Look, I’ve started many of the past few days by saying “I don’t like today.” Or realizing that “how are you” and “how’s it going” are TERRIBLE conversation-openers when no one I know or work with is doing well in the wake of Tuesday night’s news (my day job is communications work for a progressive policy organization. We are not having a good time). But the world keeps turning, the sun keeps rising, and we all have to continue on with our lives as though the axis of the earth doesn’t feel like it’s shifted under our feet. So, with that in mind, here’s a slightly different take on my usual “what I’m reading, writing, and enjoying” update.

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What I’m Reading

I spent the first half of the week rereading favorite books— Babel, by RF Kuang. Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. The Grace Year, by Kim Liggett. His Name Is George Floyd, by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa. You know, books that have absolutely nothing to do with our political landscape whatsoever. Then I spent two days being exceptionally irritated with people on the internet claiming that “book communities don’t need to be political,” and that their pages were a “safe space for everyone no matter who you voted for.” Never mind that one party would like to ban books. And the books they’d like to ban are, in many cases, romance novels. Never mind that all books are political. Also, I don’t think I want my page to be a safe space for white supremacists. I stand by that. And then I decided that I wanted some escapism. So I finished up reading Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, by Heather Fawcett, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and then moved on to what I was really after— something a little dark, preferably of the vaguely maudlin, thriller-y sort. In short, I wanted to redirect some of the adrenaline and stress that hadn’t left my body since Tuesday night, and reading about other people handling (and surviving) much more immediately scary things than my world currently contains felt like the way to go about it. So I dug into If We Were Villains, by ML Rio, and then immediately followed it up with Death at Morning House, by Maureen Johnson. If anyone’s got suggestions for what to read next, I’m all ears.

How My Writing’s Going

Welllllll…. I got word at the beginning of the week that Kindle Vella, where I’ve been serially publishing The Illyria Project, is going away at the end of this month. Which is unfortunate not just for my little sapphic Dark Academia Twelfth Night retelling, but also for my holiday anthology plans!

Now feels like as good a time as any to tell y’all that I am working on an “advent calendar” of sorts; a chapter-a-day-til-Christmas serial release book. The vibe is very much Delicious-in-Dungeon-meets-Great-British-Bake-Off and all the characters are trying to save the Winter Festival in their monster-overrun hometown. And some of them maybe are falling in love in the process. Each chapter gets a recipe to go with it, including some that have been sent in by fans and followers (which is awesome!). I’m having a ton of fun writing/editing it. The trouble is…

You guessed it. I had been planning on releasing it on Kindle Vella. Which, by mid-December, will no longer be an option. So now I’m back to the drawing board for release plans. Where would y’all prefer those chapters to come out? Here on Substack? All at once, in book form, on Kindle Unlimited? I’m really up for anything.

Something Fun

I’ll be fully transparent; this has not been a week for a lot of fun. I will say that I’ve been leaning into comfort and coziness a great deal: going for long walks outdoors with my dog, taking deep breaths in the autumnal (but for some reason, 80-degrees-the-week-after-Halloween) weather. Spending time in coffeeshops with friends. Wandering around Barnes and Noble with my partner. Eating soup (specifically a white-bean-and-Impossible-sausage soup that I made and froze a week ago). In general, my current logic is that if a hobbit would do it, I should too. Which, if I’m being honest, doesn’t SOLVE all of my problems, but…

The way I see it, it’s like any other super-upsetting thing, whether that’s a breakup or a bad grade or a minor car wreck. Getting up and taking a shower and feeding yourself won’t necessarily solve the root problem, but it’ll sure as hell make you better-equipped to handle it later on.

^ Just for good measure, here’s a picture of my dog. She’s very cute.

Gemma Tate- Books, Writing, and More is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.