It’s the last day of National Book Month and I have a confession for you: I believe in the power of books to change the world. Not just to give us the chance to retreat to more palatable worlds in our heads, but to open our hearts to the greater world and help us find the courage to be better. Courage being the key word. Courage is what attracted me to join the board of Hugo House years ago because of the way they opened themselves up to ideas from the community during a difficult time (and really listened to the responses). And courage is what I’m excited about in the newest project from Seattle City of Literature (where I’m on the board now). Seismic is a collection of essays that looks deeply and frankly at Seattle as a City of Literature and I’m proud of the conversations it’s starting—for me personally, for the board, and in the community at large.

It’s easy to imagine that a collection commissioned by a City of Literature would be filled with fluffy, soft words about how wonderful our city is. There is some of that in Seismic, we do live in one of the most beautiful places in the world and have a vibrant literary culture, but this book is also filled with deep introspection about the ways we’re failing. This is where the courage comes in, because speaking truth about our failures is the first step toward addressing them. In this way Seismic is an act of love as much as courage. Let me tell you about what Seismic made me think about…

Seattle is a Destination

As the nearest big city, Seattle was the next best step for me and many of my high school classmates. For my part, I wrote some (really crappy) poetry about my dreams of this emerald city during a visit in my senior year (which I promise to spare you). Like Rena Priest, I sought “the creative sanctuary of Seattle.” I craved the natural beauty Timothy Egan praises in his Seismic essay. And when I arrived, the city felt fresh, because as Jourdan Imani Keith writes, “No one is from here. No one knows where things are.” Which is kind of a big deal coming from a town where your eighth grade science teacher fondly remembers (out loud, for the class) your running down the street in nothing but a diaper. The idea of Seattle gave me comfort as someplace I could recapture the cosmopolitan feeling I experienced living abroad without giving up the Northwest that I love.

“If I had to tell you why Seattle is a literary city, I would say it is because I was able to become myself here. I learned how to inhabit my mind in this place. To hold space for your own story can be a revolutionary act.” – Kristen Millares Young, Seismic

Wei-Wei Lee writes, “Seattle has given me freedom. It has afforded me the luxury of writing for the sake of feeling, without expectation or the pressures of succeeding, with my friends, classmates, school writers’ club and the Youth Poet Laureate Cohort.”

Reality is Always More Complicated (and Interesting)

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore writes of the end of Seattle, a city she has returned to again and again because it is “the city where I first found calm.” I, too, moved to Seattle because it was a place I felt I could be myself. On the best days, when I could stomp around Capitol Hill in my green patent-leather Docs and vintage dress, that still feels true. But even before the pandemic, I started to see that my best days in this city were the days I was projecting beyond what I actually felt.

The longer I lived in Seattle, the less of a dream it became and the more of a reality as I got to know the underpinnings of the place, the Seattle process, the people behind the Seattle freeze. As with any home, some of this was endearing, some frustrating. What I barely ever got to know, however, was anything tangible about the indigenous cultures here. Seismic started me on a better path, from Priest’s insight into the indigenous mythology of our region to Ken Workman’s reminder that the Duwamish are all around us (literally).

“Writing about anywhere in the Salish Sea bioregion is a challenge because in order to keep from alienating people, I have been taught by polite society never to publicly acknowledge the true story of the people who belong to this place. We don’t say “genocide.” We don’t say “murdered, cheated, displaced and starved.” We don’t say those things. Tell a different story, sing the people a song. So I tell you how nice the people are in Seattle’s literary community, which is certainly true, but it omits this other story. Please don’t be alienated. “ – Rena Priest, Seismic

What I’m Afraid We’re Losing

“I walk around Seattle looking at houses I’ll never own.” – Dujie Tahat, Seismic

“If literature and art are an effective antidote, we must attend to how so many artists have been pushed out of Seattle as the city’s economy “soars.” My family still might be. When our art spaces refuse to acknowledge or address this ever-growing loss, they become complicit in the marginalization of the very culture these spaces claim to cultivate.” – Dujie Tahat, Seismic

Part of my dream of Seattle has always been of being in a place where I could be myself and be surrounded by likeminded people. As I grew, it became more apparent that that dream included being a writer. Married to a visual artist, we are nourished by being around other creative people. And while Seattle is full of creative people of various types, I ache for how many of my friends have left because the city is no longer affordable. The city is also less livable as increased traffic divides us from the friends who have stayed. Maybe a city kid would know what to do with this, but my small-town heart still craves having the people I love no more than 20 minutes away.

