Retreat Redux
Currently reading:
Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto
Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Glück
Books finished this week: 1
Middlegame photographed in Cold Spring last week at sunset.
★★★★☆
Where this book came from: I know I’ve had this one for a while——potentially since before the pandemic? Judging by the price sticker on it, I’m about 96 percent sure I bought it in person at a McNally Jackson.
Why this book: We McGuires stick together. (Just kidding; I just like Seanan McGuire.)
Thoughts: I’m not going to lie, I don’t think I understood a lot of this book. And I found it incredibly hard to explain what it was about when people asked. But, I don’t know! I liked Roger and Dodger (mostly Dodger tbh, despite her being the “math twin”) and I liked most of the dark magic and surprising touches of whimsy throughout. I’m going to take a break and read some other books first, but I do plan to come back to the next two books in this trilogy. Gotta find out what happens to the very fabric of the universe.
Library updates:
I’ve been thinking a lot, especially over the last month or two, about the idea of community. I know this isn’t a new topic for the Library, but it’s a persistent idea or theme in my life. If I was a person who chose a word for the year, I probably would have chosen “community” for 2025. It’s what I want, what I’m working toward, and what I’m proud to say I feel I’ve taken strides to find, build, and create for myself, especially in the last year or so.
Almost exactly one year ago, I went on the Little Nights Big Weekend retreat, and it’s really not hyperbole to say it changed my life. (You can read my thoughts from that time here.) It was exactly the weekend I needed at exactly the right time, full of amazing people I’m glad to now call friends and who I get to see semi-regularly. Making friends as an adult is hard, and I’ve always found it an especially daunting task. But connecting over writing and creativity has made it a little easier.
I spent Labor Day weekend this year at another Big Weekend, this time at the stunning and historic Hilltown Commons up in Rensselaerville and surrounded by even more people. And, I can’t lie, I was excited for it until the day of, at which point I started to get incredibly nervous. It worked out the first time, but what were the odds it would be another great weekend?
Of course, things went swimmingly. How else can it go when you put a bunch of art weirdos and writing nerds together in a gorgeous space in the Catskills? It was like Dirty Dancing, except no one got to carry any watermelons (though there was watermelon on offer at almost every meal) and there were no hot dancers. (None that I met, anyway. If you’re reading this and you were there and you are a hot dancer, let’s talk.)
And, yes, it was a very different experience from my first Little Nights retreat, but it was perfect in its own ways. For one, two friends——hi, Eva! Hi, Lejla!——from the workshop I’ve been doing since the beginning of summer were there, so I at least knew I’d have people to sit with at lunch. And being together in small writing and visual art workshops makes it so much easier to talk to the other people there, especially when specifically prompted to do so by the facilitators. Everyone has a project (or three) that they’re working on; everyone wants to brainstorm; everyone wants to talk about how funny or scary or strange or wonderful all of this is. When a group of us began exchanging numbers at breakfast on the last day, it felt like the end of camp, sure, but it also felt like the beginning of something. Dare I say, the beginning of community?
This one time, at art camp . . .
In other news, I’ve bought a ton of books over the last few weeks (lol oops) and many of them are short(er), so I’m excited to start getting through them! It’s also beginning to finally feel like my favorite time to snuggle up with a good book (or my laptop, for writing purposes), so I think I’ll be able to get through a lot of them. It’s always a little sad for me when the days start getting shorter, but then I remember that I enjoy the dark, the cozy, the sometimes spooky, and that the earlier it gets dark, the sooner I can dig into a new spooky book or light a candle and tuck into a new story.
And I think I’ve found my fall project! I wanted a longer project to work on in the fall months, and I was initially thinking it would be a return to a YA horror idea that remains in its nascent stages, but which still feels very fun. And I may still get to her this year! But the project that has won my heart is a spooky little rom-com, and I won’t say much more about it just yet. All I’ll mention is that I got to know the male lead much better thanks to the Big Weekend——thanks again, Little Nights!——and I’m excited to find out more about the woman he’ll eventually fall in love with, and to see these two dumb-dumbs fall for each other over spiced cider and crunchy leaves.
Closing thoughts:
It takes time to figure out what you’re looking for, and then even more time to start building that thing. Take the time——it’s worth it.
Total books read from the Moratorium Library: 175
(Total books added to the Moratorium Library: 350)
Picked up Masquerade and Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch from Kew & Willow, ordered Battlecry from Amazon after looking up more superhero fiction, and received the ARC of The Salvage from Tin House (thanks, Tin House!!).
