I hope you've had a good week, and are finding ways to keep yourself buoyant in these short, dark days if you live toward the north as I do. One highlight of December for me has been a daily poem in my inbox from Annie Rutherford's Poetry Advent Calendar. With a donation to Médecins Sans Frontières I was able to sign up a few of my colleagues and it's nice to know we're each starting our day with the same words whether we run into each other and discuss later or not.

Here's what we shared on the website this week:

Stalwart reviewer Brian O'Neill wrote about What We Might Become by Sara Reish Desmond (Cornerstone Press). It's alway great to share Brian's work.

And on Tuesday we shared "What About Fiction:" A Conversation between Susan Tepper and Corey Mesler, who graciously let us listen in on their longtime literary friendship.

Then our featured story for the week, second in our "Hunger" themed month, was "Sayonara LA" by Nina-Marie Gardner. We're honored to share Nina-Marie's writing for the first time, after sharing Michelle Bailat-Jones' review of her novel Sherry & Narcotics back in 2011.

If this email reaches you early enough today, you might join an online reading in celebration of the anthology Beacon Radiant in which contributor Catherine Gammon will participate. Here's a link for registration. 

Finally, I asked last week about the books you're reading or recommending to others this season, and Abigail Oswald wrote to say this:

Two 2024 books I'd highly recommend to other writers: Sofia Samatar's Opacities, an intimate portrait of writer's life that deftly explores the differences between writing and publishing, + Stacey D'Erasmo's The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry, a book-length answer to the question, "How do we keep making art?"

Thanks Abby, and I look forward to hearing from more of you. Our editors will share their own recommended reading on Monday.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

Steve Himmer