I am that author. And this is how my book, The Dreamer’s Season, a Romeo & Juliet retelling set in 1860s Texas, got its beautiful cover.

A debut novel is a precious thing. It is an introduction into the world. A ‘hello’, this is me as an author, the kind of stories I write, and how I write them. The Dreamer’s Season is far from the first novel I’ve written (it is actually number 10!), but it is the first novel I’ve felt was ready for readers, and the first that truly felt like me.

Yet, while a good novel may stand on its own, there is no denying that a beautiful book cover will send it even farther. And that is my goal with this novel: to place it into as many readers hands as possible so that it can find it’s audience. It was by luck (and yes, many weeks of looking), that I stumbled upon my cover designer’s portfolio. The book illustrator for Life of Pi’s well-known cover, among many others, I’d unknowingly admired his artwork for years. And artwork was what I was looking for. Not just a book cover designed by AI or smashed together from stolen elements.

The Dreamer’s Season was drafted after months upon months of research, then underwent years of revising, all without the touch of AI. I visited historic sites, read novels so old they smelled of mildew, sat for hours in LBJ library flipping through and handwriting notes on primary documents, and spent years crafting a story purely from my imagination into words. There is a certain humanity that goes into art, and a certain magic when art transforms from one form to another. A book into a movie. A song into a video. A poem into spoken word. A script into a play. A cover is the visual art for the words of my book, and as Winnie, one of my main characters in The Dreamer’s Season, is an artist herself, it felt only fitting to hire an artist to design the book cover for her (and Sawyer’s) story.

So, we began…and this is how it ended:

I love this cover. The colors. The silhouettes. The collaboration that went into its creation. Yet, there are details within it I love even more:

The cover is hand-painted onto wood.

The organic nature of it, the rawness of the canvas, felt like a metaphor for my novel. Winnie is whimsical, an artist, and paints from paint she creates herself (a sneak peek quote below!):

“Grass for green. Chimney ash for gray. Coffee grounds for brown. Onion peels or bee pollen for yellow. Flowers for pink, purple, and blue.

And cochineal bugs for red.”

Sawyer is rustic. A young man raised by the land. This pairing of the tough, splintered wood, becoming a canvas to the warm colors of the cover, created not only a beautiful image but a symbolism that feels deeper than what the eye can see.

The details:

Within Sawyer and Winnie’s silhouttes you can see specific details, little easter eggs, alluding to the book:

• The bluebonnets as they’re Texas’ state flower.

  On Weeper’s Valley: “Too many memories lay tangled in its roots. Too many ghosts he’d laid to rest. Beautiful in its bluebonnets and bumblebees and bluebirds, sure, but that was all sugar coating on rotting soil.”

• Cottonwood Creek, the stream running through Sawyer’s silhouette, and which so much of the story is centered around, as the dividing line of the Bleu’s and Myer’s property.

  “It all began on the banks of Cottonwood Creek, where the Bleus fought the Myers and the Myers fought the Bleus.”

I am simply in love with the cover, and hope you love it as much as I do. ARCs (advanced reader copies) and pre-orders will be announced soon!

The forest.

A peak of green at first. Leaves shuddering by the roadside. One, then two, then four, then eight. An exponential increase until the trees dot the hillsides, then blanket them.

My heart rustles like a bird rising from its nest. Shaking off down and dirt and deadweight. It’s a songbird ready to rise from its cage, become weightless, and fly among the trees.

Home, it calls.

Trees have always felt like home.

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Our trip to a little town north of Santa Rosa called Healdsburg was embarked upon to watch my little brother play baseball. Miraculously, his summer baseball league sent him to my new state of California, and when I heard the news I instantly planned a trip to see him.

And what a trip it was.

The town itself is a charming fairytale, plump with grapes and twisting with grapevines. They spiral on pillars, climb up bricks, and cascade from ceilings. Almost as if the grapevines themselves are attempting to swallow the town whole.

We stayed at a charming little inn, whereupon we met our innkeeper (who later our sommelier called a “spunky little gal”) and an innkeeper in training. Both the inn and innkeeper reminded me dearly of Gilmore Girls.

And our adventures. Oh, what fun.

A baseball game that went into extra innings.

Wine and cocktails and scrumptious dinners.

Little Saint was a gem of a restaurant. They are farm-to-table from a regenerative farm, serving vegan food. Their cocktails were simple potions of deliciousness and their food was the kind that comes from only thinking outside of the box.

Also pictured, are oysters and fish & chips that were had at a seaside establishment called The Birds in Bodega Bay on a side quest.

Coffee and copywriting for The Dreamers Season — more announcements are nearly upon us!

My editor did an incredible job with this story. I hope to share a post soon with more notes on The Dreamers Season. It still baffles me that I get to publish this story; a lifelong dream come true.

A walk through the redwoods. I finished The Overstory by Richard Powers which felt especially fitting for this part of the trip. What better book than one focused on the interconnected ties of humans and nature and environmental activism? I purchased the book from a used bookstore and what magic to find a poem from a previous reader scribbled on the back page. Gooseflesh rose at the symbolism of the interconnectedness of humans, nature, and the stories that bind us.

Then, we departed for the city with all the intention to watch fireworks from the San Francisco bridge (alas, fog thwarted these plans), with a brief stop in Sausalito where we got married nearly a year ago upon a sailboat. We walked the road of memories before making our way into the crowded city for dinner and drinks and one last night of celebration.

If you showed me my life two years ago, I’d pinch myself to assure it wasn’t a dream. Oh, what magic! Thank you for travelling along on my scrapbook of Healdsburg. The next adventure awaits!

“Love is a tree with branches in forever with roots in eternity and a trunk nowhere at all” — Richard Powers, The Overstory (linked here if you’d like to read it too)

An enchanted fairyland is how I remember our East Texas piney woods. Somewhere buried in the rolling golden hay fields and towering giant pines, your little ranch was nestled. A magical land, touched by fairies, and hiding the greatest of adventures. I’d wait until the end of the school year, counting the weeks, days, hours until we arrived at our very own private camp. “Camp Pirkle” meant a week of fishing in the lake, of wandering the magic garden, of singing at the top of our lungs as we drove through the winding trails of your piney woods.

Even now, I remember:

Bare feet wandering across a carpet of pine needles. The smell of butter and the song of laughter in the kitchen. Sitting, legs swinging, on the back porch balcony overlooking the lake at sunset. I remember waking before the sun, padding barefoot in the pajamas I wore only at the ranch and which always retained the slight fragrance of the wood drawers they were folded within, out into the kitchen to see you sitting at your desk, painting. To see Grandpa in his lazy boy.

With a small box of sugary cereal reserved for our morning golf cart rides, you’d gather Brooke and I up, and we’d depart on our adventure into the fantastical land of the piney woods across the lake. Still in pajamas, still barefoot, still giggling and singing and laughing as we braved spider webs and rotten trees and all manners of woodland creatures.

I’m sure Grandpa could hear us for miles.

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Memories, I think, can start with a drip and lead to a flood. Today, that drip began with two butterflies. Both a periwinkle blue circling a bed of pink flowers.

Once upon a time you gifted me with the magic of a story:

A fairy for me. A fairy for Brooke. Two guardians that would protect us when we were no longer in our enchanted fairyland at your ranch. Two fairies that would follow us as butterflies to hide their magical form in the normal world.

Today, Naunie, miles and years away, hiking in the heart of Sequoia National Park, now married, now far from my sister and far from you, far from Camp Pirkle and our enchanted fairy kingdom, I saw them.

Pine trees loomed above, like our same swaying giants, dappling the pine needle carpet. Ferns drooped their heads by the walking path. Mushrooms formed staircases on foamy bark.

And there were our butterflies.

Blue for Brooke. Pink for me.

And I was right back.

I love you,

Ashley

I open my laptop. Open the edit letter I received yesterday but have procrastinated opening.