“Seattle is now a city of displacement and desperation, where rent has basically doubled in seven years and we have no meaningful protections, where even people against gentrification say of course they support increasing the density. But what kind of density are they supporting? A density of overpriced crap; a density of bland homogenization; a density of corporate exploitation masquerading as necessary growth.” – Claudia Castro Luna, Seismic

And I often wonder, if we’d left too, if my husband and I could live the artistic lives we dreamed of instead of cobbling it all together between a series of service jobs until being driven into tech to afford day care. As a white woman, I say this from an incredibly privileged place that includes having a home, a livable income, a family, health. But I’ve never wanted a circle of friends that was solely white and upper middle class. I had that bland uniformity in my hometown and I think I unconsciously recreated it by choosing to live in northeast Seattle. But I came here because Seattle offered more than that. And as a city and as humans we can be better about racial equity and inclusion, affordability, and livability, but we have to start trying now—on all levels.

“Everyone talks about the need for affordable housing, while the city shuts down the largest public housing project, displacing hundreds of families and destroying the country’s first mixed-race housing project to make way for a billionaire to build luxury apartments. How did they do this? By changing the zoning to increase the density. When developers control the language, everyone else loses.” – Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Seismic

In Seismic, Claudia Castro Luna notes the delicate balance between the image we want, “a world-class literary city” and the reality that we are failing at engaging people of color as artists and even as audience members, where the key question is “literary programs for whom and by whom?” She bears witness to the extraordinary diversity this city does possess and that we could build on, if we try.

“When I hear the phrase that Seattle is a great literary city, I want to scream. Because when people praise what Seattle is now, it feels like they’re praising displacement, homogenization, the streamlining of the imagination to become a tool of social, cultural and political obliteration. I don’t believe that literature is automatically a force for good, especially if it participates in the self-congratulatory boosterism that celebrates Seattle as it is now. If we cannot critique what we love, then we don’t really love it.” – Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Seismic

Change Comes from Within

“Seattle is experiencing unprecedented transformation with profound implications for the future. Yet in the strict confines of high art and cultural discourse, many institutions remain unwilling to reckon with the ways culture is displaced from the city. It cannot be because cultural institutions are apolitical—not only because there’s no such thing but because many of these organizations willingly come together to fund electoral campaigns when what is on the ballot are public subsidies. What becomes clear is that it is not the city’s culture being curated but rather institutional balance sheets.” – Dujie Tahat, Seismic

I was so heartened when, during a Seattle City of Literature board meeting at the beginning of the latest peak of #BlackLivesMatter protests, we were presented with Tahat’s essay and asked to imagine how this organization we’re shepherding should work to help create the kind of city we want to live in. I won’t name names, but I was so heartened to be in a (virtual) roomful of people who also saw where we were failing. People who wanted as badly as I do to change it.

“Philanthropy, which is the predominant model of literary and cultural organizations in our city, is failing us. If one builds an organization centering wealthy white landowners, then that is the culture being curated.” – Dujie Tahat, Seismic

We have a lot to build on. Charles Johnson recalls Seattle’s “distinguished history of supporting progressive causes” and our civility even as he cautionarily compares Seattle to San Francisco and Rome. We also have a lot of work to do. At Seattle City of Literature, one first step was to this statement on racial equity and the literary arts. I’m very excited to see how we’ll take this energy forward to help build the city I still dream of.

