Emergence
Currently reading:
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker
Out There Screaming, edited by Jordan Peele
An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice [audiobook]
Books finished this week: 0
Library updates:
I started listening to Interview with the Vampire while I was watering my plants yesterday morning, and I feel like it really just set a positive mood for the day. Partly the audiobook, partly being out in the sun to give sustenance to the things growing on my balcony. It was just nice. I read Interview once before——I think in college?——and all I remember is that I honestly didn’t love it. But the audio format is really working for me for this title, probably because it’s presented as, you know, an interview. I’ve cycled through the start of a few audiobooks the last few weeks, but nothing was hitting quite right until now, so it’s nice to be excited about one again.
Anyhow, more about that book to come when I finish reading it. More about flowers and springtime now, because, gosh, it was lovely out yesterday! I ended up on a pretty long drive (yes, listening to Interview with the Vampire) and was reminded how much I love doing that once the weather starts to really get nice. It’s wild how beautiful highways become on a bright spring day: clear blue skies, bright yellow forsythia, pink and white blossoms on trees, red and yellow-green buds about to unfurl, almost electric green grass and leaves on bushes coming back to life. I sat in so much traffic getting out of and then back into Queens, but the views made it all bearable.
Not too much else to report this week! Things were pretty busy, in mostly nice ways, and yesterday, Saturday, was a highlight. I started my morning taking virtual pitches from writers at the Liberty States Fiction Writers Conference, which I was initially a little nervous about, but it ended up being incredibly fun!
I also got to do my own little personal celebration of the official release of the Emerging Writers anthology I’m a part of, which was officially published yesterday!! I mentioned this——and teased a bit about the story——last week, so I’ll give you a little bit more information now. My story is called “Bump in the Night,” and it follows three actors who are put up in a farmhouse during the filming of a horror franchise sequel in the late ’90s. (Big Halloween H2O vibes on the in-universe movie, not even going to lie.) As filming begins and the three actors begin to bond, they also start having some . . . strange experiences at the farmhouse. Are they exhausted? Is someone hazing them? Or is there actually something not right in that house?
Surprising nobody, this story is very much inspired by my love of (/obsession with) The Faculty. A few years ago, I either listened to or read an interview with Clea DuVall, in which she mentioned living in a weird rental in Texas while filming a movie, and how she and her two roommates were super freaked out in the house. She didn’t say what she was filming or when this happened, but, me being me, I know The Faculty was filmed in Texas, so I immediately decided it had to be that, and of the entire cast of The Faculty, my brain just said, “Oh, yeah, she was absolutely ghost-hunting with Josh Hartnett and Shawn Hatosy.”
You’re welcome for the glimpse inside my brain and my writing process. Like and subscribe for more.
Anyway, buy the Emerging Writers anthology on ebook and audio if you want to know how it all turns out!!
Closing thoughts:
Step outside. Trust me.
