You’ve reached this week’s checkpoint! I had some extra time today (Monday), so I thought I’d draft a post and queue it up for Wednesday, before my week gets super busy.
Remember this is your space too, so feel free to comment or reply to this email and let me know what you’re reading, writing, and hobbying. Thinking about calling my readers “softies” because it’s cute :)
3 things I’m reading:
I finished Enterprise: The First Adventure by Vonda McIntyre. I liked it a lot! Her writing style is definitely more character-focused than plot-driven. You could say that “nothing really happens” in this book, but only if you’re married to traditional plot structure, which would be a very boring marriage…the ending of this book is lovely. I actually teared up a bit, which surprised me. Yay for a good Star Trek extended universe novel! I will say that a few elements of the worldbuilding diverge from canon, but not badly enough to make me stop reading.
I stopped reading Slave Old Man after 50 pages and e-returned it to the e-library (I use Libby). Nothing against it, I just had a hard time with the amount of footnotes and asterisks. Even though e-book glossaries are actually more convenient to use than physical book glossaries, it made for a tiring and flow-interrupting reading experience to be constantly looking up untranslated words. Ah well. I e-borrowed The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington (2017) next and have been having a much better time with it. Super short, weird magical realist flash fiction with lots of mad women and horses doing unhorselike things, like making mosaics. Very fun.
I started reading Martyr! (2024) by Kaveh Akbar. I saw Kaveh give a talk at Elliott Bay Books a couple months ago and got my copy of Martyr! signed! I’ve been a fan of his poetry for years and am stoked to see him get so much recognition with this book. It’s too early to give my full thoughts on it but the language is beautiful as I knew it would be, and I like it so far.
3 things I’m writing:
This newsletter. Lmao.
I’m still stuck on the short story because I haven’t made time for it BUT I’m going to make it a priority this week so you better hold me to it please!
I’m working on a poem about body rejection. Body acceptance is played out and we’re going to focus on rejecting our physical forms now. *girl with her hand out flippantly emoji*
3 soft hobbies:
I went to a watercolor class on Friday and learned how to use gold leaf in my paintings! This was my first in-person painting class — I’ve been teaching myself how to paint watercolor for a year or so, learning from the lovely folks on YouTube. I’m pretty happy with this sunflower I painted and hope to take more in-person classes down the road.
Ethan and I went to a barcade near our house and played pinball and arcade games until we ran out of quarters <3
Ethan has a Gameboy Advance SP with a few Pokemon game cartridges, and I finally made time to dip back into the first handheld console I ever had. With Pokemon Ruby, the first Pokemon game I ever owned! I was 11 when I got it for Christmas. Playing it now, especially while lying on the floor, is unbelievably nostalgic. I want to get the Gameboy modded though, because the backlighting is way too dim and needs an upgrade.
Thank you for your time, and I hope you’re having a good week. See you at the next checkpoint!
Softly yours,
Auzin