The Work Ahead

I’ve over-quoted from Seismic already, but some of the best, most inspiring words I can think of about what’s next come from the contributors, so I’ll leave them to speak for themselves:

“It is praiseworthy for Seattle to be recognized as a UNESCO City of Literature—an important and vital achievement that recognizes the hard work of countless artists that made this city what it is….It represents an opportunity for Seattle to partner and learn from our sister cities how best to employ literature and this designation to improve the material lives of those at the margins. As far as I understand literature to have a purpose, it is meant to reflect back to us our fullest selves, to speak truth to power, and to be a site for greater individual and communal reimagining. If we don’t take this task seriously, the honor serves simply as a laurel hung from the drawing room walls of those of us living in safe, material comfort.” – Dujie Tahat, Seismic

“If this is a great literary city, how do we expose all the layers of violence so we can imagine something else? How do we write what we really feel, so we can feel what we really need? How do we use language to expose hypocrisy rather than camouflaging harm? I want to live in a city that doesn’t destroy the lives of the people who are already the most marginalized by systemic and systematic injustice. This may be too much to ask of literature, but it’s not too much to ask.” – Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Seismic

“I view the Creative City designation not as an arrival but a portal to discover new ways to engage many more residents in the literary life of the city. What is at stake for Seattle is not guarding a literary legacy but envisioning one. The UNESCO designation is an invitation to redefine what a literary city looks like. Seattle could have the makings of a literary renaissance that inspires cities around the globe to reframe what constitutes literature and who has a right to create it.” – Claudia Castro Luna

“If I could make a wish upon a book or ask “the Lorde” Audre for a blessing for this city, it would be to add more platforms, avenues, megaphones and bridges for voices who live between the lines, in white spaces and in the margins. I feel hope for the direction that Seattle is moving. We are remembering that without community there is no liberation.” – Anastacia-Renée, Seismic

“We each have a little magic, and the city brings it out in us. We are capable of creating such things as no one has ever done. We are more than what people want to see, sometimes more than even we ourselves expect to see. We are not bound to the lots we draw.” – Wei-Wei Lee, Seismic

Your City of Literature

I’d love to know what your City of Literature looks like. Seismic is free for download or you can ask for a free copy at your local bookstore (while they last). Please read it and share your dreams for our city with me, with your community at large, with your legislators.

I’m hugely grateful to editor Kristen Millares Young and to Stesha Brandon for their vision and collective work to bring this important book to life. They, together with the contributors, have definitely inspired me to be more courageous in building my City of Literature. May this be the book that changes our small corner of the world for the better.

What a week it’s been. Seven days ago at this time, my husband was with our dog, Rocky, at the vet for what would be his second to last visit and I was trying to decide how to tell our four-year-old son that the dog wasn’t coming home. The dog did come home, and we spent a tense 48 hours watching for the inevitable before we could get the second, final visit. And somehow, on Monday I did find the words to tell my son that Rocky was not coming home. He covered his ears and did not want to talk about it. As heartbreaking as this conversation was (as well as subsequent ones where I tried to make sure he knew he could talk to me when he was ready), it’s nothing compared to trying to explain racism to a small child, even as I’m still learning about it myself.

But the time for change is now. That’s why I finally took Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race off the shelf in my bedroom where it had been waiting too long to be read.

When my son was born, a friend insisted I read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. An excellent book, and a hard read in that early parenting time when my empathy for all humans was almost shattering, I learned a lot from Coates. But my reading of that book did not fix our society and really, it did not fix me either. And I won’t say that I’m fixed now that I’ve read (most of, I’ll finish the rest this afternoon) Oluo’s book, either, but So You Want to Talk About Race engaged me in a conversation I needed to have with myself and Oluo gave me both the language and the understanding necessary to try harder.

A Lexicon of Racism

Too much of my experience of the world these days comes from Twitter-sized synopses in which I either smile or rankle before moving on and forgetting. And while I’ve had a superficial understanding of the concepts of white privilege, intersectionality, and microagressions, I haven’t really put the work in to know what I could do about any of it besides feel guilty and try to not say ignorant things. Oluo helped me take that next step by unpacking what the words mean and what they look like in everyday life. She opens up ideas of how white people can start to confront and dismantle them in their own lives and in the lives of the people around them. She also speaks directly to people of color.

Two of the most impactful things Oluo helped me understand are the power dynamics of racism and the ways I’ve been failing to properly empathize with the experiences of people of color. They are not unrelated, but while I cannot dismantle the white supremacy inherent in our institutions (today anyway), I can breathe in her “basic rules” of determining if something is about race until they are a part of my body:

1. It is about race if a person of color thinks it is about race.
2. It is about race if it disproportionately or differently affects people of color.
3. It is about race if it fits a broader pattern of events that disproportionately or differently affect people of color.

