Book Buddies! I hope you’re all doing well. Here’s what’s up this week!
The next book club is October 26 7pm - 8:30pm EST with Natalie Lemle as a guest! NEXT WEEK!
We’ll discuss her book, Artifacts! Here’s the publishers’s blurb:
One of The New York Times's Sizzling New Summer Thrillers: “Even now, Lena might be in danger from some of the unscrupulous characters she met all those years ago. Can she put her history behind her?”
For fans of The Cloisters and Counterfeit, Natalie Lemle’s debut novel offers an insider’s view into the world of stolen artifacts and the hidden networks that link museums to organized crime, when a woman is forced to remember the summer she spent on an archaeological dig in Italy, as everyone she knew then may now be in danger.
Successful trusts and estates attorney Lena Connolly is asked by a colleague to assist on a case: the Italian government claims an artifact was looted and sold to a museum illegally and is seeking repatriation. The object in question is a cup made of dichroic glass, which would have been rare even in Ancient Rome, let alone thousands of years later.
Lena has done everything she can to put the study abroad summer she spent on an archaeological dig in the Italian Alps behind her. Her dreams of being an archaeologist shattered when her mentor Cyrille disappeared and her enigmatic boyfriend Giamma went dark, but with this new case, the past comes roaring back.
Told in alternating timelines, Artifacts follows young Lena as she falls in love with both archaeology and Giamma on the streets of Torino while her adult self pieces together what truly happened on the dig, now a fully restored Roman villa with World Heritage status. The dichroic cup, Lena discovers, may have been taken from the very site she helped unearth.
Powerful and exuberant, Natalie Lemle’s Artifacts brings readers behind the museum glass and asks questions about cultural heritage and the historical preservation of our shared sense of humanity.
Book Buddy Accolades!
No surprises, but you all are killing it out there with your projects. Here’s a list of some recent accomplishments!
Casey Liston's story "Lilith" is forthcoming in All This Beauty: An Anthology of Contemporary Florida Writers, out March 2027. Preorder your copy here! PLUS her flash fiction story Pride and Provenance was nominated for the Best Small Fictions contest by South 85 Journal.
Rebecca Tiger’s story Anosmia (https://hotflashliterary.com/anosmia/) was nominated Best Small Fictions 2027. Her collection “Blood and Guts” is forthcoming with Cowboy Jamboree Press is March 2027. AND her story Smalltown Girl was recently published with Ghost Parachute. https://ghostparachute.com/issue/september-2026-issue/smalltown-girl/. Way to slay Rebecca!
Tell me what you’re up to so I can celebrate you here!
Feedback Group Submission Schedules!
IRL Group Wednesdays @ beautyland 6:30-8:30: The next meeting is October 28 and Rich and Aimee have the floor then. Pages due the 24th.
Noon Crew Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: The next meeting is October 22, and Sara will have the floor with pages are in. Karen will be joining us this meeting so we will set the schedule together. Allie will have one of the floor time slots for next meeting!
Weirdlings Wednesdays 12pm - 1:30: Erika will have the floor for our October 28 meeting. Pages due 10/21ish. Sumana will join us!
Kool Kids Thursdays at 7pm - 8:30: Our next meeting is October 22 and Hilary is up next. Pages are in.
OG Crew Thursdays at 7:30pm - 9: The next meeting is October 29. Danae and Garth have the floor with pages due on the 22nd.
Saturday besties 12:30pm - 2: The next meeting is October 24. Morgan has floor time, pages due by the 20th if possible! Helen, you can have a slot if you want it, just let me know!
Gen Writing Prompt
October 20 and 21, 2026
Music!
I love making prompts out of other mediums, so today let’s see what we can do with using songs as inspiration. You can choose your own song or I will offer three songs with lyrics below if you want to work with those instead of spending time thinking one up.
Here are some ways you could work with music:
Generate something new:
Use a verse of the song or some other chunk of the lyrics as an opening line or otherwise integrate the text into your text
Begin a story or essay with someone hearing this song and let that inform the mood
Write a scene in which the song is playing in the background and is also important to the plot or inner life of the character at that moment
Working with something you’re revising:
Put a character in relationship to the song somehow. Maybe they are at an event and it comes on and it changes their perspective, maybe they perform the song somewhere, maybe they listen to it in the car and that can start a scene...
Integrate the lyrics into a scene you’re having trouble working out
Think about what the song is getting at thematically and let that help you understand the story as a whole.
Songs:
“Liberty Tree” Phoebe Bridgers: Phoebe Bridgers - Liberty Tree (Official Lyric Video)
“About You” The 1975: The 1975 - About You (Official)
“Sorrow” The National: Sorrow
Liberty Tree Lyrics:
Liberty Tree Mall
In the photobooth
This place is dying
We don't care if we're living proof
I'm sticking out my tongue
And lifting up my shirt
Not getting any younger, honey
But if we don't try, how can we be sure?
You were made in the image of God
But you look like your mom
In this picture of us
Falling in love that night
After our fight
And the past is looking brighter all the time
I'm running through the airport
Still putting on my shoes
Not feeling any better
I got too much money and nothing to lose
I was alone with my thoughts
In an outline of chalk
Flying close to the sun with my sunglasses on
Don't die, Bobby
Before I die
It feels so good to have you in my life
About You Lyrics:
I know a place
It's somewhere I go when I need to remember your face
We get married in our heads
Something to do while we try to recall how we met
Do you think I have forgotten?
Do you think I have forgotten?
Do you think I have forgotten about you?
You and I
Were alive
With nothing to do I could lay and just look in your eyes
Wait and pretend
Hold on and hope that we'll find our way back in the end
Do you think I have forgotten?
Do you think I have forgotten?
Do you think I have forgotten about you?
Do you think I have forgotten?
Do you think I have forgotten?
Do you think I have forgotten about you?
There was something about you that now I can't remember
It's the same damn thing that made my heart surrender
And I'll miss you on a train
I'll miss you in the morning
I never know what to think about, so think about you
(I think about you)
About you
Do you think I have forgotten about you?
About you
About you
Do you think I have forgotten about you?
Sorrow Lyrics:
Sorrow found me when I was young
Sorrow waited, sorrow won
Sorrow, they put me on the pill
It's in my honey, it's in my milk
Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water
Cover me in rag and bone sympathy
'Cause I don't wanna get over you
I don't wanna get over you
Sorrow's my body on the waves
Sorrow's a girl inside my cake
I live in a city sorrow built
It's in my honey, it's in my milk
Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water
Cover me in rag and bone sympathy
'Cause I don't wanna get over you
I don't wanna get over you
Don't leave my hyper heart alone on the water
Cover me in rag and bone sympathy
'Cause I don't wanna get over you
I don't wanna get over you
