LATEST NEWS: I’m just winding down from promoting my poetry book, The Weeping Degree: How Astrology Saved Me From Suicide this past fall. Weeping is now officially on a podcast tour. I’ve done a few thus far, more to come in 2025. It’s a steep learning curve. Also neew for me to balance promoting a book with writing one, so I have fallen down on my mini reviews as a result. Sorry to those of you who look forward to them. If you want to check out a really fun podcast, listen to @jason_emde Writers Read Their Early Sh*t, out of Japan. Jason has writers read their half-baked early efforts and has a lot of fun chatting about writing and books in the process. We talked about pilgrimages, meditation, poetry and the expat life. I’ll let you know when it goes to air.
OTHER NEWS: The UN designated December 21st, as the first-ever World Meditation Day. The research now shows unequivocally that when large groups of people meditate, violence and crime rates drop in that area. This is a simple way to contribute to world peace. https://www.un.org/en/observances/meditation-day
BOOKS: Jason Emde told me about a wonderful NYT bestseller called The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The author John Koenig makes up his own words for weird emotional maladies. Very inventive. We decided to buy books for each other this Christmas, my husband, stepson and me. I bought two copies of the dictionary . I’ll let you know what I think in January. At a time, when there’s a discouraging post going around Facebook saying 48% of US citizens said they hadn’t read a book last year—we wanted to assert our love of books. Fortunately, 23% of Canadians said they read over 20 books in 2022, which is above the world average. WTG Canada! I hope you will support books and authors too when doing your Christmas shopping. Publishing is now amalgamated into the big five and if you want to read more about how that’s affecting writers, check out this article: The Big Five Publishers Have Killed Literary Fiction. https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-big-five-publishers-have-killed
WHAT AM I READING RIGHT NOW? Rumi’s collected works. I read one poem before bed.
With the news as it is, I’m keeping my spirits up by listening to Jimmy Fallon’s Christmas Special on continuous play. I love it. He pitched the tired old favourites, for newer fun and fresh songs, and the prevailing mood is cheerful. Yes! We even cut down a tree this year, (only because it was encroaching on our driveway). It rivals Charlie Brown’s tree for lopsided charm and had to be tied up to keep from falling over, but was resurrected by light. Here it is. From my family to yours!
PERSONAL STUFF: Below is a link to a video of my husband's Canadian Candle, made with a log and some citronella.
Happy Holy Days everyone.
Thank you for caring about books and the people who write them.
Kelly xo
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