we're so lucky to expand our circle 🥳! a guest post from a lovely new friend + a club...
literary journals + a prompt for readers & writers + cookies, because we must!
Dear Ones,
Dog on the roof—a Santa lookout! Everyone’s excited and even though the days are short, they’re bright. I’m excited as well—so glad to bring you this guest post because I think you’re going to LOVE Becky Tuch! I’m lucky to be in a writing group with her so I’m privy to her beautiful writing and I benefit from her smart comments on my work. Becky is the editor of LIT MAG NEWS, which you must follow if you seek fellowship and insights to the complicated maze of submitting your work + a good read. She says of her Substack:
I try to cram as much nonsense and humor and music and insomnia and stars and cereal and oat milk and prayers and furry rabbits and winks across a crowded room into my signoff at the end.
I’m in! Who doesn’t love that? When I invited Becky to guest write a newsletter post I crossed my fingers. She agreed and now we all get to benefit. In case you want more of Becky’s work, do read this stinging and funny piece, THE THINGS THEY SCHLEPPED, Or, “If Tim O’Brien Wrote About Motherhood.” I suggest putting your feet up, perhaps a toddy in hand, a plate of cookies nearby (we’ve got suggestions below), and be ready to laugh.
read/write melange from our guest, Becky Tuch:
If you are a writer of short stories, poetry and/or creative nonfiction, you’ve probably noticed a funny phenomenon in the literary world: Tons of writers long to be published in literary magazines. But few actually read them.
I would never judge another person’s reading habits. In fact I’m sympathetic to a kind of overwhelm that sets in when people regard the vast array of literary magazines on the market today. (Duotrope lists over 5,000 on the market today.) Individual issues of lit mags can also feel overwhelming, with the breadth of genres on display within one space. The experience of reading a lit mag, where you will move from a short story to a poem to a comic to a review to another short story is not for everyone.
Still, there is a great deal of enjoyment to be found. I’ve read a fair share of work I’ve loved. And while the jolt from one genre or one writer to another can feel jarring to some, such reading also offers opportunity for wonderful surprises, as we encounter work we may have never found otherwise.
I’ve been reading and reviewing lit mags since 2008, first through my website The Review Review, and now at Lit Mag News, where I interview journal editors, publish a weekly column with contributions from writers and editors, write a weekly community discussion column, and I host a Lit Mag Reading Club in which we read one lit mag each month, then get together to chat about the journal. The editor(s) of the magazine also join via zoom to discuss their editorial process and the selections for that particular issue. The idea of the Lit Mag Reading Club is to get more people reading, supporting, taking note of what gets published in which journals, and enjoying them.
In recent months, I’ve enjoyed poems, essays; and many works of fiction. Will sharing what I’ve encountered possibly inspire more writers to spend a bit of time reading more literary magazines? I hope so!
Perhaps the most powerful reading experience was the novella “Kidnapped” by Russell Banks. This appeared in Conjunctions issue 79. Banks is one of my favorite writers, so I was delighted to find his work here. The novella had all the trademarks of Banks’ writing–subcultures in rural America, class politics, drug-running, addiction, issues around masculinity, and cold cold weather. The work was riveting.
Adding to the power of this particular piece is that after spending the weekend with this novella, I woke up to the news that Banks had passed away. He was the author that first got me to love reading fiction (starting with Continental Drift, which I read as a teenager). It was a truly beautiful experience to read this novella, one of his last published works, which I likely would have never encountered were it not for Conjunctions featuring it in this issue.
Another story which I loved was Emily Mitchell’s “The Church of Divine Electricity,” which appeared in Southern Review’s Fall 2022 issue. In this story a father is troubled by his feelings of alienation from his daughter. Upon returning from college, the daughter is more cheerful and happy. The father is relieved, only to learn that his daughter has joined a cult wherein people add electronic accompaniments to their bodies. The piece has sci-fi components but at its core is a beautiful and timely story about how parents struggle between protecting their children and letting them go to make their own decisions.
This story had me track down Emily Mitchell, whom I had not heard of before. And that’s another great thing about reading lit mags! Sometimes the writer is just starting out, other times you’ll learn that the writer has published one or several books—a world for you to discover.
Another recent story I loved was “Fetch” by Joanna Pearson, which appeared in the fall 2023 issue of Missouri Review. This story brought to vivid life the experience of a clinical psychologist and her own fragile mental state. The narrative was chilling and achieved so much while the protagonist did little more than sit in an office chair and speak on the phone throughout.
Many writers read lit mags so they know which will be a good home for their own work. But I also think reading lit mags shouldn’t feel like a chore. Lit mags offer tastes from writers who will soon have books out. They offer writing that readers are unlikely to find anywhere else. And the formal experiments within the works have a lot to teach about new ways of telling stories and crafting poems.