Do any of those rankle? As a student of sociology, I had no trouble accepting the last two, but I really struggled with the first. Which meant I had to ask why. Where I’m at now (a few days into this process) is that I’ve been so gaslit about my own experiences (as a woman) that victim blaming is part of my body. My mechanism for feeling better about myself is trying to control every aspect of every situation so that I can never get hurt so if someone else gets hurt then clearly they failed to control something. Except that argument is as full of bullshit for people who are subjected to the abuses of a racist system as it is for women who are raped, assaulted, or harassed.

And the passing of a counterfeit $20 bill is never, ever a crime that should be paid for with a life.

The Beauty of Vulnerability

“Acknowledging us, believing us, means challenging everything you believe about race in this country. And I know that this is a very big ask, I know that this is a painful and scary process. I know that it’s hard to believe that the people you look to for safety and security are the same people who are causing us so much harm. But I’m not lying and I’m not delusional. I am scared and I am hurting and we are dying. And I really, really need you to believe me.” – Ijeoma Oluo So You Want to Talk About Race

I haven’t read White Fragility (yet), but I do know that when confronted with my own racism I more want to hide in a corner than confront my bad actions and I’m certain I’m not alone. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Oluo does the reader the kindness of opening up her own vulnerability. She both unpacks moments when she was not representing the values she espouses and experiences when she has been victimized by institutions and individuals. I’m deeply grateful for this approach, because by being so open and vulnerable with her readers, she made it much easier to be open and vulnerable back. Although she often says (correctly) that it is not the victim of racism’s job to educate the perpetrator, this choice is helping me examine both the problems with the system and also the ways in which I have perpetuated those problems.

The Structures of Power

As I mentioned, institutionalized racism was one of the hardest parts of this book to get my head around, I think because I was raised to believe in this American ideal of founding fathers who were looking out for all of us and who set up this great nation around some very laudable ideals. And now I have to interrogate all of that. We all do.

The police in my brain are here to “protect and to serve” and that’s a comfortable place to return to when I want to ignore one more abuse or death at their hands. But I remember the way the teenagers in my home town were hounded by the police—and we were white. When you entrust someone with a job, you have to be very careful how you frame that job. Even if you think about little things like quotas for traffic tickets. That’s not the police looking to stop people who are breaking laws, that’s a worker trying to check off a list of tasks and they’ll enforce traffic laws at whatever level they can until that list is complete. Now add a government and a legal system that was designed to protect the property of white men. I don’t know enough about what makes the police act as a military force against people of color (though I’m thinking about it); I do think they are acting to protect a status quo that should not be protected.

I don’t need to watch the video of George Floyd’s death to know that kneeling on the neck of a human being (ever, not to mention until they die) is not ever okay. But when John T. Williams was shot down in cold blood by a Seattle police officer, I used personal knowledge of his behavior to make excuses for the officer. When the pregnant Charleena Lyles was shot and killed three miles from where I lived with my almost two-year-old, I was sickened yet did nothing. In truth, those cases formed a pattern where the police failed to place the value of a human life above the value of their own inconvenience.

It’s beyond time that we confront what is wrong with policing in this city and this country, that we dismantle the current system, and that we instead build something that serves everyone. Something that treats human lives (of all colors) with value. I believe strongly that this starts early in life when we must give all children the same opportunities. I also believe that we have to stop treating 12-year-olds like Tamir Rice like it’s too late for them because their bodies are big. That no one should die for selling cigarettes, as Eric Garner did, or for being in a house where drugs were suspected of being sold, as was the case with Breonna Taylor. Black lives are human lives and black lives matter.

What I’m Telling My Son

The day my (then two-year-old) son asked for a Playmobil tactical van, my heart sank. But he thought it was a police car and he wanted it and I wanted him to have what he wanted. Now he asks me to turn off NPR when they use the word “dead.” Mostly I do, because there are a lot of details he does not need to know. But this week is different. As will be all the weeks going forward.

