a year of reading & writing
in which I bury the lede
An annotated postcard & incomplete list of how literature intersected with my life in 2024:
January-Toronto-cold met its equal in the cold of deep space with Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. Next I began The Book of Love by Kelly Link on a trip with my family in LA, exploring Joshua Tree & Palm Springs. (My previous J-Tree visit, I’d read Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill and cried awkwardly by the side of the road.) The Book of Love was my first and best listen of the year
Although. I also was obsessed with the audiobook of The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith and cleaned every nook and cranny of my house, so as to finish the book in one go…and destroy any damning evidence, of course
Writing-wise, I licked my wounds for awhile
Finally legal to work in Canada—hooray permanent resident status—I began teaching a science fiction & fantasy workshop called “The Great Escape” at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies (next is winter session, beginning February 4). Keep an eye out for wholly new online classes in the near future…
Incredibly, in May we moved again. For those counting, that’s twice in one academic year, and over four times in the last four years. Hopefully no more moving until I’m dead. Meanwhile I bounced off of things. I auditioned a lot of novels as audiobooks—usually my surest bet to return to reading after a hiatus—that either weren’t meant for the format or I simply wasn’t in the mood. Listened to some nonfiction instead, toeing through Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass as I made my morning pour-over’s, and waking my husband up with podcasts until Ezra Klein’s voice took on (for him) the abrasive quality of your phone’s daily alarm
I picked up The Employees by Olga Ravn mostly for the cover and because I figured a short novel would bring me back into the fold. It worked—I love a delightfully strange and poetic sci-fi. I dug into fat fantasy reads for a bit, with The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez (attempted first on audio, then read physically) and Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman my favorites of that period
Also in the summer, I returned to the re-draft of my first book, brought it 95% to the finish line, and then, the morning of my drive to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, I decided to stop at the gas station and pee on a stick. I called my husband (meanwhile at his own work conference at Cornell) but the service was so bad it took three attempts before he heard “—I’m pregnant!” And we talked excitedly the rest of my drive to Vermont. So, Bread Loaf friends out there, if I seemed exhausted and bloated/green-faced, that’s why. I don’t recommend doing a packed ten-day conference while in the throes of your first trimester—secretly ill, socially overstimulated, and sober among a bunch of nervous, vacationing writers (the least-sober grouping on the planet, for the uninitiated). I couldn’t even stand up straight?? Yet sitting for hours for workshops and readings had my guts in knots, and I was weirdly sweaty and gross. I was anemic and my fingernails turned purple. But the experience was also special and sweet
Turns out it’s pretty hard to write when you feel fatigued (fatigued is not strong enough a word) and supplied with an entirely new topic of research. When getting used to the idea of pregnancy and parenting, I’d read Emily Oster’s Expecting Better and other books of that sort, which I refrained from including in my Jan-July reading log. Nonetheless I spent the little energy I had, what wasn’t devoted to teaching, on scrolling the internet and reading more books on the subject. Friends and family visited, and we traveled for weddings, and it was a happy, distracted time. My own first novel sat in the drawer, nearly ready to be sent out, but I couldn’t bring myself to open the Scrivener file. My laptop keyboard broke, rendering it semi-unusable, and I still haven’t fixed or replaced the damn thing. My second novel similarly languished, despite my eagerness to revisit it after a very helpful workshop with Rebecca Makkai and my peers at Bread Loaf
Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías was my favorite read of this queasy season, closely tailed by Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa and Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World, the latter of which my husband and I read to each other on the return drive to Toronto—along with H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. And I listened to some interesting nonfic audiobooks (detailed here)
Finally, lately, writing. I was promised the second trimester of pregnancy was easier and that’s partly true. I certainly have had more energy—enough to flog myself with. Nobody will demand your unpublished debut novel from you, and as a depressive-type with an unfortunately bulbous ego and high personal standards, I’ve always struggled with finding the proper balance between self-loathing and self-aggrandizement. Somewhere in that pendulum swing lies the motivation for the last 5% of a novel revision. “Embrace seasonality and community,” I tell my class, and myself, periodically. With the assistance of supportive people in my life, caffeine, and an embarrassing-but-effective spotify playlist, I’m writing consistently again, and it feels good
P.S. Just about finished rereading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. So tightly plotted for a thick epic! I might make a substack about how he juggles his ensemble cast (and talk about character webs-as-worldbuilding). Let me know in the comments if there’s interest, assuming you’ve made it this far. Probably will wait before picking up the sequel, that said: I feel like reading sci-fi again. Also 75% through the audiobook of Julia Armfield’s Private Rites, a great writer to check out if you enjoy an atmospheric speculative read with strong prose/characters. It was pitched to me as a King Lear retelling, and I love those (A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley is incredible) but it isn’t so much that. Read Private Rites anyway and feel damp and mournfully horny—or else frustrated with your sibling. I should probably proceed to the books on my TBR shelf, but as a consummate mood-reader we shall see what actually occurs…
Thanks for reading! Please share the standouts of your past year of reading/writing, below. Happy Holidays & see you in 2025~
꩜Amanda ✩°｡ ⋆⸜ 🎧✮