I read.

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I’ve dreamed of this moment so many times it feels like I’ve already lived it. My first professional edit letter. Sure, I’ve received revisions from classmates, professors, from the editors of anthologies for short stories. But those were for short stories, not my novel, not my whole beating heart.

And to be honest, when the edit letter came in, I waited. I cleaned the house. I finished teaching my pilates classes for the morning. I walked and chatted on the phone with my mother and sister. I let it sit. Waiting. Finding my courage.

What if I have to change everything? What if it’s unfixable? What if, what if, what if? Because I’d fallen in love with this story, and the thing about writing is it’s never perfect. For art is subjective, yet it’s also a demonstration of your craft level at the time, and as someone who treats her writing as a skill set, I’ll always be improving. Yet that also means each project I revise is also, subjectively, worse than the last thing I’ve written. Which, when you’re publishing something, is… a practice in letting go of perfection to say the least.

So, I read.

And I’m surprised. Critiques, yes, but! more as amplifications, small revisions, not total reconstructive change. Think of a painting: lighten this color here, darken this one there, perhaps curve this edge slightly more. My editor has taken the flesh and bones of my story and rather than ask for new bones, new limbs, a new skeleton (as I had feared) has asked to simply bring out more. More of this, less of that, can we thread this through more? Revisions that make me excited to make changes because yes, I see them too. Confirmations of suspicions I had. Seeing the story, the words, with new eyes.

So off I go, back into my small Texas town with its two star-crossed lovers. Back into an 1860s spring between the bluebonnets and honeybees and gunsmoke.

Back into “The Dreamers Season”

Curious as a cat, I wandered closer, wondering what feast occurred to wash up so many oyster shells (then, alternatively, how we might collect them for an art project…). White-capped waves broke against the sloped sand. A gull squawked nearby, and wind tangled my curls around its fingers.

I didn’t stop on the sandbank as I should’ve to observe them closer. Instead, I raced, barefoot, right into the mass. Only for:

“Stop!”

A hand held out to stop my folly. My husband, saving me.

“They’re Man o’ War.”

Tiny, sunbleached sails rustled like paper planes in the sea breeze. Their blue jelly bodies had since melted into the sand, becoming deep purple and gray, any tentacles long dissolved by sun and salt.

I’d only ever seen one before. Below me, lay thousands. A mass graveyard of the ocean travellers.

Wonder turned to grief, at this armada of little sailboats, powered purely by the currents and wind, so wrongly steered towards shore. I wandered, cautiously, through their colony. The dried up sails broke away and cartwheeled like cellophane litter across the beach. Waves still broke against the sand, but they seemed vengeful now. Violent in a cruel way to guide this colony so wrongly.

Portuguese Man o’ Wars, I’d come to find out, are not jellyfish but siphonophores. Four separate organisms that function together as one. Specialized and genetically identical, each are responsible for a different task. One to sting, one to reproduce, one to feed, etc. Yet, as I research this, in real time, I realize I’ve been duped by nature! The little organisms I’ve found look more like by-the-wind-sailors!

Oh, what sweet creatures (and an explanation as to why my bare feet didn’t meet a crueler fate!). Similar (and related to Man o’ wars, but not a threat to humans), they sail by the currents in their colony, reproducing by budding off medusae. I learn they help sea anemones when they become stranded, making this a grand circle of life instead of a great tragedy.

Nature, again, to make me giddy over knowledge.

Which brings me to the rest of this letter. Onwards to more curiosity…

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books

1. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Finally finished, just in time for my trip to Chicago. Oh, what a story. Dark and beautiful and inspiring.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.

2. Anima Rising by Christopher Moore

A new favorite. Hilariously written, with cafes and artists and mysteries. A story I read and lose all sense of time and place.

From New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore comes a hilariously deranged tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter, and an undead woman’s electrifying journey of self-discovery.

podcasts

V.E. Schwab’s No Write Way

A podcast I’d 10/10 recommend for any writer.

Mel Robbins: This One Episode Will Change How You Think About the World & Your Life (From #1 Cancer Surgeon)

I am not normally a Mel Robbins listener, as many episodes feel too spoonfed and self-help centered for me. Yet, I needed a moment of motivation, a kick in the butt if you will, and few do it better than Mel Robbins. This podcast, for me, came at the right time, and I’d be remiss not to share it.

Other Media

Nuremberg

As the Nuremberg trials are set to begin, a U.S. Army psychiatrist gets locked in a dramatic psychological showdown with accused Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring.

Thought-provoking and fascinating.

The Place Beyond the Pines

A stunt rider turns into a robber in order to lead a happy life with his child and lover and grabs the attention of a police officer. They both get on a collision course that affects their families.

A movie that made me sad, though I should have expected it if I’d read the description beforehand.

Project Hail Mary

Science teacher Ryland Grace wakes up on a spaceship with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory slowly returns, he soon discovers he must solve the riddle behind a mysterious substance that's causing the sun to die out. As details of the mission unravel, he calls on his scientific training and sheer ingenuity -- but he may not have to do it alone.

I loved the book. I loved the movie.

Thank you for reading, and please share any recommendations (books, movies, articles, etc) in the comments! I always love finding new treasures.

note: the summaries from above are NOT mine. The book summaries came from goodreads and the media summaries came from google.

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A dream I’ve been dreaming since I was fifteen years old, sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom with my legs crossed under me and my computer in my lap. A chromebook then, not a Macbook. A Google Docs page instead of a Scrivener file. Oh, how long a road I had yet to travel, but didn’t know it yet.

Now, I get to type those treasured words: I’m publishing a novel!

Perhaps, I’ll scream it from the rooftops.

Perhaps, you’ll scream it with me.

And, oh, what a novel. A diamond of my heart. A wound that keeps on weeping. A piece of me, torn, threaded into words, and stitched into pages. I hope you’ll love it as much as I do.

What is it about?

“But what is it about? you might ask, and then the novel recoils.” —Alexander Chee

In short, it’s a Romeo and Juliet retelling set in the 1860s Texas Hill Country. But really, it’s so much more. Nursed from my love of the land and story. A love letter of sorts. With cowboys and whimsical artists and dreamers and star-crossed lovers and tragedy and feuds and nature and more, so much more, that I can’t wait to share.

When does it come out?

We’re still a ways off — keep your eyes peeled in Spring 2027! More announcements will abound between now and then (cover reveals and the blurb and reviews and character art and pre-order gifts and surprises (so many surprises)!). I’ll share them all on here first, so be sure you’re subscribed to be the first to find out!

As publication gets closer I’ll be sharing things like:

• the behind the scenes of publishing a novel

• the inspiration behind the story, setting, and characters

• history fun facts on 1860s Texas (and why I chose this time period specifically to place the novel)

• quotes & more sneak peeks!

• pre-order announcements (& pre-order gifts!)

• character art

• and, again, so much more!

Subscribe now

tip jar☕️ — so I can continue to share & gift even more exciting things, and pursue this dream with everything I’ve got!

I step into the airport carrying my sunburn like a souvenir. Other mementos are buried into my luggage as well: sugar white sand from the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor park, a colorful newspaper from the West Martello Tower, a ringed drink coaster from First Flight, a mostly empty bag of candied pecans from the Sunday Farmers Market, and two water-wrinkled paperbacks from the island’s bookstores.

Mementos that carry snapshots of memories from paradise. When I’d set out to crash my husband’s work trip, I didn’t realize the adventure I’d have.

Key West was a town made for writers and dreamers and artists: Ernest Hemingway (of who half the island feels devoted to), Elizabeth Bishop, Shel Silverstein, Judy Blume (who co-owns Books & Books on the island), among many more. Under the swaying palms, the cotton-candy skies, the crystalline blue waters, and the tropical balminess, it’s easy to understand why. To walk into Key West, is to walk into history, into an air of creativity, and a world of beauty.