This week we talked about why people become police officers, that some people want to help others and that’s good, but that some people want power over others, and that’s bad. We talked about skin color and things that make people look different but that’s only how they look on the outside. We talked about how he needs to stand up for his friends because sometimes they won’t be able to stand up for themselves. Later, I’ll probably have him sit through the Sesame Street town hall on racism. Because while we try to surround him with diverse books and friends of all colors with a wide variety of life experiences, it’s not enough.

So I’m going to keep reading, Oluo’s book and others, and turning that knowledge into action. There are a myriad of good anti-racism reading lists out there and I also recommend this podcast and essay. As always, I’m open to your suggestions. Let’s take our hands off our ears and change the world with the power we have. We’re stronger than we know.

Station Eleven

When I asked my husband for Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven for Christmas, I don’t think I’d heard of the coronavirus yet. I like dark novels and have often found that reading about the worst of things makes me feel better about my everyday. Station Eleven did not disappoint, especially because the way the structure flips quickly enough back and forth between the panic of a rapidly-spreading pandemic and the life that continues (in its own way) in the way after meant I didn’t have to bear the “what if we all die” feeling that some books carry. So it was dangerous, but not too much so. It’s a very satisfying read overall with strong characters and a fresh take on life after the apocalypse. I loved the way the threads of the story eventually came together.

If you’re at all afraid, I would not suggest you read this book right now, but do put it on your list for later.

What Station Eleven Taught Me About Now

• Be prepared. I do not feel the need to pack seven carts full of groceries into my home the way that Jeevan did, but we have set aside enough food and essentials that we’ll be okay if we have to self-quarantine for a couple of weeks. I’ve since read that having a little (not a crazy amount) of back-stock on hand can also help ease supply chain problems for others later.
• Books matter. Not that I needed to be taught this, but the way that Kirsten clings to her copy of Dr. Eleven is an important reminder that we cling to things that make us feel civilized. And for good reason. I’ve read more prepper guides in the last month than I’ll admit, but the things that always come back to me are how humanizing small luxuries like a beloved chocolate bar or a great shower can be when we feel at our worst.

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

By the time I finished Station Eleven, the news of a coronavirus in China felt distant enough that I picked up the copy of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History that my neighbor had given me as we were exchanging Thanksgiving dishes. I don’t normally read nonfiction, certainly not of the historical reportage type, but I figured if I was ever going to read that book, it would/should be after finishing Station Eleven. I’m glad I did, because I learned a lot about how viruses work and about what can go wrong in a society during a pandemic. There was far too much minutia about individual doctors for my taste, but I appreciate the work they did.

I do not believe that we are in for anything nearly as bad as the Spanish Flu, but I do think there are lessons from that time that can help us minimize the spread and mortality of COVID-19.

What The Great Influenza Taught Me About Now

• Infections come in waves. There were actually two infection periods for the Spanish Flu, and those who were exposed to the first were mostly immune to (or at least suffered far less from) the second.
• Viruses mutate over time. As they emerge in the human population, they are not necessarily at their most dangerous (the first spring wave of the Spanish Flu was not as lethal as the later wave), but they do mutate and over time “virulence stabilizes and even recedes”. You can read more about how this might be working with COVID-19 here.
• Quarantine and self isolation helps. Not only are you limiting your potential avenues for transmission by self-isolating (before or after being infected), you are giving the disease time to mutate into something less lethal.
• We are lucky to have already identified COVID-19. The Spanish Flu was not conclusively even identified as an influenza until much after the epidemic. Today researchers are working directly with an identified pathogen and trying to develop tests and a vaccine, rather than spending years trying to figure out what the disease even is.
• Accurate information saves lives. During the Spanish Flu, the media in San Francisco likely saved lives by sharing accurate, unvarnished information with local citizens. This is a big worry for me at a country level because the president is more interested in his ego than in getting people the information they need to prepare. I’m looking directly to resources I trust, like King County Public Health and this map from Johns Hopkins, for my updates.
• Large public gatherings are a bad idea during times of contagion. There were far too many stories in this book of public officials who were warned to cancel large events and did not. If you’re interested in specifics on how that affected mortality, this is interesting. We aren’t currently avoiding the grocery story (despite the general zombie vibe there) or daycare (the source of all contagion, really), but my workplace is closed and I’ll be skipping this spring’s slew of arts fundraising events.

