June 29 - July 5 Book Buddy Happenings
Book Buddies:
Hi hi hi! How’s it all going? Tell me your writing plans!
A of all: the next book club is coming right up! We’ll meet again to talk craft on July 6, Monday, at 7pm. We’re reading Heart the Lover by Lily King. Here is the publisher’s write up about it:
“You knew I’d write a book about you someday.
Our narrator understands good love stories—their secrets and subtext, their highs and their free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the simple rules.
In the fall of her senior year of college, she meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living off-campus in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. Youthful passion is unpredictable though, and she soon finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever.
Decades later, Jordan is living the life she dreamed of, and the vulnerable days of her youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news bring the past crashing into the present, Jordan returns to a world she left behind and is forced to confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self.
Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving story that celebrates love, friendship, and the transformative nature of forgiveness. Wise, unforgettable, and with a delightful connective thread to Writers & Lovers, this is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.”
See you there!
Mark Your Calendars! Summer Book Buddy Weekend is BOOKED!
Last year in August we had a lovely weekend extravaganza here in Easthampton starting with a daylong retreat on a Saturday then we gathered at Nonotuck Park for a little party on Sunday. Good news! We’re doing it again! I’ve just booked our usual retreat space for Saturday August 8th! Remember, you get a discount using the BOOKBUDDY10 code upon check out (10%), and if you’re itching to register early you can do so using this link.
E-vite for August 9 celebration are forthcoming! I cannot wait.
If you hope to come that weekend and are traveling from outside of western MA, let me know! I might be able to help you find lodging.
Feedback Group Submission Schedules!
IRL Group Wednesdays @ beautyland 6:30-8:30: The next meeting is July 8, when Chris will be joining us again! Johanna and Rich have floor time. Let’s try to get pages in by Sunday July 5!
Noon Crew Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: The next meeting is July 9 and Sara is up with pages due on July 2.
Weirdlings Wednesdays 12pm - 1:30: We’ll meet again on July 8 and Erika has floor time assuming it works out with work schedule. If not, who wants that open slot? Dana? Ed? Pages due on July 1!
Kool Kids Thursdays at 7pm - 8:30: Our next meeting is July 2. Since folks scheduled for floor time this go around can’t do it, let’s do a POV intensive sesh this go around and get back on schedule late July.
OG Crew Thursdays at 7:30pm - 9: The next meeting is July 9 and Kristina and Garth are up. Pages due on the 2nd!
Saturday besties 12:30pm - 2: The next meeting is supposed to be July 4, but we’re bumping to July 11. TBD. But when we do meet Nora and Ali have floor time, pages a few days before. Ali we can use the pages you recently sent if you want!
Gen Writing Prompt!
June 30 and July 4, 2026
Baby you’re a firework
Katy Perry - Firework (Official Music Video)
BBs. We’re gonna write together the morning of the 4th, so how could I resist an independence day themed prompt.
We’re going short and sweet this time. Write whatever you, revise whatever you want, BUT if you’re using the prompt, there has got to be some fireworks literally and figuratively in whatever you work on today. Could be:
Fireworks that get lit up in the sky
fireworks that get stolen from somewhere
Unlit fireworks being stashed somewhere
fireworks being planned by a town or a party planner
Fireworks between two people in love, but you gotta name them as fireworks in at least one place
Fireworks between two people enraged with each other, but you gotta name them as fireworks in at least one place
Fireworks as a result of war
Fireworks that accidentally get set off indoors
Photographs or video or a drawing of fireworks
Something that looks a lot like fireworks but isn’t
Your bestie -
Kate
