July 20-26 BB Updates!
Hi Book buddies! I am home from the cape, and back in action. Thanks again to Garth for taking over on Tuesday! I hope you all had a fun time together. I missed you!
Book club for Heart the Lover was so much fun! The next one is August 17 (Monday) at 7pm. We’re reading Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. Here’s the publisher’s blurb about it:
“Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, a novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be good, from the award-winning author of The Weekend and The Natural Way of Things.
Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She doesn’t believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.
But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signaling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.
Meditative, moving, and finely observed, Stone Yard Devotional is a seminal novel from a writer of rare power, exploring what it means to retreat from the world, the true nature of forgiveness, and the sustained effect of grief on the human soul.”
I really hope to see you there!
BOOK BUDDY WEEKEND IS HAPPENING!
And soon! Just two and half weeks to go! Our August Book Buddies IRL party invitations have gone out. Please RSVP when you can if you haven’t already! https://book-buddies-2026-summer-party-41828.minted.us/
You can register for the August 8 retreat using this link. BOOKBUDDY10 is the code that gets you 10% off!
Feedback Group Submission Schedules!
IRL Group Wednesdays @ beautyland 6:30-8:30: The next meeting is July 22, when Chris will be joining us again! Margo and Aimee have pages they’ve promised to send later today. The meeting after that is August 5. Chris and Paul have floor time with pages due on July 31 or sometime that weekend.
Noon Crew Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: The next meeting is July 23 and Jill has floor time and pages are already in. Remember we’re meeting in person at Mosaic Cafe in Northampton! We meet again on August 6, and the floor time goes to Ezra on this one, I’m pretty sure? Pages would be due July 30!
Weirdlings Wednesdays 12pm - 1:30: We’ll meet again on July 22! Ed has the floor, pages are in. Dana has the next floor time slot for our August 5.
Kool Kids Thursdays at 7pm - 8:30: Our next meeting is July 24! Morgan and Elli have floor time. Morgan’s pages are in, Elli’s are coming soon! The following meeting is coming right up afterwards - we rescheduled b/c of my trip - so we meet again on July 30. Let’s discuss the schedule when we’re together!
OG Crew Thursdays at 7:30pm - 9: The next meeting is July 23 and Maia and Danae have the floor. Maia’s questions are already in, Danae’s pages are co,ing soon!
Saturday besties 12:30pm - 2: The next meeting is August 1! Georgia and Nora have the floor. Pages due July 25ish.
Gen Writing Prompt for this Week
July 21 and 25, 2026
Islands
I spent last week on Martha’s Vinyard, and was thinking a lot about how strange it feels to be on an island with I was there. The quality of the wind is different. The landscape was just as I know it to be all across MA, but a little off, a little weird. I couldn’t say how. You can find the ocean in all directions. You can’t predict the price of things, really, because they have to cross a huge body of water to get to you. Then there’s the socio-economic vibes, which, I think on an island are a little more just out there on display so there’s some setting building opportunity to be had in this kind of environment that you don’t necessarily have access to when the writing takes place on a land locked or even peninsular place.
Let’s try. Begin a new piece that takes place on an island. Here are some directions you could take:
Roll with the classic desert island story. Think Lost, our old buddy Gilligan, Robinson Crusoe, that Tom Hanks movie with the volleyball friend....Castaway?
A couple or a group of people vacations on an island
Borrow from The White Lotus by creating a story about either the folks who work at a very expensive resort on an island or tourists who attend one
Work with a longstanding Island community that is facing some sort of seismic change
Center the story on a character who exists on an emotional island —- someone who feels alone, isolated, remote either emotionally or physically or both
You all are the best buds around, no question.
Your bestie for life -
kate
