Reading Report - September 2026
Finding balance, finding voice, finding community.
Hi friends, I'm running a bit behind this week due to some travel and upcoming events. If anyone will be at NYC ComicCon next weekend, I'll be helping Lancelot Schaubert at his booth in the Author's Alley, Friday-Sunday. Come say hi if you're going to be there? I'm looking forward to it but expecting to be exhuasted. More to come and another review will be up next. Happy Writing! ~EM
Year of Joy
There are several blogs and catalogs I read just for their distinctive voices, and I recently learned that one of them is no more. The J. Peterman's catalog has the most distinctive voice, seductive, confident. It's telling a story with copywriting and I wish I had the talent to mimic it for a short story.
R.I.P. J. Peterman's - You can read their distinctive voice on the webarchive.
"Thos. Jefferson disliked stuffy people, stuffy houses, stuffy societies. So he changed a few things. Law. Gardening. Government. Architecture. Of the thousand castles, mansions, chateaux you can walk through today, only Monticello, only Jefferson's own mansion, makes you feel so comfortable you want to live in it. I think you will feel the same about his 18th-century shirt. Classic. Simple. Livable." — The J. Peterman Shirt 6 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Peterman_Company#cite_note-6)
ForScale - Home decor as resistance, as an antitdote to opression. I've recommended them before and I'll do it again. I've attempted to recreate their style here, but you should really read the entire article: Dissecting home-as-a-service
Five Little Ideas
- Virginia Woolf-ian “ROOM” (… of one’s own), a private space that is the precursor to think for, and be yourself
- our boy Gaston Bachelard, the house as like a f*cking dream fortress: “the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace."
- even HEIDEGGER … what is it to DWELL?!?! HE ASKED. HE ANSWERED: it is obviously not just To Occupy… it’s an emotional, psychological state of being, which is (or addition here:) a fragile one
- spanish bullf*ghting (yuck!), they use the word “QUERENCIA”, taken from querer [to want, to love], it’s the spot in the ring where the bull will back into because that’s where he feels SAFEST. but it’s not real safety, but it’s important SENSE of safety. THAT’S THE HOME, BABY!!!
- bell f*cking hooks!!! the homeplace. the domestic interior is a SITE OF RESISTANCE because those (in her instance, Black people) who are denied full personhood out and about in society can in fact find it AT HOME
Writing and Rest as Community
- Boo Walker - Steven Pressfield Ruined My Life: On Finding Balance as a Creator - in WriterUnboxed
What I’m saying, dear friends, is that you must not let your habit own you. Find the balance. Don’t let Steven Pressfield sink his fangs into you too deeply. Just a lite bite, nothing more. I’m sure he’s a good guy, but he’s a monster, too.
- Jeb Larson - Community and Resistance: The Writing Process as an Antidote to Upheaval - in true.
Instead of making things up or using AI to stretch, torture, and occasionally hallucinate evidence, nonfiction writers sit with evidence, history, and truth and we continue to engage in observable reality. To do so is an act of defiance. It can help us think or become motivated to resist, or maybe it simply wards off despair.
Books I'm Reading
- Dorthea Brande - Becoming a Writer - Review forthcoming, but this is a good one if you are struggling to write right now.
- Jeff Wheeler - Storm Glass & Mirror Gate - a unique and intriguing steam-punk/Victorian setting of floating islands and magic called the "mysteries" and an adopted orphan. Hits a lot of good notes but takes its time through the setting and multiple perspectives.
- Sharon Lee & Steve Miller - Agent of Change - Reread for a few specific scenes (the low gravity dance floor, the alien turtles arriving, the three way shootout). The start to my all time favorite series.
- John Wiswell - The Dragon Has Some Complaints - John's work is always charming, and will always make you think. A Three headed dragon "tricks" the humans into taking him into their dragon-rider school for the free food and healthcare and ends up fighting for them for real. If you need a quick pick-me-up John also has a new short story out "The Last Adult Superstore"
- Glynn Stewart - Keepers of the Flesh - a follow up to the recent Seekers in the Void, where interstellar travel is controlled by a single corporation, preventing interstellar war as long as they control it. I would seriously consider sacrificing a finger or toe to gain Glynn's writing pace and stamina.
