Month: February 2022

February, Tired and Hairy

John Winkelman

The view east from the Skywalk in Grand Rapids

For the first time in two years, I walked to the office work twice in the same week. I discovered (1) that I really missed this small boundary between my work and home life, (2) Downtown Grand Rapids is much more quiet than I remember from past years, though the fact that it it still winter may have something to do with that, and (3) I am really out of shape when it comes to walking. The above photo is from a brief lunchtime walk along the Skywalk at the western edge of downtown Grand Rapids.

Still – it was really good to get out of the house, and on days when the weather permits the walk, I will once again be working from the office.

No new books arrived at the house this past week. Or rather, one did, but it was a duplicate of an earlier acquisition, sent in error as part of a Kickstarter fulfillment glitch. So it doesn’t count.

This past Sunday I finished Hristo Karastoyanov’s The Same Night Comes for Us All. It was great!

Yesterday I finished Glory and its Litany of Horrors written by Brazilian author Fernanda Torres and translated by Eric M.B. Becker. Also great, and somewhat bonkers.

After finishing the Torres I pulled down my copy of The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, the final book of the Masquerade trilogy by Seth Dickinson. Given how good the previous two books were, I have very high hopes for this one.

In writing news, I finally finished the short story I have been pecking away at since October. It left me feeling happy, satisfied and, somehow, restless. Like, now what do I do? I think what I do now is rustle up some other half-finished short stories and, well, finish them!

February Barely Scary

John Winkelman

Books from the week of February 13, 2021

First up is issue 7 of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, from a Kickstarter I backed this past October. It looks great, and I am eager to dive into it.

Next is Classic Monsters Unleashed, from a Kickstarter run by editor James Aquilone. This was another of the Kickstarters for which the reward was delayed by *gestures at everything*.

I like the coincidence of a magazine of classic sword-and-sorcery style stories arrived the same week as a collection of new stories about classic monsters. I appreciate the connection of the classic with the current, the exploration of how the old influences the new.

In reading news, I finished Jesus and John Wayne and it left me in a foul mood. The book itself is excellent, well researched and well written, but the subject matter – the white evangelists who are deliberately working to turn the United States into a militant christian patriarchal ethnostate – well, let’s just say I don’t agree with their works, message, or goals. I have a small review written up in my monthly reading list which will post on the first day of March.

To cleanse my palate, reading-wise, I picked up Per Aage Brandt‘s beautiful poetry collection If I Were a Suicide Bomber, translated from the Danish by Thom Satterlee and published by Open Letter Books. I originally acquired this book through my subscription to Open Letter Books, which I let lapse a couple of years ago because I had not read any of the books they had shipped me in well over a year. Now I am slowly working through my backlog of almost three dozen.

I finished If I Were a Suicide Bomber the same day I started it, as I had taken a sick day from work and a few hours is plenty of time for a leisurely read through a poetry collection. I loved it! The poems are sharp, insightful, and full of humor. Taken individually, there are some echoes of Charles Reznikoff‘s Testimony (though lighter), and taken as a whole I noted an occasional similarity to Notes From A Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel by Evan S. Connell. Highly recommended.

Now I am reading The Same Night Awaits Us All by Hristo Karastoyanov, translated from the Bulgarian by Izidora Angel and also published by Open Letter Books. So far it is quite good, and would fit well on a shelf next to Andrei Bely‘s Petersburg,and perhaps a short distance from Umberto Eco‘s Foucault’s Pendulum, if only because they both involve small, quirky publishing houses.

In writing news, I didn’t accomplish much this past week due to the aforementioned sick day and the associated disruption to my schedule and routine. Perhaps next week will be a little more stable.

That’s it for now. Unless something extravagant happens in the next ten days, this may be the first month in a very long time where I read more books than I acquired. A few more decades of that and I might get to the point where have read every book I own.

February Ordinary

John Winkelman

Poe and Pepper Napping

Nothing new arrived at the house this past week, so here is a photo of Poe and Pepper, napping the afternoon away.

Maybe it’s the two new years happening only five weeks apart, but it does seem that there is more energy in the air than usual for late winter. It could be the recent (very slightly) sunnier and warmer weather, but I feel something akin to how I felt in the beginning of the new semester at college, with a renewed sense of optimism and vigor.