If you’re not sure where to begin, hop on over to Lit Mag News and join Lit Mag Reading Club! It’s truly fun going through these journals and then hearing from others about which works resonated, which fell flat, which enticed, which readers skipped, and why. (Our reading club always involves a fun mix of craft analysis, story/poem/essay discussion, candid conversation and a lot of laughter.) And you’ll get to read more lit mags and meet the writers and editors who make these journals happen. All are welcome!
A PROMPT from Natalie:
Do you keep a reading journal? I do and I don’t. I had a teacher once tell me to divide a journal page into thirds: what I’m reading/what I’m thinking/what I’m writing, which is a pretty great tool in our perpetual mission to get to know ourselves. I kept the practice up for a short time. It’s interesting to see what captures our attention.
Up above Becky mentioned that the Russell Banks’s novel, CONTINENTAL DRIFT set her on her path of loving literature. I’m afraid I was nowhere near as sophisticated! I think it was James Michener and Leon Uris that fueled my early adult reading life. (Funny how it was white men for Becky and me.)
As for the reading journal I do and don’t keep— I write extensive marginalia in my books, and when I listen to books, when I’m particularly moved, I snag screen shots of where I am in the book to come back later, re-listen and jot notes in my journal, which I do about 61% of the time. But my notes are a sloppy mess and I could never find them if I wanted to! I also use the Notes app on my phone, and I send myself texts. I tell myself that the act of noticing and jotting will make a particular gem dwell in my mind/heart. This is a long winded way to get to the prompt:
Write about the book that made you fall in love with reading.
Write about who you were, why you believe the book spoke to you. This query is in line with the thought that the right book finds you at the right time. Has that ever been true for you?
Write about how the book seems to you now. Does it make you feel tender toward your past self? Does it make you laugh with wonder and feel pride at how far you’ve come?
For more on this idea, check this article from NYTs, “The Book That Changed My Life” and a book with the same title. THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE, by Roxanne J. Coady, and Joy Johannessen.
I would love to hear about your beloved book!
Check my read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended in the newsletter. Buying books from my shop is a way you can be a friend to the newsletter.
eat:
🎄🕎🍪
O Tannenbaum, O Festival of Lights, O Cookie Season! I return the mic to Becky:
Now, as for what I’ll be baking this winter, I’ll be dedicating myself, once again, to butter cookies.
Last year I had a rather interesting experience. I’d not baked butter cookies since I was a child, and then it was my grandmother who led the charge. Suddenly, on Christmas Eve, I had the idea to bake butter cookies. I took my daughter to the supermarket, bought all the ingredients, and cheerily returned home to bake them.
We were having a grand old time, until I got to the part of the recipe where it instructed you to refrigerate the dough for four hours. Four hours! But I wanted to make the cookies right then! It was Christmas Eve!
So, instead of overnight refrigeration, I put them in the freezer for about fifteen minutes. My daughter had the idea to stick some M & M’s in them, so it was an experimental endeavor all around.
They came out great! Ours were not the prettiest cookies ever seen. But they were indeed delicious.
Perhaps the lesson somewhere here is that doing things your own way can yield happy results. Don’t worry about being perfect. Don’t worry about following the directions exactly right 100% of the time. If all your ingredients are delicious, what can really go wrong?
I do believe Santa liked our weirdly shaped and strange-looking cookies. At least, we left them out overnight, and in the morning they were mostly gone. So someone in our household certainly liked them.
There are tons of butter cookie recipes online. This one is perhaps the simplest. You might want to read through the directions before you actually start the baking. Or not! Wing it! Have a good time! Decorate any way you please. And, if you spend your holidays curled up with a brand new stack of literary magazines and some yummy (perhaps misshapen) butter cookies, please let me know all about it! I’m always happy to inspire more people to read lit mags, and I’m always happy to learn new ways of blending the vital tasks of holiday baking and joy-filled improvisation.
Natalie here: This is the shortbread cookie I’ll be trying this year: BROWN BUTTER BROWN SUGAR SHORTBREAD, that is if I can tear myself away from these gems, forever to be known as the cookie that broke the internet: SALTED CHOCOLATE CHUNK SHORTBREAD COOKIES. Mine pictured below are a bit darker because I sub whole wheat pastry flour.
Looking for a last minute gift? Might I humbly suggest:
Look for me soon in your inbox with another batch of books, a prompt + writing advice, and something delicious! Meanwhile, I’m pleased to have a new piece of mine in the world.
Stanley says hello! And so do we.
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Remember to tell your people you love them, and take good care of your skin.
xN
 | A guest post by
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Such a great read! And that pic of you cuties at the end <3
Your piece in Inscape is phenomenal...I love it. Grateful your wrote it and shared it!