The Ungrateful Refugee

This book by Dina Nayeri was an essential read for our time before the novel coronavirus. I’m still immersed in its pages, but the way she combines the memoir of her own experience as a refugee with the research she did as a new mother into the refugee waves of now is deeply artful and deeply humanizing. Her writing is as beautiful as her introspection.

What The Ungrateful Refugee Taught Me About Now

• It is always easy to turn inwards and see only your own experience. It is especially important in times of crisis that we do not, to the extent that we are able.
• The more we connect with others, the better we will see ourselves. When Nayeri sees a girl in a refugee camp who will not remove her pink backpack, she sees her own trauma and the need to cling to the one thing that feels like stability. And in reading about it I see ways I am paralyzing myself when I most need to find grace.
• Every human deserves and wants dignity. The more we treat each other with dignity, the more we will all respond with it in kind. The way my husband described how people are treating our grocery store clerks is abhorrent. We’re all humans on this planet. If you can afford to give someone a smile or a kind word, please do.

The Plague

I actually haven’t started re-reading The Plague, so I’m not certain it’s the best thing to turn to at this exact moment, but I do recall that I read it during a particularly dark time of my life and I was very much reassured by the way Camus highlighted what Mr. Rogers would call “the helpers,” the people who went out of their way to make sure that society survived.

What The Plague Taught Me About Now

• There is good in and around us. Look for it.
• Do what you can to help others.

Anything that Gives You Pleasure

The one thing I very much have stockpiled in anticipation of being at home for the duration is books. I started with an indulgently large order from Powell’s and then let myself go hog wild at the AWP virtual book fair where hundreds of small presses are selling their wares, often at a wonderful discount. Read or watch anything that reminds you that COVID is only part of life.

Other Things I’m Thinking About

• Kids are generally less vulnerable. According to this piece on NPR, kids go through so very many COVIDs early in life that they are not at risk now. This has to be a relief for any parent.
• The digital age has added some layers of protection and stripped away others. It’s nice that many people can work from home. I wish that everyone could (or could get paid in absentia). I did wake up in a cold panic the other morning with the realization that if my husband and I both died (highly unlikely, but tell my anxiety that), my son would have no way of contacting the people who can take care of him because he doesn’t have a relationship with our phones.
• Panic is paralyzing; avoid it at all costs. There are hashtags on Twitter that I won’t click anymore because the fear has already taken people way beyond a functional place. If you’re scared about something concrete, like not having a list of emergency numbers on paper somewhere handy, fix it and try to move on. Turning off the voices of panic from outside the house is not the worst idea, either (she tells herself).
• Supplies are available in places other than grocery stores. We’ve been ordering nonperishables (again, only a week or two ahead) from Target. It saves us from going out and also lets people who need to get things more immediately have some hope of finding them on a nearby shelf. Free shipping over $35, but you want a week’s lead time.
• Related, small businesses will be hurt hardest if people are no longer out and about. Make the choices you need to for your family, but if you’re going out, eating out, or stocking up, spend that money at the stores you love when you can. E.g., Third Place Books is offering free shipping through March 13.
• Also avoiding full isolation. I don’t mean in a physical sense. If your fear/worry/general busyness has kept you from contacting your loved ones, try a text or a call. I’d planned to write some “COVID missives” to pen-pals I’ve neglected before I started writing this post (and I still will, here eventually).
• Finding joy, even if in alternate universes. My husband and I have immersed ourselves in as many comedies as we can in the evenings, but the most effective panacea has been streaming a favorite design show from the UK in the 2000s. It feels good to immerse myself in something that isn’t about disease at all. And as part of our prepping, we have a new set of soccer nets arriving soon, JIC daycare finally closes.
• How important (and easy) it is to wash those hands. Around here we sing “Wash, wash, wash your hands, get them nice and clean. Scrub the bottoms and the tops and fingers in between” twice to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

I wish you health and peace of mind. If I read anything particularly interesting while shut in, I’ll share it with you here.

Far too often the narratives of genius and madness are entwined to the extent that they appear inseparable. The story of artistic becoming and success then becomes a drama where the highest achievements happen only when the artist sacrifices their entire self to this daemon. It’s a dangerous narrative and a seductive one and I was grateful with my entire being when I realized that Erin Eileen Almond was writing against this trope in Witches’ Dance. Don’t get me wrong, Witches’ Dance is as deeply seductive as it is intelligent, but what makes this book extra, and very much worth reading, is the way Almond twists and unweaves our expectations of greatness.