With a bike as my wheels of freedom, and my only sense of time measured by when the cocktail of the day arrived back at La Concha Resort, I explored Key West. Stories brewed within me, little seeds planted and which I’ll water til they bloom. Yet, before they do, let me take you on a photo tour of my adventures on the tropical island.

A stop at the bookstore before pedalling to the beach. Chickens peck around the roads. Little chicks to full-breasted roosters. We find a spot on the sand and watch the crystalline water lap. It is easy to pick out the tourists (sunburnt and smiling) from the locals (leather-skinned and tranquil).

Drink or dinner or both in hand, we watch boats return from deep sea adventures to dock as the sun set behind Sunset Key. Laughter with new friends made it all the more magical.

Hemingway’s Home was a dream. Art and history folded into one. The footsteps of the literary giant still echo in the present. Polydactyl cats wander the property (one caught a lizard, and one lizard landed on my bike — before being saved and photographed) and palm trees sway above. Irony that he crafted a brick wall to keep out onlookers in his life only to have tourists walk through each corner of his home after his death.

The food, oh, the food. And the drinks. Cuban coffees and Papa Pilar rum cocktails. Plantain crusted swordfish and ahi poke and Elvis french toast and key lime pie. Creme brulee croissants and toasted coconut ice cream and jalapeno margaritas and thai chili wings and buckwheat crepes.

If heaven was a place, heaven would be Key West.

Take me back to where the sunsets kiss the sea, palms sway, and the breeze carries the whispers of faraway places.

Take me back to Key West.

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That said, I’ve been consuming less media lately and focusing more on creating. I started this newsletter to keep track of what I’ve read, watched, and consumed, yet naturally, it is wanting to evolve into something greater. More a documentation of my life as a whole. Part photo gallery. Part commentary. A snapshot of each month. I hope you’ll follow me on the journey as it evolves…a photo journal of Key West is coming soon!

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books

1. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

A quiet book. A cozy one. A kind one. The kind that feels like golden light spilling into a kitchen while you sip your morning coffee.

One spring morning, a stranger named Theo arrives in the small Southern city of Golden. He doesn't explain much about where he came from or why he's there—but when he visits the local coffeehouse, where pencil portraits of the people of Golden hang on the walls, he begins purchasing them, one at a time, and giving each portrait to the person depicted. In exchange, he asks only for the person's story. And so portrait by portrait, person by person, secrets are revealed, regrets are shared, and ordinary lives are profoundly altered.

A story of giving and receiving, of seeing and being seen, Theo of Golden is an unforgettable novel about the power of generosity, the importance of connection, and the quiet miracles that happen when we choose kindness and wonder.

2. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Slowly sinking back into this one. It is dark but so well written.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.

3. Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angress

I purchased this book from a little bookshop in Ventura, CA after being drawn to its beautiful cover. I enjoyed the way it explored larger themes through the lens of four different artists. It was not entirely the book I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised for it.

Four artists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets of New York in this “gripping, provocative, and supremely entertaining” (BuzzFeed) debut

articles & short stories & more

V.E. Schwab’s No Write Way

A podcast I’d 10/10 recommend for any writer.

Other Media

Papa: Hemingway in Cuba

In 1959, a young Miami journalist (Giovanni Ribisi) travels to Havana to meet writer Ernest Hemingway (Adrian Sparks) during the Cuban Revolution.

I watched this in preparation for my vacation to Key West. A beautifully done movie.

Westworld

Westworld isn't your typical amusement park. Intended for rich vacationers, the futuristic park -- which is looked after by robotic "hosts" -- allows its visitors to live out their fantasies through artificial consciousness. No matter how illicit the fantasy may be, there are no consequences for the park's guests, allowing for any wish to be indulged. "Westworld" is based on the 1973 Michael Crichton movie of the same name and features an all-star cast.

The visuals. The characterization. The thought provoking questions. The commentary. Insane.

& recipe

I did more eating out than cooking this month as most of my month was in preparation for/on vacation, but please enjoy several of the photos I took of others scrumptious creations.

Thank you for reading, and please share any recommendations (books, movies, articles, etc) in the comments! I always love finding new treasures.

note: the summaries from above are NOT mine. The book summaries came from goodreads and the media summaries came from google.

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let us jump right into what I’ve consumed…literally, literary, and otherwise.

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books

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

A classic that’s sat on my shelf, daunting in its size for too long. Spare Time Books (one of my favorite bookstores I’ve discovered) read it this month for their book club, so I finally cracked it open…and immediately regretted not doing so sooner. Oh, to dive into the pages. The characterization, the commentary, written so long ago, but still somehow relevant. There’s a reason it’s a classic.

Acclaimed by many as the world's greatest novel, Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author's own views and convictions.

2. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

I had to put this one on hold while I read Anna Karenina but I am dying to sink back into it.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.

3. 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life by Dick Van Dyke

Sunshine in book form. This has been a joy to listen to.

On the eve of his 100th birthday, national treasure Dick Van Dyke brings us this autobiographical collection of stories, reflections, and life advice on how he’s maintained a zest for life.

articles & short stories

Petal + Hearth

How This Writer Launched a Print Newspaper That Captured Thousands of Readers Around the World

Welcome to “Her Best Life,” a series where I ask my favorite Substack creators to share the choices and rituals that have shaped the lives they have today. My hope is that these stories spark something in you — whether it’s a new idea, a glimpse of possibility, or simple reassurance that…

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7 months ago · 24 likes · 21 comments · Olivia Wickstrom and Carley

How This Writer Launched a Print Newspaper That Captured Thousands of Readers Around the World

• The story behind a woman starting a print newspaper business revolving around health & wellness — sign me up!

  Blue Hour

  What is your writing really about?

  The novel recoils…

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  a year ago · 117 likes · 39 comments · Stacey

My (kinda) weird coffee drinks

• absolutely loved this more visual piece

Coffee For Here

My (kinda) weird coffee drinks and how I made them

I’m a hands-on learner and chronic doodler. When applied to developing drink recipes, that usually means I have to start with a pen and paper before I step foot in the kitchen. Sketching out ideas helps me visualize my end goal and ensures that I’m connecting all my components into something greater than the sum of their parts…

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6 months ago · 52 likes · 7 comments · Morgan Eckroth

Inside Voice: what can our thoughts reveal about the nature of consciousness

for this article, I leave you with quotes:

• “James is attempting the impossible, which is to somehow step out of the stream of consciousness in order to observe it from its banks. But as he knows as well as anyone, the thoughts we have when we introspect are far from normal thoughts; they are inflected by the very process of being observed as thoughts and recorded in words. Put another way, the very act of sneaking up on our experience becomes part of the experience.”

• “To focus on conscious thoughts is like focusing on the leaves of a tree and trying to understand them in isolation,” she said. “The tree is the mind, and there’s a lot more to the mind than consciousness.”

• “The big lesson of meditation,” she said, “is that the mind cannot be controlled.”

Underground Alchemists, Hags and Magic

surrealist covens

Underground Alchemists, Hags and Magic

Dear coven…

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7 months ago · 144 likes · 8 comments · surrealist covens and L Binnie

• I love learning about new folktales. This was a well-written piece on several Irish folktales.

  • “Paris was Surrealism and Surrealism was freedom.”

  • “Carrington painted the Sídhe through the prism of childhood tales, she chose the horse as her symbol of rebellion and as a guardian, all elements taken from her Celtic heritage.”

  • “For Yeats, folklore offered access to what he termed the “deep mind” of the nation.”

Other Media

Westworld

Westworld isn't your typical amusement park. Intended for rich vacationers, the futuristic park -- which is looked after by robotic "hosts" -- allows its visitors to live out their fantasies through artificial consciousness. No matter how illicit the fantasy may be, there are no consequences for the park's guests, allowing for any wish to be indulged. "Westworld" is based on the 1973 Michael Crichton movie of the same name and features an all-star cast.

