I had on my calendar to write the harbinger today, but so far I have: answered work emails, shopped at two separate grocery stores (forty-five minutes apart), unloaded food into the New Saint Andrews break room for the students, and washed my couch cushions in preparation for students sitting upon them. Students who would rather not sit upon dog hair.

I also baked brownies for a group of undergraduate students who are coming over tonight to read their stories aloud to the short story writing club. These are wild days, full of many events, and I’m very thankful for them.

This Sunday is the kick-off dinner for the Camperdown intensive week. Back when I was a student in the program I started hosting these dinners because it was a fun way to catch up with everyone before the Intense part of the Intensive begun. And I simply never stopped. Now that I’m the director, it seems particularly fitting, and the students appreciate the opportunity to eat a meal together before they jump into the kiln. Personally, I like to hand them a bowl of something hot and beam them a smile before telling them all the things they need to change in their manuscript.

In Other News:

The Till We Have Faces four-part discussion that Joe Rigney and I recorded is now live on the Canon+ app! You can find it here.

Early reviews suggest it’s the best four-part podcast discussion I’ve ever recorded. Give it a listen and let me know if it changed how you view Lewis’s favorite novel!

In Other Other News

I wrote a piece of flash fiction back in December and submitted it to a smattering of online magazines. I’d nearly given up on it until I heard back this week from one of the magazines offering to publish it. The editor had some great suggestions for ways to improve it, and now it’s off to queue up behind their other short stories (they publish one a day I believe). Once it’s published, I’ll be sure to send a link so you all can read it. I’m very fond of it and glad their editor liked it so much, too.

What I’m Reading

Normally I would link to all of these books, but there are only twenty minutes of sunlight left, and I need to catch it before it vanishes (possibly for good? One never knows this time of year).

I started out the month reading The Egyptologist because it had sat upon my shelves for fifteen years, appearing from who knows where, and glaring at me each time I purchased a new book. It was not to my taste, although I enjoyed putting the pieces of the puzzle together. I also read some depressing short stories by Salinger, and then a depressing book called Waiting by Ha Jin (this was not the month for cheery literature). I appreciated the look into communist China in Waiting, but found the main character’s inconstancy to his wife hard to endure. Lastly, I read The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown. A fun concept, but not as light-hearted as I’d hoped. Clearly, I need to curate my February books next year to include more fun and games.

On audiobook, I listened to Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney which was a thriller mystery set in bleak midwinter in a remote airbnb on the Scottish Highlands. Cold and depressing, but also gripping! On a road trip, I listened to The Widow’s Husband’s Secret Lie by McFadden which was positively hilarious. A satirical examination of the thriller genre was just what I needed, and the narrator was fantastic.

A Writing Tip

The Writing Tip today comes from Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klingenborg, a craft book I’m slowly working my way through. Most of my students can easily write long sentences. It’s much harder to write good short sentences.

So there you go! That’s it for February, see you in March.

Christine