Friday, October 13, 2017

Weekend Reading: The Coming Out of the Whirlwind Edition

Well here we are at Friday again. I almost feel caught up after the whirlwind that was the end of September and beginning of October for me... but everytime I think "that's it, I'm caught up," something else comes along and I'm behind again. Still, I'm feeling a little less flattened than I was last Friday, and I have a more restful weekend ahead, too.

Part of the reason I've been feeling behind is that I've got a lot going on in the publishing side of things right now. Next year, I'll have to be careful to space my releases more evenly! Here's the latest:

The Burning, the novella by J.P. Seewald about family and resilience, set in the coal country of Pennsylvania in the 1970s, is available for pre-order. I'm trying out having a paperback pre-order via my secondary print on demand vendor, so this time you can pre-order ebooks or paperbacks. All the links are on the book's webpage.

I'm now looking for advance readers for Both Sides of My Skin, a collection of four short stories about pregnancy and motherhood, by Elizabeth Trach. These stories rang really true to me: they are about the reality of early motherhood, not the greeting card version of it. If you're interested in being an advance reader, sign up on the form.

I'm also working on the formatting of a novella that will be the first Annorlunda Books release of 2018, put the sequel to Okay, So Look under contract (Here's the Deal, a humorous retelling of Exodus), and read and loved a novelette that I'll get under contract soon. I have several more submissions to read and consider for what will probably be my last fiction slot in 2018. I'm still hoping to find a non-fiction book for next year, too.

Oh, and I've started work on the shiny new idea I think I've mentioned here a couple of times. I talked a little bit more about that in this month's Founding Chaos newsletter, which went out today.

Phew! So, in other news....

Here's a good explanation of the effects of Trump's decision to stop paying the ACA CSRs. I have decided that I'm going to need to accept that I can no longer count on the ability to buy decent insurance through the ACA exchange, so I need to make my contingency plans accordingly. We're still all covered by Mr. Snarky's insurance, so this is just contingency planning, but I take contingency planning seriously. It is what allows me to face uncertainty calmly. The Trump presidency has blown a lot of my contingency plans all to hell, and I think some of the exhaustion I've been feeling is due to that. I'm constantly recalculating and readjusting.

Anyhow, in other depressing news: here's a summary of a meeting of political scientists that is a bit gloomy about the prospects of American democracy.

Yoni Applebaum writing about whether or not the American idea is over is equally depressing.

There are more and more op-ed pieces calling for Republicans in Congress to stop voicing concerns about Trump (on and off the record) and start actually taking their Constitutional duty to protect the country from an unfit President more seriously. Here is the latest I've read: Republicans, it's time to panic.

I don't often find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with William Saletan, but I agree with his analysis of the disconnect between the NRA and average gun owners on high capacity magazines and the like.

Dan Pfeiffer argues Democrats need to think bigger on gun laws, and I find him persuasive.

I've been thinking I need to take our disaster preparations up another level, and this piece looks useful for thinking about how to do that.

I liked this post by One Tired Ema, which was inspired by that piece about midlife crises in Gen X women that I linked to earlier this week. I've got another post about my own recent midlife crisis brewing. Maybe I'll get a chance to write it next week.

I loved this line in the linked post, too:




I thought this was a great thread, too:




LOLSNORT:




I've been following Roxane Gay on Twitter for a long time, so this tweet pretty much made my day:




She gets so much grief online, it is great to see her get something awesome (her love for Channing Tatum was a long running twitter thing).

And it also made this earlier tweet  of hers much more poignant:




LOVE:




And now I have to stop sharing all my favorite tweets of the week because it is time for dinner.

I'll close with a bunny in Greenland and you definitely need to click through and see it.
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1 comment:

  1. xykademiqz3:05 PM

    I love Channing Tatum, too. I don't know why -- he's not that great of an actor or especially good looking, but there is something in his face (Mark Wahlberg has the same effect) that just cheers me up to no end. I will watch him in anything.

    And Roxanne Gay is awesome. I think I love her even more after learning about our shared love of Channing Tatum, one of the cutest adult mammals ever.

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