The visuals. The characterization. The thought provoking questions. The commentary. Insane.

Knight of Cups

A writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas have to offer, undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.

Visually stunning. That said, I’m still processing this one. For me it was largely an emotional experience of a film with little plot or character direction. Almost like watching through memories with the protagonist saying little and the story playing out in clips/vignette form.

Bridgerton

During the Regency era in England, eight close-knit siblings of the powerful Bridgerton family attempt to find love.

Onto season 4, and this show continues to be a spot of joy for me. Beautiful, romantic, and just plain fun. This is one of my favorite seasons so far.

You’ve Got Mail

A bookshop owner and a superstore magnate fall in love online, believing they've never met. In reality, they have — and they hate each other.

I am flabbergasted I’ve yet to watch this movie. How, how, how, have I gone 24 years without seeing it? It was the perfect way to spend a Saturday evening while crafting.

& recipe

oh, I felt like a kid again.

PB & J granola

ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups oatmeal

• 1/4 cup salted peanuts

• 1/4 cup chia seeds

• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

• 1/2 cup peanut butter powder

• 1/4 cup strawberry jam

• water

instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2. Combine peanut butter powder, water, and strawberry jam on the stove. Heat until mixed. Option to add more jam for sweeter granola.

3. Combine the rest of the dry ingredients in a bowl.

4. Pour the peanut butter-water-jam mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix.

5. Pour onto a sheet pan and bake for 15-25 minutes.

notes:

• if you like a chunkier granola (like me), don’t stir it quite as often and let it cool before adding it to any jar or container.

Thank you for reading, and please share any recommendations (books, movies, articles, etc) in the comments! I always love finding new treasures.

note: the summaries from above are NOT mine. The book summaries came from goodreads and the media summaries came from google.

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An excerpt from my “seaside sister’s project”, inspired by my relationship to my twin sister. This is the first birthday we’ll spend apart, yet even with the miles between us, I hold her in my heart.

Once, they were one.

One tiny mass floating in the warm, embryonic cradle of their mother’s womb. Cells that sung the same tune, a forming body working as one, growing, splitting, massing until —

Oops.

One, then two.

Not cells, but bodies. A sculpture cleaved in half yet softened by a craftsman’s hands. Two hearts. Two heads. Four tiny socked feet.

Ana.

Lou.

Ana and Lou

AnaandLou.

Two petal-pink mouths mewling in discourse. One in each arm of their mother. Ana on the left. Lou on the right. One suckled while one slept while one screamed while one smiled.

And so it went.

Two foreheads to kiss goodnight. Two mouths to beg for another story. Two over-large backpacks dragging down the halls of kindergarten. Two soccer balls bouncing across the backyard. Two girls in black standing at a mother’s grave.

Two clasped hands, tiny fingers interlocked. Two into one. Then, one into two.

AnaandLou.

Ana and Lou.

Ana.

Lou.

They’d broken apart before. Broken pieces never fit together the same.*

happy birthday, brooke

*note: except for you and me, Brooke, we’ll always fit together the same. I love you!

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january, oh, january, what a start! Sand, still, between my book pages where we read on Malibu’s sunny coastline. Salt, still, in my hair from drinking in the sea. My mind buzzes with this life, and, of course, what I’ve consumed…literally, literary, and otherwise.

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books

a new year, a new start

1. Fates and Furies: A Novel by Lauren Goff

A walk through the life of two lovers. Beautiful prose, yet sadder than I anticipated. I read this on the plane flight from Austin to California, and it was, emotionally, a tougher read than I expected.

Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation.

2. The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown

My inner scientist buzzes with new ideas and curiosity. While I found sections of this book challenging to push through, I was grateful for the pathways of knowledge it sparked.

Robert Langdon, esteemed professor of symbology, travels to Prague to attend a groundbreaking lecture by Katherine Solomon—a prominent noetic scientist with whom he has recently begun a relationship. Katherine is on the verge of publishing an explosive book that contains startling discoveries about the nature of human consciousness and threatens to disrupt centuries of established belief. But a brutal murder catapults the trip into chaos, and Katherine suddenly disappears along with her manuscript. Langdon finds himself targeted by a powerful organization and hunted by a chilling assailant sprung from Prague’s most ancient mythology. As the plot expands into London and New York, Langdon desperately searches for Katherine . . . and for answers. In a thrilling race through the dual worlds of futuristic science and mystical lore, he uncovers a shocking truth about a secret project that will forever change the way we think about the human mind.

3. Meet the Benedettos by Katie Cotugno

A book that begs to be read by the poolside (or in my very charmed life) on the beach over a three-day weekend. A simple read with a plotline that left me wanting, yet was fun all the same.

The Kardashians meets Pride and Prejudice in this charming comical follow-up to Birds of California, in which an A-list movie star moves to Los Angeles—and next door to a family of five eligible sisters.

4. We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad

need I say more…

Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad.

5. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

I am only a few chapters into this, so more on it next month. So far (as I expected), it is phenomenal.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.

articles & short stories

The Forbidden Files

Neuroplasticity: Rewiring Your Brain To Do Hard Things

“new year, new me…

Read more

8 months ago · 20195 likes · 266 comments · ixcarus

Neuroplasticity: Rewiring Your Brain To Do Hard Things

FASCINATING post.

• “the brain doesn’t judge. it just adapts.”

• “your brain is essentially running a self-fulfilling prophecy loop based on your past behavior.

  breaking out of this requires understanding that you’re not just fighting habits. you’re fighting your brain’s entire predictive model of who you are.”

  chicgirlmoment

  what happens when you try to live like an influencer without being an influencer?

  I already touched on this topic a little in my last essay on taste (I’ll include it again at the end if anyone is interested), but I’d like to approach it from a different angle…

  Read more

  7 months ago · 132 likes · 5 comments · chicgirlmoment

  what happens when you live like an influencer without being an influencer

• offered an interesting perspective on this social media age

Other Media

Jay Kelly

Famous movie star Jay Kelly and his devoted manager, Ron, embark on an unexpectedly profound journey through Europe. Along the way, both men confront the choices they've made, relationships with loved ones, and the legacies they'll leave behind.

Easily one of my favorite movies of 2026. The cinematography. The writing. The characters. Ugh, give me more.

The Peripheral

Set in the future when technology has subtly altered society, a woman discovers a secret connection to an alternate reality as well as a dark future of her own.

How, how, how did I not know this show existed??? Visuals that beg to be framed, a storyline that twists and turns, and characters that pop. I’m obsessed.

People We Meet on Vacation

Poppy wants to explore the world and Alex prefers to stay home with a good book, but somehow they are the best of friends. They live far apart, but for a decade they have spent one week of summer vacation together.

Emily Henry is my go-to when I need a summer beach read and this movie felt just like her books. Fun, easy, and with enough substance to give my brain something to chew on. Loved it.

Landman

Deep in the heart of West Texas, roughnecks and wildcat billionaires try to get rich quick in the oil business as oil rigs begin to dominate the state. Crisis executive Tommy Norris tries to bring his company to the top during a fueling boom.

After 1883, I will watch practically anything by Taylor Sheridan.

Emily in Paris

Chicago marketing executive Emily Cooper is hired to provide an American perspective at a marketing firm in Paris.

…but now in Rome! Ooo la la. A show my mom, sister, and I all curled up on the couch to watch together at the start of the new year.

The Aviator

Billionaire and aviation tycoon Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a successful public figure: a director of big-budget Hollywood films such as "Hell's Angels," a passionate lover of Hollywood leading ladies Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), and an aviation pioneer who helps build TWA into a major airline. But in private, Hughes remains tormented, suffering from paralyzing phobias and depression. The higher he rises, the farther has to fall.

Absolutely beautifully done on all levels.

