At the end of the Wizard of Oz while Glenda the Good Witch waves her magic wand Dorothy clicks her ruby red slippers and chants these words: “There’s no place like home.” “There’s no place like home.” “There’s no place like home.” It’s a beautiful scene. It speaks to learning the lesson of appreciating home … Read more
So far 2020 has been … I don’t even know. We started our 2nd year with all kinds of ideas for the future then a pandemic that has thrown our whole Plume plans into… we don’t know. We do know we’re still focusing on our mission, which may now be more important than ever, to … Read more
Jenn Givhan has an infectious, delightful personality. So much so, that sometimes I forget I’ve never actually met her in person! I feel like I have because she is such a force in her writing and in her online presence (and also because she helped me out and covered several of my classes when I … Read more
I have never been much of a mystery reader. For whatever reason, I was never drawn to them. Even when I worked in a library, was responsible for displays, and had to make sure one of said displays was always a different flavor of mystery every month, I wasn’t interested. Cozy mysteries? Mysteries with pets? … Read more
Sometimes you write a blog when you’re about to go on maternity leave, but you forget to schedule its publication. Although it’s a little late, here is my take on the books I read last year.
Taking Stock of What We Read
As we look back on 2018, one thing we here at Plume like to mull over the books that we read this past year (whether new or old). What did we most enjoy reading? What challenged us? Surprised us? Felt so necessary we couldn’t believe we had never read anything like it before?
My Favorite Books I Read This Year
The most gorgeously written book I read last year was Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. This will likely come as no surprise to anyone else who has read this award-winning tour-de-force. Its haunting, lyrical prose is still stuck in my head months after I finished it.
Inside your Plume mailing you’ll find a vintage photo. And you may be wondering why. One of our Kickstarter contributors (an old family friend) wondered just that. She thought we’d made a mistake and she returned the photo with a thank you note! “Thought you might want to keep this,” the note said, not knowing … Read more
As we get closer to Halloween, sometimes it can be fun to get into a little creepy reading. I’ll be the first to admit that I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to scary things (though movies and TV shows tend to scare me more than books). If you remember the series Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, let me just say, those stories (and the illustrations!) still terrify me. And they’re meant for children!
Sometimes, though, I do try to get outside my comfort zone and read things beyond my typical wheelhouse.
The word “genre” gets thrown around a lot. Sometimes it’s in the phrase “genre writing”, meaning writing that fits into a specialized category such as romance, science fiction, or horror. Another way we see this term applied is when referring to different styles of writing, such as fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. When I went to graduate school, The Powers That Be asked us to each pick a primary genre to apply to the program with and then write in once we arrived (though some resisted this and turned in some pretty kick-ass hybrid dissertations). I chose fiction because I was excited about it and because it was all I knew how to write.
But over the years, another genre has been creeping into my life.
If you are even a casual bibliophile, you’ve likely heard that it’s Banned Books Week. Whenever I hear about banned books, I think how and why? Isn’t the purpose of books to open our eyes to new ideas and perspectives? Surely this is a good thing, right?
Well, not according to those who wish to censor certain titles they find offensive, it isn’t. When books are challenged or outright banned it’s almost always literature meant for or read by children and young adults (but this is not true in every case). So what is it that people are trying to shield young people from?
I’ve found some pretty weird and beautiful places to write in and about in New Mexico.
Here’s one from the archives that feels evergreen. Enjoy, Plumesters!
Setting as Character
We’ve all read something, whether it’s a story, essay, poem, or any other form of literature, where the setting seems to leap off the page in a way that feels visceral and singular. I have always been drawn to stories with a memorable setting, and lately have come across two that have been particularly vivid. A few weeks ago I finished Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, a novel set in Wind Gap, a small, fictional town in Missouri’s Bootheel. The town is mostly poor, but dotted with gentry who exploit the work of their more desperate peers. It’s a murder mystery, and while I won’t spoil anything beyond that, just know that this town is the perfect setting for a southern gothic intrigue, disfunction, and horror. If you’re interested in watching the HBO adaptation, it’s great so far, but as always, I recommend reading the book first.
Once I finished Flynn’s book (which she penned 12 years ago, even before her breakout hit Gone Girl), I moved on to The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. Usually, I try to balance something light after reading such dark fare, but I’ve joined a book club through a podcast, so I just might end up derailing some of my own reading challenge picks as I pursue these other narratives. I’m about 100 pages into TLS now, so I’m a fifth of the way through this fairly hefty book, which I believe is going to become a ghost story very soon. This is not my usual fair, but I’m riveted by the descriptions of The Hundreds, a country British estate that was once prosperous and well-kept, but at the time of the narrative (just after WWII), it’s fallen into great disrepair, and general, well, creepiness. The structure looms large physically with it’s motley assortment of crumbling facades and empty rooms; emotionally, you can also sense that there’s something not quite right about it or its current inhabitants (again, no spoilers–just a general unease I’m getting as I read). A film adaptation is coming to theaters at the end of August (Remember, adaptations are my jam–as long as I read the book first!).
