You know it’s summer when you lose track of the date, then look over and realize you missed sharing your newsletter to the blog until it was almost time to write the next one *nervous laughter*
Anyways, there’s owl pics in the Nature Notes this month, so don’t skip that. I’ve mostly spent my month tearing my hair out over my Binding of Spellwork and Story book, which I’m writing thanks to a lovely creation grant from artsnb.
I’ve rewritten my first chapters multiple times and just couldn’t get them right. The typical advice I get in this situation is that I should just leave them and go back and fix them later, and that’s good advice that never works for me. When I get blocked and start mentally fretting over a section, there’s a reason. And until I figure it out I’m that ridiculous fly that keeps bumping into the window when there’s an open door right beside him.
So after a solid week of fretting, I took the problematic character by the arms, shook him, and begged him to tell me what he wanted. “I wanted [REDACTED] to remain a secret until a later part of the book,” he admitted, mid shake.
“Oh.” I said. “Huh.” I crossed my arms. Paced a little. “You know, that could work. It would take care of that cringe-y part that was bothering me, too.”
“I know.”
My eyes widened. “Oh, wow, you know, that adds so much potential drama to your connection with that other character, too.”
“I know.”
So now that I’ve got THAT figured it out, I took the original and the rewritten chapter, and sort of frankensteined the best parts of them together into a new chapter, without revealing character’s secret. All the fretting evaporated and my mind has given me the green light to proceed. Phew.
had a bit of a mini side quest when I wrote a writerly advice article written by one of my witch characters in the Binding book. It was actually a really fun little exercise that let me push the envelope of my theme. It was inspired by a submission call, and I sent it in, so we’ll see what happens. If it’s not accepted, it will absolutely be a fun freebie to send out with the book, as bonus contact, and I’m thinking it could also be a fun little tiktok series that would give me a fun excuse to dress up like witch to promote the book.
The typewriter is a lawn ornament at my friend Tiffany’s house. Someone welded the old beast to a base with legs, which is a pretty creative use of an old typewriter. But I’m not showing this to my beloved old Underwood just in case it gets offended.
I got to see a barred owl up close and learned that they are absolutely fascinating:
Those grippy feet! I’m going to imagine dragon skin is textured like this from now on. Also, these owls have feathers with hearts on them:
I wrote a poem about barred owls a while back. Rattle Poetry has a “Poets Respond” feature whereby a poet can submit a poem based on a news article released in the past week, and every Sunday, they publish the best one online. I’ve never had one published with them, but I like that the possibility gets me writing a poem about a news article that strikes me in a particular way.
The following poem was written in response to a news article about a culling of barred owls in the U.S. It’s a bit of a complicated conservation subject, but when I read the number, half a million barred owls to be culled if this plan was approved, the number just staggered me. Here’s the poem I wrote, unpublished as it was except for on my social media, but heed the subject matter as a CW:
Half a Million Owls
Barred owls call back and forth across the forest
And something inside me stills
Something reverential, primal, superstitious,
That insists this is a mystical moment
Maybe it’s the darkness, the gleaming of the stars,
The way the rummaging sounds in the leaf litter cease.
“Half a million owls will be culled…”
My mind stumbles over the number. Glitches.
Stops rummaging through the litter of my thoughts.
“Hoo-hoo. Hoo-hoo,” call the owls, all unknowing.
“Who cooks for you?” I learned as a child,
The same barred owl call I’ve taught my children,
“Who cooks for you? Who cooks for y’all?”
Half a million dead barred owls. Shot.
I try again to grasp the scale and fail
Instead, I imagine feathers scattered across a clearcut
“Who kills for you? Who kills for y’all?” the corpses call
And something rummaging through bullet casings stills.
That’s it for this month’s newsletter, Enchanted friends. I’m currently working on a quilt square for the Nova Scotia Grief and Solidarity Quilt for Palestine, a bit outside my wheelhouse, so hopefully I’ll be able to share that next newsletter. I’m stitching a poem onto it, which is proving the most challenging aspect, naturally.
I’m still confused by the autumn of it all. The kids are back in school, leaving me these vast quiet hours to work and write. True to form, it’s too quiet and I’m fighting to get anything done… until they come through the door and everything is back to normal. SIGH. Why is my brain like this?
It doesn’t help that I’m STUCK in my edits. The good news is that first draft of Care and Feeding of Your Little Banned Bookshop is complete! There’s just this one scene at the beginning that I need to add. I’m a firm believer that the beginning informs the ending, so it’s holding everything up. I have this vague sketch of what to write, but I can’t bring myself to pick up my pen and just write it. And I know myself enough to know that this means the idea hasn’t come yet and there’s no point in fighting it, but it’s frustrating. Editing is fun to do, but gosh, it’s awful when it’s just sitting there, waiting.
In the meantime, I’m teasing out my next project, the Binding of Story and Spellwork novel I received an artsnb grant to write. It’s still in the early plotting stages, but it’s surprising me with how it wants to be told and I find myself rushing for my notebook to write down the ideas as they come with a grin on my face.
That probably sounds strange, so I’ll explain myself. Somewhere over the summer, my hearing still a major issue and just feeling very punchy in general, I stopped listening to the voice that tells me what a story should be, and I started listening to what the story wanted to be. To what I wanted the story to be. This probably sounds like common sense to a non-writer, but it’s not. Writers’ heads get filled with every rejection letter they’ve ever received, internet sages doling out lessons about markets and do you want to be an artist or do you want to make money, and you end up spinning around like a spider on a broken web. It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t hear the stories anymore. Then, when my actual hearing went and I couldn’t do anything about it, I fixed the one hearing I could: the stories. I’m not even sure I knew I’d stopped listening, but something that was missing feels like it has returned.
