what I'm reading #forthebook

companion texts for writing my book

Hello friends! This is Ursula Fan Club, where I share what I’m writing, reading, and seeing in the world as I write the first draft of my book. If you’re interested in speculative fiction, the climate, ancestral stuff, textiles, living in a human body, and balancing a creative practice with whatever this is *waves wildly around*, you’ll probably like it here.

Some of my reading for the year.

If I were writing a book, and if I told you this is what my book was about:

A young girl confronts her family’s secrets against the backdrop of a high Arctic climate research station in the near future. As the ice melts and what was hidden becomes revealed, she uncovers more than she bargained for.

…what books would you recommend I read? I’m serious—I really want to know.

This was part of my application to PARAKEET, my year-long writing intensive hosted by Beth Pickens. As part of the first week of the program, Beth and her co-organizers hand-selected a personalized stack of books for each of the 60+ writers in the cohort to read throughout the year to support us in the writing of our manuscripts. More than anything about PARAKEET, I couldn’t wait to receive my book list. When else does another smart, creative, considerate brain craft a personalized stack of reading recs for you that are rooted so deeply in your personal story and experience as a writer and in the subject and themes of your private, intimate book baby? What a gift. What an opportunity to learn about new writers and peripheral stories that we may otherwise never find on our own and could impact us on a cellular, soul level.

Here’s my email from Beth:

I was immediately struck by the first two bullets—not one, but two books by Shirley Jackson, a writer I had never read—as well as a hefty helping of stories set in the Arctic, including The Left Hand of Darkness, one of my favorite books of all time. But what many of these have in common are horror, ghost stories, mystery, and in the case of Jackson, some dark feminist themes of trapped girls and claustrophobic families. Interestingly, these were not containers I was actively considering for my own book, but after finishing We Have Always Lived in the Castle, I’m thinking differently; it’s already giving me nightmares and heavily influencing my draft.

By the way, Dark Matter: A Ghost Story has a typo; the writer is Michelle Paver, not Michael. Not to be confused with Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (now an Apple TV limited series; so-so but worth watching if you like parallel universe stories); Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora edited by Sheree R. Thomas; or The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (all books I want to read!). I really enjoyed reading this short interview with Paver in The Guardian about her process of writing this book.

I also signed up for George Saunders’ Substack and also picked up a copy of Lincoln in the Bardo, another ghost story.

To support the rest of my reading for the year, I spent an afternoon reorganizing my bookshelves in my office where I do most of my writing. In the past, I have prioritized reading every recent climate fiction novel as a possible influence on my own work, but this year, I want to focus more on the young protagonist, her family dynamics, how mass movements (of all types) organize and think, and atmospheric world building in the high Arctic. To support this, here are several books that I’m prioritizing:

• O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

• Oldladyvoice by Elisa Victoria

• The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing

• The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas

• Antarctica by Claire Keegan

• Sanaaq by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk

• Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

• Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez

• The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer

• The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground by Ron Jacobs

• How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm

• Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase

• Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes

Given these lists and my book blurb, what other books would you add to my stack? What books are you reading this year in support of your work?

What I’m writing

More of the opening chapter of my book. The draft is messy and ugly, my friends. I’m enjoying the process, regardless. Thinking about Lauren Groff’s method of writing 3+ ugly drafts, by longhand, before she gets around to a sharp, beautiful re-write that becomes her final thing. Also listening to this podcast recording with Groff talking about her process.

What I read

As I reflect on what I choose to read this year, I will be using this space to reflect on key takeaways for my own book, not writing a mini review of it.

First, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson has one of the strongest opening paragraphs I have ever read, with a clear establishment of our protagonist, Merricat, and her unique voice:

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

Incredible. Utterly perfect. Some mysteries are never definitively answered—why is her entire family dead?—but subtle, delicate clues are buried throughout the text as we follow Merricat through her fractured, magical thinking.

The dialogue between Merricat and her sister, Constance, is so loving with so little. I will return to their exchanges as I build out my own character relationships.

The villagers are absolutely terrifying and their groupthink reminds me of Jackson’s infamous short story, “The Lottery,” and current events like the January 6 rioters. Years ago in my International Relations program, I was assigned The True Believer by Eric Hoffer but for some reason never read it. I bought a new copy and am eager to spend some time with it.

What I’m reading

Make Your Art No Matter What by Beth Pickens, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs for book club, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin (a reread), and Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy.

This past week, I finally watched the Ursula K. LeGuin documentary, Worlds of Ursula K. LeGuin, which is available to rent on most streaming platforms. I didn’t learn too much about her I didn’t already know, but it was a soothing balm to watch and I enjoyed seeing other writers talk about her impact on their own work.

We’re all watching the new season of Severance too, right??? I’m obsessed. The writing is immaculate. The best thing on TV right now.

Some helpful things

I have gotten through this entire post without mentioning The Great Doom that is stewing in our country this week, but I assure you that I am just as anxious, terrified, disgusted and grief-ridden as you are. I am reading adrienne maree brown’s remarks from this week, and I was struck by this line: “the reality is scary, so really take your life seriously.” Are you taking your life, your time, your attention, and your art seriously? I am trying to. As far as I know, this is the only life I get. When I catch myself in a news spiral, I stop myself, exit the app or the website, and either open a book, my notebook, or my Crosswords app instead. Reclaim your attention, my friends.

On that note, Beth Pickens re-surfaced her zine, Making Art During Fascism, this week and it feels especially relevant.

On February 5 at 8PM ET, Peter Beinart, the editor at large of Jewish Currents magazine, will speak with Shaarei Shamayim on Zoom about his forthcoming book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. Register here.

I loved this piece in the NYT about Karen Wynn Fonstad, the cartographer who mapped out Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Gorgeous, nerdy world-building for other Tolkien fans!

My husband gifted me these Writing Dice for my birthday and I already used them for a writing prompt and free-writing exercise. They’re made of wood, painted in beautiful colors, and feel good in the hand. But most importantly, they are a DELIGHT in what the dice reveals and prompts you to write. Big recommend.

Sending you all a big, warm hug.