But the powers that be at work also seem to be affected this way, because I have been exceptionally busy since the beginning of the year, and the amount of energy I am putting into my work projects is beginning to pull from my leisure-time reserves.

In reading news, I am over halfway through Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, which is all about how the conflation of unapologetic racism, conservative Christianity and toxic masculinity has created, and still sustains, white evangelicals. Indeed, my copy is now sprinkled with side notes like “gleeful sadism,” “white supremacy,” “rape culture,” and “death cultists.” Though I still have over a hundred pages to go, it is obvious that the main driver behind the white evangelical virus over the past century, and the very reason they support catastrophic failure of a human being Donald Trump, is “daddy issues.”

Oh: and a fair bit of “predatory self-victimization.”

But I may be simplifying thing. A bit. A very tiny bit.

In writing news, this was an editing week so I spent my time reviewing tens of manuscripts in various stages of completion, performing triage where necessary, and making good use of my red pen. Though I experienced a slight lull in energy at the end of January, I am back at full strength and making excellent progress.

February, Quite Contrary

John Winkelman

New arrivals for the week of January 30, 2022

Though I have really only been trapped inside for a couple of months, and the weather has only truly been wintry for a few weeks, I feel the distinct mildewed talons of cabin fever slowly sinking into my soul.

The only reading material to arrive in the past week was the new issue of Poetry Magazine, which I hope to read before the end of the year. I have an idea that, instead of books of poetry, for National Poetry Month (April) I will read all of my unread back issues of Poetry and other literary journals.

In reading news, I finished S.A. Chakraborty‘s Empire of Gold, and it was fantastic! Definitely one of the best genre fiction reads of the past few years.

Having finished reading a six book run of fantasy and science fiction, I just picked up Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes De Mez. Though I am barely through the introduction I can already see that this will be quite an informative and infuriating book.

In writing news, I am probably two hundred words from the end of the short story I have been working on for the past four months, and at over 7,000 words, it either needs to be trimmed by a couple of thousand, or turned into a novel. Or maybe both. Then the 7,000 word version can be the Director’s Cut.

That’s it for literary news for the week. Next week is Editing Week for the month, so I expect to find myself awash in heavily marked up piles of paper for a few days. Assuming I can keep up the momentum.

January 2022 Reading List

John Winkelman

Books I read in January 2022

January was a pretty good month for reading. I finished three genre novels, following the three I read at the end of 2021. Having my head in this space feels really good, and I find that my own writing is easier, and occasionally improved, by focusing on genre works for extended periods of time.

The down-side is that I spent so much time reading these books (and the ones which I did not finish by the end of the month) that I completely neglected to read any short prose other than news articles and blog posts.

Books

  1. Roanhorse, Rebecca, Black Sun (2022.01.06) – I really liked this book. Until now I had not read a fantasy story – or indeed any fiction at all, that I recall, that was centered in pre-colonial America. The characters are vivid and immediately interesting, the descriptions are both grand and intimate. Roanhorse writes very well and I look forward to reading the sequel, Fevered Star.
  2. Muir, Tamsyn, Harrow the Ninth (2022.01.18) – I loved this book! Harrow was as good a read as its predecessor Gideon the Ninth. It was a little slower-paced, but this was mostly due to the density of the world building and depth of characterizations. Muir is very good at exploring the mental and emotional states of her characters, and shows distinct empathy toward even the least sympathetic of the necromancers in this story. I definitely would not want to live in the universe of the Locked Tomb, but it is a fun place to visit on occasion.
  3. Mandel, Emily St. John, Station Eleven (2022.01.20) – I finished the Subterranean Press edition of Station Eleven while camped out in a hotel room the night before the 2022 ConFusion Science Fiction Convention. To read a story of the survivors of a pandemic touring the Great Lakes, while waiting for the start of a conference taking place in Michigan the middle of a pandemic, put my mind in an interesting place. Mandel writes beautifully. Her characters are well-defined and consistent, and the story immediately pulled me in. Moments of sharp clarity are mixed with hints of the state of the larger world, and the pages are full of the wonder and terror of living in a time when over 99% of humanity has suddenly died. Highly recommended.