Hello Friends,
Here’s another set of quotes from Sojourners I thought you’d like:
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.- 1 John 4:18
may the tide / that is entering even now / the lip of our understanding / carry you out / beyond the face of fear- Lucille Clifton, “blessing the boats”
And another I read on John Fugelsang (adjacent to fear, I think—kind of a ‘do the right thing even if you’re afraid’ quote.):
Temporary power is never worth permanent disgrace. —John Fugelsang
Speaking of perfect love, I hope you had a happy Valentine’s/Galentine’s/ Palentine’s Day yesterday.
I’m a bit down that I can’t see well in my left eye four weeks after surgery, but am still hopeful that I’m not in the 5% of people who have no improvement. To chipper myself up, I thought I’d try something different today and see if you’re up for a challenge and then follow that with some good news.
The Challenge
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I wish I had better known some of my friends and family who’ve died. And now I can’t ask them anything. This feeling has helped me to understand what I’d like to do that will leave a sort of personal record for loved ones when I am dead.
I periodically write a ‘literary journeys’ article for the So Cal News Group newspapers. I wrote this for last Sunday. Have a read and see if you’d like to try it.
Make your family’s life story meaningful for future generations
I haven’t made New Year’s resolutions for many years for the same reason most people stop doing so. My follow-through is pretty bad, so I end up feeling worse than when I started.
If you’re like me and already feeling bad about a lack of progress on your literary resolutions for 2026 or even about not making a resolution, I have a challenge for you. You don’t need to read 100 books this year or write a novel draft in three months. Instead, kickstart your creativity with something that will be a gift to your most important readers — your family. Explore your life story in a way that will be meaningful for the next generation. In a way that will be meaningful for you.
In the last five years, which have been full of loss for me, I’ve come to realize the importance of family stories. My parents, brother, half-sister, lifelong friend, two sisters-in-law and others close to me are gone. I’ve realized that I know almost nothing about my parents’ childhoods, about their early years, their hopes and dreams. They were not ones to write letters or have a video recorder. They didn’t leave a record for us to look back on. My brother died far too young, but I have a single voice message he left me, wishing me a happy birthday. I keep it to play periodically. To hear his voice.
I happen to have made one recording of my parents’ voices about five years before they died. I’d received a recorder-microphone as a gift so that I could quickly save my thoughts and ideas for the stories I would write. On a whim, I decided to bring it to my parents’ house one evening along with dinner. After we ate, my husband took to the kitchen to wash the dishes, and I started asking questions. One of my dad’s funniest and most moving stories was about his grandmother’s dog, who waited for him at the bus stop each day after school.
I forgot about the recording, but after my parents had died, I happened upon it in my computer files. I was excited to play it, but was unable to hear anything. However, I could see that something was there. I sent a copy to my son, who realized the loud noise of the pots and pans clanging in the kitchen at the beginning of the recording had set the sound range. He removed it, and my parents’ voices came to life. I was reduced to a puddle of wonder and tears. I emailed it to my siblings. One of my sisters started to listen to it while driving, but was so emotionally overwhelmed that she had to pull over.
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So, here’s what I’m hoping you will do: if your parents are still alive, ask them the following questions. And then answer these questions for yourself, both in writing and in a recording. When you or your family are ready, listen and read.
These questions are a bit different from the usual writing prompts, but I think they can open the door to related memories and to buried emotions, hopes and dreams.
* Who is the bravest person you’ve known? Not someone you’ve read about or can find in the history books. Someone in your life: a friend, relative, coworker, etc.
* Who was your best childhood friend?
* Did you have your own bedroom growing up or did you share with a sibling? Describe your room. (This can lead to interesting reflections on sibling relationships.)
* Describe your favorite childhood hideaway. Why did you go there? What did you do there?
* Discuss your childhood pets.
* Think of a time when you did something you shouldn’t have done. Describe how it made you feel.
* Have you ever needed stitches, broken a bone, or been hospitalized?
* Who was your favorite relative?
* Who was your most interesting neighbor?
* What was your most beloved toy?
* What was your mother’s favorite perfume? Does it trigger any memories?
* How did you spend holidays with your extended family?
* Describe a time when something went completely wrong while your family was traveling.
* What was the best home you lived in growing up? Why?
* What major world events do you remember from your childhood and young adult years?
* Describe your earliest jobs. What did you do? What was the environment like? What were your coworkers like?
When we talk about the ordinary events of our childhoods, we illuminate how full of possibility and imagination we have always been. Be known to your loved ones. It’s a gift.
Authors Connect with Me, Their Reader
I mentioned recently that I’m writing thank you notes to authors. Two YA authors have emailed me responses that were very kind— Chris Crutcher said he admires people who had a career in public education. That made me want to go back a grab something he wrote. I found a short story as a stand alone audiobook for a series called “Guys Read” edited by John Scieszka. The story is “The Meat Grinder.” The publisher’s description is: If Devin Mack can’t actually fight his father, he’s going to fight everyone he can find on the football field.