& recipe

ooey, gooey, my favorite healthier recipe. like, I literally eat it almost every night.

salted date brownies

ingredients

• 6 dates (de-seeded)

• 1/2 cup peanut butter powder

• 1/4 cup almond flour

• 1/4 unsweetened cocoa powder

• 3/4 cup water (more if needed)

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• splash of vanilla

• dark chocolate chips (measured with the heart)

instructions:

1. Combine water and dates in blender. Blend (it’s okay if there are still a few little chunks).

2. Combine all of other ingredients (except for the chocolate chips) and mix. Add the date/water mixture. Mix.

3. Fold in the chocolate chips.

4. Pour into an aluminum bread loaf pan.

5. Bake at 375 for 20-24 minutes.

6. Let cool for 5-10 minutes, then serve with a sprinkle of flaky salt on top and optional: a dollop of whipped cream.

notes:

• I love to finish mine with a pinch of flaky sea salt and a dollop of whipped cream.

Thank you for reading, and please share any recommendations (books, movies, articles, etc) in the comments! I always love finding new treasures.

note: the summaries from above are NOT mine. The book summaries came from goodreads and the media summaries came from google.

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Yes, they swing awfully well on a porch like this one with a view like this one. We can stare out at the hills together and talk about a whole lot of nothing, or we can let the land do the talking — all those songbirds and cedars and hills that roll into the big blue bowl of the Texas sky — there’s nothing like it.

Or maybe you’ll let me tell you about this ranch of ours. Sing you poetry about the way it called to me first from the backseat of a truck, then continued singing as we settled our roots down into it.

Oh, she’s a special place.

Now, I’ll admit, the ranch and I got off to a tough start. When the search for land began, I (college-aged and wide-eyed at the time, looking for adventure) wanted green. One of those Texas properties with a gently crooked stream and cottonwoods that puff out tuffs of magic each summer. I wanted long grasses that bloomed with mosaics of bluebonnets and buttercups and Indian blankets in the spring. I wanted the beauty of the Texas hill country after it’d seen a midnight thunderstorm.

And this ranch was…brown. At first.

The primarily fault was that we found it in the middle of August. If you’ve never been to Texas in August, well, that’s probably a good thing. It’s not a welcoming place.

The second fault was the ranch’s location farther west. Take the turn out of Austin, keep driving til you pass Fredericksburg, then keep on going til the road runs out.

You’ll find us off the turn to nowhere.

Yet, as the years pass I’ve seen this ranch change through the seasons. Just like any desert, it comes alive after a rain. Green grasses sprout from the dusty ground, bouquets of yellow flowers stud the walking paths, and the trees take on a fresh, waxy glow. The air is crisp, allowing the nights to shine in a full-star glory unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

My parents built a house here. One that sits on the hill and beckons from all around the ranch. Giant windows and cedar-paneled walls. It smells like a cabin (and coffee and bacon in the morning). Wind howls through its panels and at night I sleep like a babe in my bed, bathed in the kind of complete darkness I never knew until I stepped foot in the true country.

At night, we sit by the campfire and pontificate on life and science and machinations. Conversations have no boundaries here, and we talk about what we want because everything can be a source of musings: galaxies inching closer on a collision course, why density matters in the way wood burns, the workings of crystals in lasers, and more.

We are comics and poets and historians. We are human.

Ah, I hear them calling us now from inside. It is time to trade our rocking chair for boots. Time to trade the view of the valley for the views of the rest of the ranch.

Onwards, towards adventure.

I hope you’ll like this ranch as much as I do.

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a month to close out 2025 and what a month it was. We sipped hot buttered rum as we passed around gifts to neighbors and friends, sat around the fire with the crackle of wood and the rustle of book pages, and bathed in the glow of our family’s laughter. Feasts abounded, which leads me into what I’ve consumed this month… literally, literary, and otherwise.

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books

christmas came early…

1. Alone With You In the Ether by Olivie Blake

A delicious feast of prose. Six conversations between two protagonists that spiral into something greater.

From Olivie Blake, the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six, comes a literary, intimate study of time, space, and the nature of love. Alone with You in the Ether explores what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you’re not broken.

2. The Fury by Alex Michaelides

An unreliable narrator leads you through an island murder adventure. Full of theatrics, drama, and naturally, love, this book was a spellbinding read. For me, it was a slow start, but by about the midpoint, I was hooked.

A masterfully paced thriller about a reclusive ex–movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder ― from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient.

3. Fates and Furies: A Novel by Lauren Goff

A walk through the life of two lovers. Beautiful prose.

Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation.

4. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

I became insatiable for more. I started listening to this memoir while running and thus proceeded a nearly problematic inseparability from my earbuds and spotify app.

Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it.

5. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I hardly ever read nonfiction so it takes something truly phenomenal to sweep me off my feet. This was one of those reads. If I could gift it to everyone, I would.

It’s the kind of book you’ll want to read slow to soak in the sentences.

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

articles & short stories

The Mad Woman

• and thus I spiraled down a rabbit hole.

“From the very beginning of the expansion of the treatment of somnambulism into hypnotism and psychiatry, female patients were the recipients of treatment by men that relied on an unbalanced power dynamic. It is no coincidence that at a time when the majority of mesmerised patients were women, Mesmerism became public spectacle, much like hysteria in Charcot’s time.”

surrealist covens

The Mad Woman

Dear Coven…

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10 months ago · 239 likes · 9 comments · surrealist covens

November updates, a poem, and a few images to love.

• prose that reads like poetry will forever haunt me.

It is November and the woods are full of hunters. We don’t see them—we only see their trucks, parked at the end of the dirt road in that gravelly little turnoff. We see signs they were nearby: crushed beer cans, cigarette butts, sandwich wrappers, tire tracks, the occasional shell casing. Mostly, we hear them.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson

this piece has haunted me since I first read it in high school. It helped inspire the manuscript I’m currently drafting, so I gave it another look. It’ll haunt me for another decade, I’m sure.

The Scourge of Native Oaks is Blowing in the Wind

As someone who grew up laying under the boughs of live oaks, this article was an insightful read. I highly recommend pairing it with Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

The 26 Most Important Ideas for 2026

Derek Thompson

The 26 Most Important Ideas For 2026

Thank you all so much for reading and subscribing to this newsletter. It’s been an absolute blast whose success in its first six months has tremendously exceeded my expectations. If you’re arriving for the first time and like what you see, please subscribe…

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9 months ago · 1177 likes · 86 comments · Derek Thompson

A post to reflect on modern day issues and trends.

• “We are lost in infinitude, the boundlessness of choices. “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom,” Kierkegaard wrote.”

• “In his book After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argued that the modern world had lost the sort of shared moral language that was once provided by virtue systems, such as religion. I think that’s half-right. We have lost something with the erosion of religion, perhaps, but we’re still bound by an ethical system, love it or hate it. It’s the market. What binds the modern world is our collective reverence for money.”

Shoes in Chimneys, Cats in Walls

Lurker

Shoes in Chimneys, Cats in Walls

Apotropaic magic. A wonderfully intriguing phrase that lurks at many corners of folk study. Practiced not in churches or temples, but in kitchens, barns and bedchambers, apotropaic magic was once upon a time the first line of defence for protecting your home and those who dwelt within its walls…

Read more

9 months ago · 32 likes · 3 comments · Lizzie Bickerstaff

A fascinating exploration of the magic in items from the past.

Apotropaic magic. A wonderfully intriguing phrase that lurks at many corners of folk study. Practiced not in churches or temples, but in kitchens, barns and bedchambers, apotropaic magic was once upon a time the first line of defence for protecting your home and those who dwelt within its walls.

Other Media

The Materialists

A young and ambitious New York City matchmaker finds herself torn between a seemingly perfect match and her imperfect ex-boyfriend.

please, please, please make more movies like this pleaseeeee.

