Dear Friends,

Happy Weekend! It was a long week. Abbey and I are making this newsletter together this summer.

And here are 10 things we wanted to share with you:

1. Naomi Osaka speaking out about depression, mental health, and the cost of performing wellness.

2. My friend Wendy Call’s interview of Roland Rugero in Guernica (“In Touch with the Breath of the World”) Call writes: “Rugero persuades readers to consider different types of violence in layered simultaneity: gender-based violence, genocide, political violence, and the occasional brutality of village justice. His irresistible narrative voice demands that we not turn away.”

3. As a summer present to myself, I signed up for Suzi Banks Baum’sCamp in a Care Package. Take a look and consider joining me. 

4. Tom Hanks on the 1921 Tulsa Massacre in NYT. Also on my list to read is wonderful Tulsa writer Rilla Askew’s novel about the same: Fire in Beulah

5. Abbey and I and a few other writer friends have been doing a writing challenge called 1000 Words of Summer for the past two weeks. You can read more about it here.

6. From the archive: “On Ordering Essay (& Story) Collections: To Try and Try Again“

7. Maya Shanbhag Lang’s essay, “The Anxiety of Growing Up Asian American”  in The Cut / New York Magazine

8. On printmaking and artists and neighbors and nature: I wanted to highlight my neighbor Laura Wilder & her beautiful printmaking. 

9. I’m looking forward to Rochester author Leslie Youngblood’s second middle grade novel, Forever This Summer, which you can read about in the D&C or Publisher’s Weekly.

10. Peonies from the front yard for Michael Martone

Thanks for reading my newsletter. If you enjoyed it, you can help keep it going by forwarding it to someone who might like it or buying my book for yourself or for a friend. Or, buy another independent-press book from an independent bookstore.

Warmly,

Sejal

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This newsletter was originally sent out on June 12, 2021. You can subscribe to my newsletter here.