3 Friday Finds
^ photo from the Obvious State website
Happy Friday, all. I’ve been away from the blog and many of my books and writing for a few weeks as the summer was winding down and we were taking last trips before the school year, doing back-to-school shopping, and attending to various things. Now that the boys are back in school, I’m easing into this new space and trying to figure out my new rhythms for writing. I haven’t had stretches of time like this without my kids in the house in 18 months and it feels sort of strange. It’s restful for me in myriad ways but I find myself wondering when it will end. Will they be able to stay in school? Have to quarantine often? There are a lot of unknowns, as always, so before I get a call from the school, I wanted to share 3 things that I’ve been enjoying in recent weeks.
1
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams.
When Jason saw this book in my recent purchases from Elliot Bay Bookstore, he laughed and said, “Wow, if this isn’t a book for a writer, I don’t know what.” I’m not sure that’s true (well, ok, it might be!). I think non-writers would enjoy this book as much as I did. It’s a small book with short chapters and it’s full of lovely meditations on womanhood, voice, place, spirituality. I liked it anyway, and I’m guessing many of you will as well.
2
The art prints by Evan Robertson at Obvious State.
Robertson takes works of literature — quotes by the likes of Langston Hughes, Virginia Wolff, Zora Neal Hurston, Omar Khayyan and many, many others — and pairs them with a graphic rendering. I like them so much. There are more than a hundred different prints currently featured at Obvious State and you can get them in various forms, from notebooks to postcards to large wall prints to frame.
3
It might be too soon for me to post about this anthology because I’ve only seen one of the shows so far (I know!) but I really enjoyed the first episode of Little America (streaming on Apple TV). We watched it a few nights ago and I sat down thinking it was a regular show with an arc over 8 episodes. At the end I realized that the story, which was so well done, was complete in one episode.
Each episode is a short story that looks “at the funny, romantic, heartfelt, inspiring and unexpected lives of immigrants in America.”
Check it out! And I promise that if I watch a few more episodes and want to renege on my recommendation, you all will the first to know.
Have a great weekend!