Landman

Deep in the heart of West Texas, roughnecks and wildcat billionaires try to get rich quick in the oil business as oil rigs begin to dominate the state. Crisis executive Tommy Norris tries to bring his company to the top during a fuelling boom.

After 1883, I will watch practically anything by Taylor Sheridan.

The Beast Within Me

Author Aggie Wiggs has receded from public life since the death of her young son, unable to write, a ghost of her former self; but she finds an unlikely subject for a new book when the house next door is bought by Nile Jarvis.

You know I’m a sucker for a show with an author protagonist and this one didn’t disappoint.

Emily in Paris

Chicago marketing executive Emily Cooper is hired to provide an American perspective at a marketing firm in Paris.

…but now in Rome! Ooo la la. A show my mom, sister, and I all curl on the couch to watch together.

Apocalypse Now

Well, this twisted my mind in so many ways. I am still processing everything within this layered film.

In Vietnam in 1970, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) takes a perilous and increasingly hallucinatory journey upriver to find and terminate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a once-promising officer who has reportedly gone completely mad. In the company of a Navy patrol boat filled with street-smart kids, a surfing-obsessed Air Cavalry officer (Robert Duvall), and a crazed freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper), Willard travels further and further into the heart of darkness.

& recipe

straight from our tiki bar (and the smugglers cove recipe book), we gifted this festive drink to our neighbors, friends, and family.

delicious, decadent, and deserving of the holidays, this is one of my favorite drinks from the year.

hot buttered rum (smugglers cove)

ingredients

for the batter

• 1 tsp freshly ground cinnamon

• 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

• 3/4 tsp ground cloves

• 1/2 tsp ground allspice

• 1/2 tsp ground anise seed

• 2 cups salted butter

• 4 cups packed golden brown sugar

• 2 tbsp molasses

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

for the drink

• 3 barspoons SC Hot Buttered Rum Batter

• 1 1/2 oz blended aged rum*

• 6 oz hot water

instructions:

make the batter

1. Combine all the spices and set them aside.

2. Melt the butter over low heat.

3. Add the sugar to the butter and stir until combined.

4. Add the molasses and vanilla extract and stir until combined.

5. Add the spices and stir.

6. Continue stirring until fully combined.

7. Remove from the stove/heat and let cool slightly before pouring into a mason jar (or other storage container).

8. Cool completely, then seal.

9. Store in the fridge.

for the drink

1. Warm batter and measure 3 barspoons of it.

2. Heat 6 oz of hot water.

3. Combine the measured batter, heated water, and 1 1/2 oz of blended aged rum (add more to taste).

*recommendations for blended aged rum

• El Dorado Dark Rum

• Papas Pilar - Dark Rum

notes:

• the batter itself is nonalcoholic and can be used in a myriad of ways, for example, we’ve enjoyed a scoop of the batter mixed in with a cup of morning coffee for a festive, spiced latte.

Thank you for reading, and please share any recommendations (books, movies, articles, etc) in the comments! I always love finding new treasures.

note: the summaries from above are NOT mine. The book summaries came from goodreads and the media summaries came from google.

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“The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.”
–Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Outside presides a looming fog. It appeared overnight. Ghosts of white air rose first from the tilled farm fields, then the bridges, then the alleyways in our little town, and with it the cold. Both sneak curious fingers into our jackets and coats, nipping at any ribbon of skin left exposed.

All without warning.

No one knows when it will appear. No one knows when it will leave. If it will leave.

The Tule Fog, with a ticking death count higher than droughts, fires, tornados. A natural disaster that disguises itself as autumn aesthetic. Folks here speak of it like a living beast.

“The fog is coming.” “The fog is here.” “Be careful of the fog.”

Outside, I can hardly see my hand. Yellow headlights disappear as soon as they appear. Everything is cloaked by the gray blanket that now suffocates the valley between the mountains.

It reminds me I’m an outsider.

Yet, while it conceals all else, it unveils the community I’ve cultivated over the last year. The seeds of conversations and coffee dates and consistent faces have bloomed.

You may not be from here, but we’ll show you the way.

A stranger to the fog, to this place, but no longer to the people.

Slowly, I am making a home.

My dream has always been to share my writing with the world (through books, little thought pieces like this, and more). To keep that dream alive, I hope to keep my work free for all to enjoy. That said, if you ever feel moved to support my writing, please consider subscribing or dropping something small in the tip jar.

More than anything, thank you for being here!

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Come thursdays I am a being of habit.

4:21AM. wakeup (it never gets easier). brush teeth. transform into a (semi)-presentable human (who’s truly cares this early?) in clothes laid out the night before. warm breakfast: some variation of overnight oats because again, being of habit. pour coffee (thank god for pre-set coffee pots). depart.

4:45AM. pilates studio. teach classes 1, 2, & 3. create magic.

8AM. leave. call mom on drive home. what are you doing today? (Select: writing, grocery shopping, coursework, repeat). How about you? (Select: write contract, review contract, negotiate contract, grocery shopping, something with ranch, repeat.). Both, beings of habit.

8:30AM. Lace up running shoes, select an audiobook (today: Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton — a hoot, a holler, & a why haven’t I read this yet?), run.

That’s how we get here.

9AM. not home, not showered, not working, but in the middle of a sidewalk, with tears.

From a raven, a run, & a rumination.

rewind.

8:50AM. Halfway through my run, cheeks reddened, Dolly’s posh British voice feeding my distraction, when the crow appeared: a flash of inky black feathers diving in a clouded gray sky.

A crow. Nothing unusual.

Until it dove again.

Strange.

I slowed, still inwardly the child who’d sat her kitchen table with bird binoculars and a sketchbook (in another life I’m a ornithologist).

Another dive, this time dangerously close to it’s threat: a hawk, perched innocently on the light post.

Ah.

Figuring it a spectacle of nature I’d best not disturb, I continued. Feet pounding, minutes ticking, I reached my turnaround point and started back the way I came.

Yet, when I’d turned, the hawk had disappeared. Reappearing as a swoop of feathers up, then a torpedo towards the earth.

I knew what that dive meant: a feast.

And by the crow’s cawing distress, I could imagine what feast it’d found. Though, again as a child surrounded by the wild, I thought sad, but, nature… and continued on.

Then, a second crow materialized. A third. Wings flapping ardently, as if trying to break the air itself. A caw. Desperate. My human heart assigned it human emotions:

You’re headed to help him, aren’t you?

A fourth crow. A fifth. Black feathers swarmed a textureless november sky, cawing from all directions. Rising from who knew where in our suburban neighborhood of concrete sidewalks and pebbled yards.

A murder.

A Poe-ian dread filled me. Still, I ran, though now my sidewalk swam and Dolly’s voice echoed through cotton. My lungs tightened from a source entirely disparate from my movement.

They came. I thought. The first crow called, and the family came flying.

And another thought: Just like mine.

My run home was not on schedule.

It’s been a year since I left Austin, Texas.

A year since I traded Lady Bird Lake, the cottonwood-scattered riverbeds, and my family’s nest for the farm-field ridden, small-town charm of central California.

I moved for love.

Yet, moving for love, also meant leaving love behind. My family keeps a tight circle. For years, that circle remained in the same city, yet now it expands: me chasing love in California, my twin chasing her career in Chicago, and my little brother chasing his baseball dreams in college. Yet, like the crows, when one calls for help, we all come flying.

It’s a bond you cannot touch.

Even still, with each passing week, I feel our connection slipping. Phone calls become distant. Texts are trimmed. Visits home become fewer and shorter as our lives elsewhere pull us back.

As a writer, my family knows me for my hidden letters. A kind of childhood game I played. Handwritten notes found slid under pillows, folded into suitcases, laid upon a desk. All to discover later, to read, and think of me. Paragraphs written essentially to say “I love you. I’m thinking of you” when I had trouble articulating my overwhelming thoughts and feelings aloud.

Away, I can no longer sneak them these spontaneous little letters. While I could mail them (and still sometimes do), the shape feels different. Time spaces out the sentiments.

