Happy Autumn, everyone! I love this time of year, from the changing leaves to the brisk wind to the fun of spooky season. The return of cooler weather always feels like new beginnings, with that whiff of freshly sharpened pencils from the start of school.
Longtime readers will notice that I’ve done a bunch of revamping of the website design–there will be more to come in the near future, so if you have any reactions or suggestions, please drop me a line in the comments or on the snazzy new ‘contact‘ page.
Image description: view of a placid pond lined with autumn trees, with lilypads and rocks in the foreground under a blue sky with wispy clouds.
While I’m working on bringing this site back to life, you can also find me elsewhere on the web. I left Twitter quite a while ago, and tried out some other options. I do have a (mostly quiescent) Mastodon account, but I’ve found Bluesky to be the best Twitter replacement and am enjoying the SFF and kidlit communities growing there, though I miss a lot of my museum people from my other life. If you’re on there, let me know! My feed on Bluesky is currently a lot of literature and politics, with forays into geeking out about things like NASA and museums etc. I’m also still intermittently using Instagram, posting mostly nature and museum photos, occasionally with short poems as captions, and infrequent pictures of my kids being adorable, shot in such a way as to protect their privacy.
What else am I up to?
Writing: Lots of editing: I have several stories I’m polishing for hopeful submission to short fiction speculative markets this month and next, as well as some kidlit, including the upcoming Halloweensie contest and some pieces I’m prepping for pitching/querying. I always try to give a little new writing time each month to the Rattle Ekphrasis challenge, and I do have some ideas about this month’s image, so that’s on the list as well.
Reading: I’ve been loving the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire and I think I’m finally up to the most recent book in the series, which I’m looking forward to starting soon. I’m currently reading Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies, and enjoying it so far. My TBR is an astonishing pile, and in addition to the ‘grown-up’ books is also currently stuffed with a number of recommended picture books from the recent Picture Book Summit writing conference. All of which is a nice balance to my daily diet of currently too much political news and the always excellent historical context provided by Heather Cox Richardson.
Listening: Writing Excuses is, as always, busy being brilliant, and I am many episodes behind, so I’ve been trying to catch up whenever I get a few minutes. Also, HAIM. Who I discovered courtesy of Sesame Street, and everyone who didn’t tell me that they are apparently the female equivalent to modern-day Hanson are now all fired, because this is fun music and I could have been listening to them for months before now.
Life in General: In non-writing news I’ll be looking forward to reviewing grant applications for the Sharon Cultural Council in a week or two, in my new role as council co-chair, and we’ve got some fun planned for the Halloween season both as a family and in my role as a classroom parent for Small Museum Fan #1’s class. Do you have a good Halloween costume planned? Tell me all about it!
Sea Dreams and Time Machines 