I think we can all agree 2020 was a disappointment. I had so many plans: my reunion with Shakespeare at Winedale, a trip to Japan… We were supposed to host Japanese exchange students, too. None of that happened. (Well, the reunion was online, but it’s not nearly the same as being back on the Winedale stage.) We missed out on
I’m going to tell you a little secret about writing. (It’s not really a secret. Lots of people know this. But I’m going to reiterate it anyway.) There are many things that are fun to write. Certain scenes. Writers often play with their characters as if they were dolls in a dollhouse. We try out a few things, see what
It probably helps to start with Fangirl. Which I read, oh, two or three years ago? It’s the only other book by Rowell I’ve read, and I only thought it was okay. But I know I’m not the only person to think the best parts of that book were the faux fan fiction pieces the main character was writing. For
This movie was so boring. It’s a movie so intent on being clever (or thinking it’s being clever, anyway), that it has exactly nothing to offer to make the audience care about any of it. By which I mean, the characters are flat and trite, and we have zero reasons to give a f*** about any of them. “Leaden” is
The publishing world is a complicated place. More so now than ever, really. It used to be relatively straightforward: you wrote a book, you submitted it to agents, they said yes or no, and if they said yes, they submitted the book to publishers who would also say yes or no. For some publishers, it was possible to skip the
Prefer video? View my 2020 Reading Wrap-Up on YouTube. Yes, there are still a few weeks left in the year, but the chances I will finish reading another book in that time are slim to none. So I don’t think it’s premature to look back at my year in books. This year, I read 62 books, fewer than the 81
There are 39 days left in the year, which means it’s time to begin the process of reflecting on all that has occurred. And for a year spent mostly at home, there is surprisingly a lot to review. I started the year with health issues and big plans. My focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) in my liver had begun to act
If you’d rather see/hear me talk about the books I’ve read lately, check my YouTube channel for all the videos. (Like, subscribe, click the bell, share, etc.) But if you’d rather read, here are the quick versions of my reviews. The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel This is the final tome in the three-part historical fiction series about
This is a 2019 documentary miniseries from CNN that my husband and I watched via streaming. Rather than watch them in the order that Wikipedia lists, the streaming service (I can’t remember which one it was on now) had them in chronological order by era/decade. So we started with the “Golden Age” and moved to the 2000s. I’m not sure
Okay, so I may be one of the only people in the world who actually enjoyed some of the content on this platform. Quibi drew me in with their all-star remake of The Princess Bride. I stayed for their reboot of The Fugitive (which, let’s be honest, was just 24 mini). I laughed at Mapleworth and was a bit confused