Now…I’ve told you about my run, we’ve met the raven (who’s really a crow but I love alliteration too much to change it), which brings us to the rumination, aka what’s absorbed my mind for the past week: I’d like to begin something new. A place I can share photos, videos, quotes, and pulled passages. Where my wanderings, my wonderings, my thoughts spill forth from the ink of my (virtual) pen. Something that allows my family to travel alongside me still.

So…here is my first letter of many.

to my metaphorical murder of crows,

i love you,

ashley

which I think leads much better into the review of what I’ve consumed this month…literally, literary, and otherwise.

books

I had an uncommonly successful month with reading. Each book I picked up seemed to have been plucked specially as a gift.

1. Bunny by Mona Awad

After a long life on my TBR, my book club finally convinced me to pick this up…and thank god for book club because I had so many thoughts. A dizzying read that I couldn’t put down, yet would not recommend to those faint of heart.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

2. The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Art, murder, and tarot cards…what’s not to love? This one got a little sticky for me in some parts but it was a beautiful atmospheric read.

Ann’s work at the Cloisters, a gothic museum of medieval art, takes a turn when she uncovers a mysterious artifact — turning academic curiosity into a deadly game of obsession…

3. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

I became insatiable for more. I started listening to this memoir while running and thus proceeded a nearly problematic inseparability from my earbuds and spotify app.

Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it.

4. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I hardly ever read nonfiction so it takes something truly phenomenal to sweep me off my feet. This was one of those reads. If I could gift it to everyone, I would.

It’s the kind of book you’ll want to read slow to soak in the sentences.

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

5. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A true study in how to write character and spin a story across decades. It’s been a long time since I’ve cared so deeply about a character.

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.

for more recommendations see my library

articles & short stories

the hunger to be everything

“And I do not want more doors—I want to walk through one without looking back. I want to love something long enough to feel it love me in return. I want to lay foundations on imperfect soil and call it home anyway.”

“But I have lost myself in a million other people. I’m no longer fluent in my own language. I’ve consumed so many dreams that weren’t mine, I don’t recognise the hunger of my own longing.”

odetoapoet

the hunger to be everything.

“ Oh, to wake up grateful for the pulse in my neck; to meet the mirror without dread…

Read more

a year ago · 66291 likes · 805 comments · amber.

Between Plath & Didion: the most important lesson I learned in my 20’s

“The answer to how to approach your twenties lies between Plath and Didion. Everything you do is irrevocable, because time is finite, which means your choices matter. So you have to choose a fig. You cannot sit “in the crotch of this fig tree starving to death.” But choosing one fig does not cause all the others to instantly fall from the tree. If you realize you’ve chosen the wrong fig—and I mean as soon as you realize, because your twenties are shorter than you think—go back to the tree and pluck another. And another. And another. Until you’ve found the right one.”

Fairy Tales by Caroline

Between Plath and Didion: the most important lesson I learned in my 20's

I was awoken by a 5am wakeup call from the hotel front desk. Outside my window snow fell thick and fast. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and shuffled to the hotel bathroom, skin white and drawn beneath the bright fluorescents. As I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on my suit, tears flowed soundlessly from my eyes, a dead, helpless…

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2 years ago · 13557 likes · 502 comments · Caroline Beuley

The Literary History of the Haunted House

• Perused for book research. Stayed out of curiosity.

“For early Gothic writers, the house was often an ancient ruin, a literal pile of stone representing the decayed power of the old aristocracy and the crushing weight of history. The focus was entirely on the environment. The terror was external, a physical oppression.”

The Ink-Stained Desk

The Literary History of the Haunted House.

This article, and all my work, is made possible by the incredible generosity of my paid subscribers. Your support is particularly important for longer projects such as The Genre Genealogy Series, which I intend to continue offering for free to everyone. If you enjoy my writing and would like to support me in continuing to produce in-depth content, consi…

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10 months ago · 478 likes · 7 comments · C M Reid

Against the Cult of Productivity in Writing

“Farming wisdom tells us that land needs to rest. A field that’s forced to produce year after year without pause becomes depleted, the soil thin and exhausted. But a field left fallow for a season comes back stronger. The ground replenishes itself. What looked like emptiness reveals itself to be a silent act restoration all along.

I truly feel our creative minds are not much different.”

Beautiful Losers

Against the Cult of Productivity in Writing

I’m going to say something that might make writing coaches hate me: most days, you shouldn’t write at all…

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10 months ago · 448 likes · 202 comments · Shannan Mann

Other Media

The Materialists

A young and ambitious New York City matchmaker finds herself torn between a seemingly perfect match and her imperfect ex-boyfriend.

• please, please, please make more movies like this pleaseeeee.

Landman

Deep in the heart of West Texas, roughnecks and wildcat billionaires try to get rich quick in the oil business as oil rigs begin to dominate the state. Crisis executive Tommy Norris tries to bring his company to the top during a fuelling boom.

• After 1883, I will watch practically anything from Taylor Sheridan.

The Beast Within Me

Author Aggie Wiggs has receded from public life since the death of her young son, unable to write, a ghost of her former self; but she finds an unlikely subject for a new book when the house next door is bought by Nile Jarvis.

• You know I’m a sucker for a show with an author protagonist and this one hasn’t disappointed.

& recipe

Salted Pistachio-Butter Stuffed Dates

The easiest appetizer (or dessert!) you’ll ever make. And my newest obsession.

• Dates

• Pistachio Butter

• Salt

(that’s literally it, I promise)

Instructions:

1. Pit dates and slice them in half. Separate the two halves.

2. Spread pistachio butter into the center of each half (I used a butter knife).

3. Broil for 2-3 minutes or until slightly caramelized.

4. Burn your fingers as you are too gluttonous to let them cool (oops, that’s just me).

Thank you for reading, and please share any recommendations (books, movies, articles, etc) in the comments! I always love finding new treasures.

note: the summaries from above are NOT mine. The book summaries came from goodreads and the media summaries came from google.

“He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods; the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.” - C.S. Lewis

It took me some time to find the words to describe the alpine lakes and blue mountains of last weekend’s retreat to Lake Tahoe.

Beautiful. Stunning. Epic.

All words I mumbled in awe while there, but which feel inadequate without the view to accompany them. So here I turn to the old adage: “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Rather than detail my various tromps through the wilderness and the towns cozily tucked within the mountains, I invite you into my photo gallery. A scrapbook, a collage, a photo diary of sorts, to step within the magical wonders of Lake Tahoe and our journey along the way.

First stop, a step back in time to…Columbia, CA

a cloudless blue sky, chilled by autumn weather. A street from a bygone century. If you listen close, you can still hear the panning of gold miners.

a trip to the candy store reveals women in frocks and aprons, yet braces on one young woman betray the century. We depart, brown paper sacks heavy with Finnish licorice, dark chocolate haystacks, rum cordials, and vintage goodies. Leaving little Columbia in search of dinner and a warm bed, we arrive in Sonora, CA just before dusk…and stumble across an underground book cave.

upon waking to fall leaves tapping at the window of the old inn, my writer’s mind called for one thing: coffee.

and off we go to trade the chatter of town for the stillness of the mountains…

and more alpine lakes…

and more…

we warm by the fire with drinks in our bellies and the mountain air still in our lungs.

we end the trip with one last fanciful stop. A bookstore and coffee shop nested into one, a writer’s dream.

I’ll say goodbye to you as we waved goodbye to our woodland s’mores thief, Eddie (the racoon), the forest in our souls, a road trip ahead of us alive with the colors of the changing seasons.