Anyways. Oh, look! A moth shadow:
It’s oak gall season! I tried collecting these too late last year, so I started while the leaves are still on the trees this year. These little balls are created by gall wasps on oak leaves. They’re meant to be nurseries for the wasp larvae, but once they’ve left, some clever medieval folks figured out that you can turn the galls into ink.
(I wonder about that a lot.)
If you see a hole in the oak gall, you know the wasp has vacated the gall and it’s time to collect.
For now, I’ve only collected the galls, so I won’t pretend I have the expertise to teach you the recipe, but if you’d like to try this yourself, you can find plenty of oak gall ink recipes online. Basically you make a sort of tea with the galls, which reacts with iron (so be careful if you’re secretly Fae) to create a rich black ink for painting, for your non-metal dipping pens, or for keeping stories alive in that horrible dystopian future without ink that keeps plaguing your nightmares.
Ahem.
That’s it for this month, Side Questers, the leaves are just starting to change but I’m sure the fall colours will be almost over by the time I begin writing you about my October Side Quests.
I do enjoy fall. The crispy leaves, the colours, the mushrooms, the smell of coming frost. The first few fires in the woodstove that seem more cozy than the chore they’ll soon become. Sweaters. Wearing socks again! What’s your favourite part? Hit reply and let me know, I’d love to hear from you.
My wee poem about the delight of discovering a beloved new story and the desire to carry it with you after the words have all been read is now available to read in Polar Starlight.
You can download the pdf issue to read for free by clicking here. Essence is on page 22 and I’d love to hear what you think of it!
I am pleased to announce that my writing has won me a fox. There is a shockingly tiny group of fox-winning writers out there. This is definitely going on my CV, right next to ostrich herding and singing lullabies to a sick lion.
Okay, it’s not a real fox. They belong in the woods. I won a felt fox by fibre artist Bella McBride. Our local CBC’s radio show The Shift held a contest for listeners to write in with a name and a story for the fox. Many of the entries were read on the air (including mine – squee!) and Candace Hare, director of the Nashwaaksis arm of the Fredericton Public Library, was the judge.
I listened to the show last Monday, shoulders tight and nails nibbled. Finally, they announced the winner – and it was me! I got an extra thrill as they discussed the highlights of my entry on air and giggled over all the parts I wanted people to giggle over.
My fox arrived by courier and is now presiding over my writing desk as muse and writing trophy. There isn’t much money in fiction writing, but there are wicked perks where you least expect them.
Here’s my entry, which is a light-hearted bit of fun I hope you’ll enjoy reading as much as I did writing it:
Red O’Sullivan, the CBC Fox
Red O’Sullivan was an urban red fox
Who lived near the library in an old cardboard box.
He listened to the CBC on his phone
Sipping coffee and wishing for a show of his own.
Red worried a great deal about climate change
And found human indifference incredibly strange
So he started a podcast to vent his rants
And recorded it from home where he didn’t need pants.
The CBC staff liked his podcast, you see
And invited him over as an interviewee
He arrived on time in his orange fox fur
Only to hear, “You can’t go in there , Mr. Fox, Sir.
You are naked,” said the security guard.
“I’m a fox,” answered Red, nervous and swallowing hard,
“I’ve an interview at two. Please, let me through.”
“I can’t let you in naked. You need clothes, you do.”
“But this is my dream job – the first fox on air!
Is there possibly anything inside I could wear?”
“There’s a green coat and hat in the lost and found,
Welcome to this week’s edition of Submit Your Stories Sunday! Every week I bring you a unique call for submissions to help you find a home for your stories or inspire a new one. Each call will contain a speculative element and will offer payment upon acceptance.
Ursula K. Le Guin Tribute Poetry Anthology
Eligibility: original poems which pay to tribute in some way to the late poet and writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Speculative elements are welcome, but not required. There are no limits to words, lines, or style.
Take Note: writers can submit up to three poems
What makes this call stand out: it’s a lovely way to pay tribute to a prolific writer
Payment: $20 per poem, reprints are welcome but the rate will be lower
In the greatest foreshadowing fail I have come across, a writer who specializes in stories about ladies killing their spouses is charged with murdering… her spouse. Welp.
I’ve been reading the Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction issue of Uncanny. Having guest editors makes it stand out from other Uncanny issues in terms of overall style, but Uncanny’s ideals of inclusivity and imaginative fiction hold true.
cover art: And With the Lamps We Are Multitudes of Light by Likhain
My favorite story in the collection is A. Merc Rustad’s first-contact story The Frequency of Compassion. It is nothing short of a masterpiece. Rustad is easily one of my favorite short story writers publishing today. I get a rush of delight when I see their name in a table of contents.
I tried and failed to chose a favorite from the nonfiction included in the issue. As a mother who experiences a varying range of anxiety, A. J. Hackwith’s And the Dragon Was in the Skin resonated deeply. Each essay changed something in the way I see the world. If you’re a writer, read them. Devour them. Listen. They have the power to make us better writers. Better people.
Julia Watts Belser’s poem You Wanted Me to Fly hit me hard, the last line especially. As writers, we need to do so much better.
If you’re not in a place to support Uncanny magazine financially (Space Unicorns!), you can read half of the issue for free at the link above. The second half should be available on the Uncanny website in October.
His daughter waited until he turned to dig out a pencil and paper before splashing through his inspiration in her red rubber boots. She smiled up at him as his eyebrows shot skywards. “You comin’ in?” she asked.
He could not deny the temptation. “Maybe I should write children’s books instead,” he said, and hopped right in.
Jennifer Shelby 