This doesn’t do it justice. The abused Devin Mack, who has been in and out of foster care, is actually forced into high school football and just wants out. He’s small and no athlete. But a star player wants him to believe in himself and works to make that happen. It’s a fun story, not least because of Devin’s voice. A great story for teens, including those who find sports humiliating. Also—a great story for writers who want to see how character voice is done!
I also wrote an email to Jonathan Maberry, who is a NYTimes bestselling writer of horror. He has a YA series entitled Rot & Ruin that I used to booktalk to our students. (I wrote a bit about it here.) It’s creative and creepy. I told him how much the students liked his books. He wrote back a thank you and mentioned that Rot & Ruin is in development for a film. He said that his middle school librarian “absolutely changed the course” of his life. (Yay, librarians!)
I mentioned last week that my friends and I had seen George Saunders on his book tour. In Story Club with George Saunders he had told the story of his dog, Guin, being very sick. It was an ongoing issue that we clubbers were following. Apparently, she had a UTI and, now treated, is doing much better. But I was moved by the story and took a copy of The Mortality of Dogs and Humans to him as well as a bookmark I’d made for him from fabric with a dog print. He saw my name on the book and said, “Is this you? I feel like I know you.” (Because I comment on the stories etc.—I am an active member.) That made me smile.
So—if you’re feeling blue, why not write a little note to an author whose work you appreciate? They are often kind and respond.
What I’m Reading
I’m reading some good books and will discuss them soon. I finished A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls by Adam Morgan. It’s about Margaret Anderson as the creator of the literary journal The Little Review, which serially published sections of James Joyce’s Ulysses until Anderson and her partner (Jane Heap) were arrested and charged with mailing obscene literature. I will probably discuss it next week.
I’m in the middle of Enshittification by Cory Doctorow. I know some tech companies are led by horrible people doing horrible things, but I didn’t realize how horrible they actually are. Doctorow is good at explaining the who, what, and why. But I’m getting a little down and looking forward to the last section of the book where he will discuss what we’re supposed to do about it.
Here’s a great Substack post I read this week:
I’m listening to A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews. The publisher’s description is unusually long, but here’s the beginning: Sixteen-year-old Nomi Nickel longs to hang out with Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull in New York City’s East Village. Instead she’s trapped in East Village, Manitoba, a small town whose population is Mennonite: “the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you’re a teenager.” East Village is a town with no train and no bar whose job prospects consist of slaughtering chickens at the Happy Family Farms abattoir or churning butter for tourists at the pioneer village. Ministered with an iron fist by Nomi’s uncle Hans, a.k.a. The Mouth of Darkness, East Village is a town that’s tall on rules and short on fun: no dancing, drinking, rock ’n’ roll, recreational sex, swimming, make-up, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities or staying up past nine o’clock.
This is a different dive into the Mennonite religion and life than Women Talking. ( A great book! The film is very good also—follows the book closely.)
Note: on my author website, I put together some great quotes from three Toews books; All My Puny Sorrows, Women Talking, and A Complicated Kindness. They are good idea generators. If you are a writer, A Complicated Kindness is another piece that’s great for studying voice.
More News
Executive editor Michael Luo announced on X that book critic Becca Rothfeld, who was laid off from the Washington Post, has joined the New Yorker. Here’s a link to her essay about that. You might like it.
The Death of Book World by Becca Rothfeld from The New Yorker
What the closing of the Washington Post’s books section means for readers.
There are still plenty of places to read about literature, many of them excellent. There are older and more established outlets, like the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books; cult favorites, like Bookforum; and irreverent newcomers, like The Drift and The Point, the latter of which I edit. These magazines are delightful and, in their own way, consistently surprising; I love reading them, and I have loved writing for them. But they are produced for an audience that already knows it cares about literature. The books section of a newspaper plays an altogether different role. It does not cater to aficionados; it seeks new recruits.
Good News
Minnesota Authors Team with Bookstores to Support Immigrants from Publishers Weekly
In yet another show of solidarity, mystery authors Jess Lourey and Kristi Belcamino have organized Authors for Minnesota Day, slated for February 28, in which more than 50 Minnesota-based authors—including Allen Eskens, William Kent Krueger, Bao Phi, Margi Preus, and Curtis Sittenfeld—will stop by more than two dozen indie bookstores around the state to sign copies of their latest releases and give them out, along with swag kits in some cases, to anyone who donates to either the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota or the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota Immigration Rapid Response Fund. (Heid Erdrich is also participating; she intends to give art and poems to donors at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis.) …
“I want as many people as possible in bookstores,” Lourey said, explaining why donations had to be made onsite. She noted that foot traffic and sales have plummeted at one Minneapolis bookstore that is located half a mile from where Alex Pretti was murdered by ICE agents. “We need to support our indie bookstores: we can’t have them suffering,” she added.
Well, I could go on about books forever, but it’s not my goal to try your patience. Let me know what good books you’re diving into. Thanks for reading!
