August 2022
Hi everyone!
There are some exciting writer updates this month, but first, some housekeeping.
I’ve decided to merge this newsletter with another writing-focused newsletter that I run, Half-Baked Thoughts & Incomplete Sentences. This is for two reasons: 1) the subscriber base of each newsletter is very similar and 2) Substack doesn’t make it easy to run two separate newsletters. So starting next month, this newsletter will merge with the other. Nothing is needed on your end—the subscriber lists will automatically merge—and I promise this won’t be super inbox-clogging; you’ll only be receiving two emails per month!
Ok, that’s all of the boring stuff. Let’s get into it!
Arielle McManus
I was recently back in Sweden for a bit, partly to visit family and partly as a vacation, which was really nice. I’ve often flirted with the idea of moving there—I’m already a dual-citizen, and so it wouldn’t be that difficult, logistically-speaking—but I’ve heard it’s hard to meet people and make friends there, and that feels really daunting. I had the idea to write a short story about a girl who moves to a new country to vocalize some of those fears. I figure that even if the piece doesn’t end up being that good, it could at least be therapeutic to write.
I was able to read a bunch while I was away. I read Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Anne Carson’s Nox, and I’ve now started Anne Boyer’s The Undying. I’ve really enjoyed all three, but Nox was really something special. It’s so gorgeously packaged, and I love how it’s organized.
Reading Nox, I’ve been thinking that maybe I should try my hand at translation. Just something short, like a brief poem. I know that even a five-liner could take hours, days, or weeks. It could even take years if I were to give it the careful consideration that Carson gave to the poem she translates in Nox, “Catullus 101”.
Ariees Roman
I love this desert trail, as close to perfection as I could think: just the right amount of compacted ground with a thin enough layer of off-white sand. I stepped over pebbles scattered throughout the narrow, long trail and looked up once in a while.
The desert landscape insists on being itself—unchanging, dry, arid.
There are plenty of rocks covering the surface. I like to think of this place as a rock garden. Most rocks are small, midsized rocks, black and charcoal, no bigger than an oven; the bigger rock formations, human-sized, scattered around the open field rise from the ground as guards, making the place feel less like a desert. Scattered bushes remind me that deserts have their own flora—a thriving little ecosystem.
I no longer run, not as I used to, but running in these trails always makes me feel good, confident, even. I ditch the cityscape as often as I can. Trail running in this desert feels like I’m an airplane, unbound and free. I enjoy mostly overcast days, rare as moon eclipses, but sometimes nature conspires to make my hike close to perfect and paints the sky with countless clouds. Today is one such day.
Yet, I’m not sure if I’d be infatuated with desert lands if it weren’t for the clouds.
Or these
If I feel free when running in the desert, entering these clouds as I rest has a deeper sense of freedom. For, each formation is an invitation to explore a connection between you and endless space, and where you and these free-forms merge as one.
Mohammad Shehata
Mohammad is putting the finishing touches on his new play Hawwa, a metaphysical adaptation of the story about the first humans, and is hoping to arrange for some public readings in the fall.
Hasa Avery
After months of writers block, I’ve started working on my manuscript again! Some coworkers and new friends have expressed interest in seeing my work which has kickstarted my motivation and writing process. In a previous workshop I was in, I submitted two very different collections of works and am currently creating pieces and formatting them in a way to bridge these two collections together. I feel like I’m finally making real progress in completing the manuscript I’ve been working on for so long.
Ok, that’s all for this month! As always, thanks a million for reading.