The Maestro

Fortissimo the prelude to Witches’ Dance as brilliant violinist Phillip Manns steps onstage for a performance at the peak of his career. The audience, filled with other characters who will become important to the plot, sits rapt as he performs Paganini’s “Witches Dance.” Almond’s language is so deft in this opening that I was as rapt as the audience as the scene of his triumph built to a crescendo… and then Phillip took one step too far, declaring himself to be Paganini and running offstage and down the street. Almond uses the confusion in the audience to tease out how Hilda, the other most important character in this novel, succumbs to Phillip’s magnetic performance in ways that will alter her life forever.

The Student

Cut forward a decade and we meet Hilda again at 16, a strong violinist who hasn’t had the chance to fully immerse herself in the art… yet. I hope it’s not revealing too much to say that the forces of fate (and a skilled author) bring Hilda and Phillip together to play off of one another as she becomes his student and muse. But this is not really a Pygmalion story and as much as Phillip shapes Hilda, she shapes him (and that’s where things get really interesting).

The Music, the Magic

Almond does a beautiful job of working music into this book, both in the pieces and instruments the characters play and also in the lexicon she uses. Almond also incorporates subtle fairy tale touches that emerge wonderfully toward the end of the story. The blend of the music and the magic is in the wolf tone that can be heard on stringed instruments. I’d never heard of this before, but it forms the perfect bridge between Hilda and Phillip’s playing and the monster Phillip is battling inside.

The Madness

Not surprisingly given his unorthodox behavior at that initial performance, Phillip tries to kill himself later the first night. This happens offscreen and is introduced later to give us a flavor of his struggles. Another aspect of his struggles is his mother, Domenica, now deceased but apparently manic depressive, alcoholic, and still visiting Phillip on occasion.

My summary sounds flip, but the experience of reading about the madness in this story is anything but. Almond brings many human frailties together in her characters, each one a creative in their own field, in ways that feel very familiar to anyone who’s spent significant time around artists of any type. Hilda’s mother is a ballerina who quit young to have a child. Hilda’s father is a failed musician who still believes his own hype. There’s an artistic rival as well as some people who end up working close to the artists because they did not themselves commit to the grind. We watch all of these characters struggle against and embrace their human and artistic frailties. Then we watch the consequences.

The story was all too relatable for me, a writer who struggles with depression. Sometimes I feel like my sensitivity to the world around me is the only reason I can be a writer. Sometimes it keeps me from writing. Sometimes my depression makes it impossible to pick up a pen. Sometimes I think the self-critique that comes with it is the only reason my writing has gotten any good. And when I take that anxiety/depression questionnaire at the doctor’s office that asks if I ever suffer from delusions of grandeur, I lie, because of course I do, I have to in order to believe that the words I put on paper have value beyond my own writing of them. It’s a little lie, though, because I know I’m not Paganini and I have no intentions of rushing offstage anytime soon.

I could tell you more about The Witches’ Dance, but if you’ve ever wondered in the least about whether artistic genius and madness really have to be coterminous, I think you should read the book. The depths Almond explores are ones I’d like to read over and over again as I consider my own narrative.

Pick up a copy of Witches’ Dance from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

The cliché about MFA programs (and arts degrees in general) is that the percentage of graduates who are still practicing a decade later is pretty poor. I’m delighted that my classmates appear to be the exception as the (then tiny) writing program at Goddard College in Port Townsend is where I first met the authors of four of the five books listed below. It’s a big year for these writers, especially since most of these are first books, and it’s a big year for me because I get to help celebrate them. Please join me in showing them ever so much reading love…

Natasha Oliver’s The Evolved Ones (Awakening #1)

In a world where humans are evolving, people are more curious than afraid. They look for answers from a handful of scientists who try to uncover why some develop abilities yet the vast majority to do. For most humans, it’s an exciting time, but for EOs— the evolved ones—it’s a game of hide and seek that ends with far too many of their kind disappearing, permanently.

