Weekly Roundup #1
Jesmyn Ward, Scholastic Book Fairs, Spooky Stories, and More
Welcome to my first weekly roundup! Below you’ll find some of my favorite links from the past week. And just in case you missed it, I announced the new plan for this Substack here. I also posted a book list on Saturday featuring unsettling novels about women on the brink. I’m happy with how that post came together, so I hope you check it out.
Anyway, on to this week’s roundup.
How Jesmyn Ward Is Reimagining Southern Literature - New York Times
Jesmyn Ward is one of my favorite writers, and this profile by Imani Perry is beautiful.
“Writing has sustained Ward through heartbreak and has given her a means of repair. Her body of work reveals how the injuries of the past can be renamed and reshaped by those who keep on living.”
Let Me Ruin Your Childhood: The Inequality of School Book Fairs - Book Riot
I didn’t experience Scholastic Book Fairs as a child, but I did help run them as an adult when I worked in elementary schools. Hosting the fair was the only way for some libraries to get new books because they didn’t have a budget. I was never entirely on board with the fairs, though, because they took away the one thing libraries should always give their patrons: equity. This article from Book Riot addresses that issue, the poor construction of many Scholastic books, and the company’s recent issues with a lack of diversity.
“School book fairs are a public display of disposable income. For kids looking on at their peers laden down with purchases, it can be a trying and even humiliating experience. It’s also a drawn-out process: from circling those items on the flyer to asking your parents for money to walking around the fair and looking at price tags to seeing your peers show off their hauls, it’s impossible to ignore if you aren’t able to participate.”
20 spooky short stories you can read for free online - Lit Hub
‘Tis the season. This list has classic and contemporary options.
“Our choices range from horror to science fiction to realism, from straight-up frightening to the kind of unsettling that just sticks around the rest of the day like the smell of smoke. Spookiness, after all, is in the eye of the beholder.”
“Upstate” by Emma Cline - The New Yorker
I always welcome new fiction from Emma Cline.
“Kate carried their towels and snacks in a paper grocery bag. Paul was older, had raised a family—shouldn’t he have thought to bring a tote bag for the weekend? And sunscreen, too. Shouldn’t one of them be the kind of person who kept track of the procurement and deployment of such things, the tools that smoothed over life’s little discomforts?”
What Can a Poem Do? - Maggie Smith
I appreciate this brief post about the power of poetry. In it, Maggie links to another post in which she shares poems that make you glad to be alive.
“What can a poem do? A poem is a not a tourniquet when you’re bleeding. It’s not water when you’re thirsty or food when you’re hungry. A poem can’t protect you from an airstrike, or from abduction, or from hate. It’s hard to write when our words feel like they’re not enough—they can’t do the real, tangible work of saving lives, or making people safer.
But can they remind us of our humanity? I think they can, and I think we desperately need a reminder.”
Art Is Resistance - Black Liturgies
In yesterday’s Instagram post, Cole Arthur Riley quoted James Baldwin and shared a liturgy about the power of art.
“In the midst of death, art requires a distinct and mystical courage.”
The 10 Best Books From the Past 10 Years - Eric Karl Anderson
Eric is one of my favorite YouTubers. He consistently creates great literary content. In this video, he shares his ten favorite books from the last decade. Get cozy and hit play if you like literary fiction, classics, and world lit.
Leave your own links in the comments. I’d love to see what you’ve been reading and enjoying lately.
Your thoughts on Scholastic Fairs hit home. Another thing that bothered me was when a student’s dad bought her everything but a book! She hauled off with stickers, markers, toys…what about a book, Dad?!