Fall Weekly Writing Groups

Hello, all!

News and recommendations below:

Literature and History Podcast

People, I have died and gone to Nerd Heaven. My sister Abigail introduced me to this mind-blowing podcast, which, so far, is an in-depth examination of the intersections between the earliest written words (cuneiform, don’t you know) and the historical context in which they came to be (Mesopotamia; initially for keeping track of local economic exchanges). Each episode is lovingly crafted by one Doug Metzger who holds a PhD, is an amateur musician and perhaps a literary saint. At the end of each podcast he presents a hilarious and ridiculous original song on some aspect of the podcast’s subject. He’s been making these recordings which last up to two hours a podcast, since 2016, and to date he‘s only gotten to the late antiquity. I’m currently in the middle of his analysis of The Odyssey, (Episode 14), and already I’m worried that something terrible is going to happen to Dr. Metzger and he’ll never get us to Chaucer. Be warned: this podcast is addictive. You might find yourself purchasing not one but two huge coffee table books depicting the ancient world and human migratory patterns.

Here is a great article from last week’s New York Times called “How to Get Published: A Book’s Journey from ‘Very Messy’ First Draft to Bestseller.”

Favorite Summer Reads: David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (and the jaw-dropping movie that came out in 2012); Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility; Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel.

Brag Corner

Congratulations to Susanne Dunlap, whose fabulous historical fiction novel The Portraitist just came out on SheWrites Press! I met Susanne in Kate Senecal’s Fiction Writing class back in 2019, and I had the good fortune to read earlier drafts of this wonderful book.

Congratulations to Kristen Holt-Browning for the inclusion of her poem “Imprint” in the forthcoming issue of Hunger Mountain Review! I’ll post this again when the journal comes out.

Happy September, friends, and be well.

Love, Nerissa