Natasha is the writer I envision when I explain to people why I can’t (and won’t) write fantasy, because her creativity and world-building are so wonderfully alive that all I could hope to do is kneel at her altar. She’s been working for a long time on this book, the first of what promises to be an amazing series full of excitement, deep human insight, and a great story, and I’m very much looking forward to reading it the second it’s released in the U.S. in 2020. I suggest pre-ordering it now as a little present to your future self or flying over to Singapore where it’s available right now.

Cody T. Luff’s Ration

Cynthia and Imeld have always lived in the Apartments. A world where every calorie is rationed and the girls who live there are forced to weigh their own hunger against the lives of the others living in the building. It’s a world where the threat of the Wet Room and Ms. Lion always lingers, and punishments are doled out heavily both by the Women who oversee them and the other girls.

The two things I want to tell you about Cody are that he writes some of the deepest, darkest work I’ve ever read and also that he very tenderly officiated at my wedding. In that contradiction lies the heart of a man who is full of kindness and generosity and also is not afraid to be very real on the page and in person. Because Cody lives a little closer to me than Natasha these days, I was lucky enough to attend one of Cody’s readings and am pleased to report that this book will be dark, gory, and feminist. I’ve been saving my copy to read on a very bad day because I know it will be very good. Get your copy of Ration from Powell’s.

Nita Sweeny’s Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running With My Dog Brought Me Back From the Brink

It’s never too late to chase your dreams: Before she discovered running, Nita Sweeney was 49-years-old, chronically depressed, occasionally manic, and unable to jog for more than 60 seconds at a time. Using exercise, Nita discovered an inner strength she didn’t know she possessed, and with the help of her canine companion, she found herself on the way to completing her first marathon. In her memoir, Sweeney shares how she overcame emotional and physical challenges to finish the race and come back from the brink.

Nita was a year or maybe just a semester ahead of me at Goddard but her kindness stuck with me and I’ve held tight to the friendship over the last decade. Though I haven’t read this book yet (parenting ate my reading time), I am certain that it’s as warm, sincere, and thoughtful as Nita is. She’s the one who told me years ago that the word “husband” never gets old… and she’s right. Let’s both pop on over to Powell’s this second and order copies of Depression Hates a Moving Target. Nita also offers a wealth of inspiration and opportunities on Twitter.

Karen Hugg’s The Forgetting Flower

Secrets and half-truths. These litter Renia Baranczka’s past, but the city of Paris has offered an escape and the refuge of a dream job. The specialty plant shop buzzes with activity and has brought her to a new friend, Alain. His presence buffers the guilt that keeps her up at night, dwelling on the endless replays of what happened to her sister. All too suddenly, the City of Light seems more sinister when Alain turns up dead. His demise threatens every secret Renia holds dear, including the rare plant hidden in the shop’s tiny nook. It emits a special fragrance that can erase a person’s memory—and perhaps much more than that.

Karen was one of a very select group of beta readers for Polska, 1994 because she knows her shit about writing. She even honored A Geography of Reading with a few reviews many years ago. Karen is not only an artist with words but also a devoted gardener (talents she merges in this book), and I have every confidence that her worldliness and creativity make The Forgetting Flower a fantastic read.

Elissa Washuta’s Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers

Just as a basket’s purpose determines its materials, weave, and shape, so too is the purpose of the essay related to its material, weave, and shape. Editors Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton ground this anthology of essays by Native writers in the formal art of basket weaving. Using weaving techniques such as coiling and plaiting as organizing themes, the editors have curated an exciting collection of imaginative, world-making lyric essays by twenty-seven contemporary Native writers from tribal nations across Turtle Island into a well-crafted basket.

Elissa is the only writer on this list I did not go to school with. Instead I met her through Hugo House and the Artist Trust Edge program and have been glad to follow her career ever since. The most established writer on this list, Elissa is not only one of the editors of this collection but also a contributor. This is the one book I have already read and I can tell you that it’s very much worth a read. Not only did it stretch my worldview, the essay by Stephen Graham Jones knocked me on my creative ass and got me writing deep in a time when I was lost, lost, lost. I’m certain that every reader of this book will have their very own favorite essay. Please read Shapes of Native Nonfiction and tell me all about yours.

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