s Our Own Voices series. This is really vital stuff, and the U of R Press publishes it in Cree syllabics, standard roman orthography (SRO) for Cree, and English. It comprises of transcriptions of several recordings over the course of years iwth the Piapot storyteller and elder.

Last Woman by Carleigh Baker, I love reading short stories online, I’m fiercely resistant to reading short stories in print. I don’t get it. But I got Last Woman digitally, so guess what, there’s no problem. Many of Baker’s stories occur in places I recognize, but even when they don’t, they do. Highly recommended.

Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams, sometimes when I find myself in the library with a blank mind (happens more often than not, something about being surrounded by all those books sends me into an ALPHA state), I just scan the spines for the familiar NRYB Classics trade dress. It’s basic, I know, but I’m trying not to let my fear of being basic keep me from enjoying the good things in life. Anyway, this book is exactly what I didn’t know I was looking for and has helped me with something in my life I can’t talk about just yet. Recommended if you like books about men who eat a lot of beans.

Okay, so that’s it for now. Thanks for following along. I have a few ideas about what to do with this space over the next year, one in particular that I’m excited about (the rest are mid).

Expect me when you see me.

Emmet