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TRIP ITINERARY

Columbia, CA

• Columbia State Historic Park

Sonora, CA

stay:

• The Sonora Inn - cozy, quaint, and perfect for a night’s stay

eat & drinks & coffee:

• The Armory - creative drinks and sophisticated interior

• Revive Coffee - the friendliest barista and a historical ambience

• The Thirsty Prospector - underground bookstore, pub, & antiques

Lake Tahoe

stay:

• The Coachman - heated bathroom appliances, spacious rooms, nightly s’mores — the ideal way to unwind after a long day adventuring

eat & drinks & coffee:

• McP’s Pub - is there anything better than an irish pub when it’s chilly outside?

• Base Camp Pizza - a long wait, but unique & crave-worthy pizzas

• Hell’s Kitchen - need I say more?

• Cuppa Tahoe - a bookstore coffee shop

• Keys Cafe - the best breakfast burritos

• Speakeasy in the Social House

trails:

• Emerald Bay - the first trail we did; a little crowded with tourists, but for good reason

• Grass Lake - a fairly empty trail with beautiful views at the top

• Cathedral Lake - absolutely stunning views of all the lakes throughout the trail (and a sighting of a mama bear and her cubs!)

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The woods had eyes, the rocks had teeth, and the river bubbled and frothed like a cauldron left too long over the fire. Little beasts rustle within the fallen needles, and a golden leaf pinwheels from a maple, whispering of the season’s change. We’d best be on our way lest the snow set in. The air grows denser, darker, cooler the further we venture within. Even the breeze seems to tremble, running its errant fingers through branches and brambles and tugging golden leaves right from their nubs.

I think of my raspberry scone. Think, perhaps, to leave crumbs like Hansel and Gretel. Yet, dark shadows also loom, and I’m afraid if I break a piece away, they’ll steal it as an offering.

The forest carries within it a heartbeat. I feel each rumble beneath my feet. The mother, planted, buried, and forgotten. Laughter twines through golden boughs and furred pines. Final festivities and feasts before shadows stretch longer and days grow shorter. A comfort in this hollow.

I feel myself slow.

Nestle.

Burrow.

Slumber.

It calls.

Pack your cheeks with gluttony, for when winter comes, you’ll need it. Pull out your winter coats — the fur, the wool, the leather — from the farthest corners of the closet.

Send the time ticking slower. The clocks back.

Our last hurrah of painted trees and streamered vines, and then it’s time for a long nap.

We emerge from the deep, dark forest. Step into the beam of sunlight beyond. Tred up granite stairs to a waterfall whose frothed waters tumble down the mountain and trickle into the den we stepped from.

Though we will walk back down the mountain. Back into the woods.

And perhaps, when we emerge once more, we’ll carry part of the woods within us.

It started with an acorn.

Grown between a bundle of waxy green leaves, it shivered when the wind shook the oak’s highest branches, sheltered in the folds of its neighbors as the limbs tossed sideways and thunder cracked the sky. A light green at first, as fresh as spring grass, darkening to a dusty brown, then a caramel chocolate. Summer into fall it waited. Looking into the blue sky, too small to have its own voice as it watched the leaves chatter, the birds squawk, and the insects hum. It never thought about falling.

Until it did.

A light wind was its downfall. The barest touch, but it had grown too heavy, fat on the nutrients suckled from its mother tree. The cap snapped and it tumbled. The leaves tried to catch its fall, but it thwacked on the oak’s limbs, scratched itself on the rough bark. Falling, falling, falling, until thud. It bounced on the forest floor. And where was its sunlight? The whispering breeze? Where was its loving, wide sky?

There our acorn sat. If it felt the cold it would have trembled, but it was just an acorn. Leaves spun from the branches it’d once called home. Falling down to meet it in a flurry of orange, red, and yellow. “Hello, old friend,” they welcomed. “Hello, hello, hello.”

But they browned, faded, and turned to rot while it lived on. For what, it wondered? What do I wait for?

And then one day, it heard a sniffing. Hands reaching down through its leaf-friends slowly turning to soil. Claws dug into its sides, ticklish on its tough skin. Whiskers twitched, and then it was back on the ground. The furry beast, the squirrel, started to dig its hole. And then our acorn was flying before darkness covered it once more. This one deeper; this one quieter. The darkness of being buried alive.

When spring came, it was still waiting. Summer again, fall, and winter. But when spring arrived once more, it felt a difference. A stretching within. A searching. Light, it called. Find the light.

And so our acorn sprouted. Pushing up, up, up through the darkness with no hint when light would come. If it would. But, then, it did. The soft glow of sunlight on its cotyledon. A breath of air it hadn’t felt in months. Our acorn grew up, first until it crested the soft spring grasses, then until it was eye-to-eye with the squirrel that had forgotten it. It kept climbing. Avoiding, by luck, the tramping of shoes, the hunger of deer, the crowding of the other trees. It found its sunlight, and within it the memory, the promise, of wide skies.

Up, up, up.

Below it passed creatures of all shapes. A bird that nested within its limbs, the chirps from her hatchlings filling its branches with a pleasant chatter. Ants scurried around the base of its trunk, eating away the fungus that threatened its roots. Squirrels continued to pat its brethren into the earth. Deer nibbled at its base, coyotes stalked below its limbs. And still the tree grew.

Summer, fall, winter, spring. An ever repeating pattern.

Humans passed by too. First they left fires at its base. Horses tied to its wide trunk and branches. A man was buried, and the tree felt a faint kinship at the sight. A small spark of hope. But like the leaves, once buried, he turned to earth. More passed by, until a trail grew wider under the tree. They patted its trunk. A pair of lovers carved their names. Still it grew.

But one day, so hot its branches sagged, its leaves withered, the tree tasted danger on the wind. Its brothers, its sisters, calling for help. Humans thought trees couldn’t communicate; they just didn’t understand the words.

Help, help, help us.

Yet the tree couldn’t see anything. It had not yet reached the wide sky despite its growing, despite the years. It still waited its turn to taste the raw sunlight the older trees, the taller trees, sequestered.

Help, help, help us.

And then it felt the ripping on its trunk. Metal teeth biting into its hard flesh. It cracked. Groaned. Why are you doing this? It wanted to cry. I watched you grow up. I watched your father buried. Why do you hurt me?

Still the man cut. He wore a hard hat. Orange, offensive. Birds flocked up into the sky, scared of the noise. Squirrels clutched tight within its branches. They could feel the violent tremor, the one that rocketed through the earth. The tree tried to hang on. Tried to keep itself together even as it fell apart. It heard the crack, like a gunshot. Then it was falling, just as it had as an acorn. Down, down, down through the branches. The sunlight whispered away; there was only darkness here. The feeling of being cleaved in two.

Why do you kill me? It asked, but the humans had forgotten the language of the forest. They wrapped big chains around its trunk, dragging its top away, while its base lay behind.

One half to rot, to become a pot for smaller trees that nestled inside its soil filled trunk.

One half, stripped, cut, and nailed together to become a house. Its bones used to create a roof that reached the wide sky, and the sunlight it was born to, if only our acorn were still alive to see it.

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I come from the bloodlines of two non-traditional storytellers: the cowboy poets of the Texas hill country and the marshland fableists of East Texas and Baton Rouge. One side told me folktales around a whiskey-rowdied campfire, while the other whispered fairy tales from a hammock in the magic garden. My writing style is a blend of the two.

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I’ve been writing since I could hold a pen: picture books on printer paper stolen from my mom’s home office, half-filled journals gifted as birthday presents, and, at thirteen, a 200K-word middle grade fantasy that will never see the light of day. In the decade since, I’ve written nearly nine more books, along with countless short stories and poems.

Writing has never been ‘just a hobby’. It’s the thread that’s run through my life, from founding creative writing clubs, editing literary magazines, to taking creative writing classes.

Now, I’m sharing the stories I’ve hoarded away like a dragon—alongside musings on writing, folklore, and the kind of love stories that feel like magic.

If you’re interested in:

• folktales and fairytales

• a bit of grit mingled with the whimsical

• and, always, a little love story

Pull up a chair. You’re in the right place.

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