Week of 12/7 - 12/13
Book Buds:
It’s December. I can’t even believe it. The winter doldrums have arrived. From now til April it’s couch time as far as I’m concerned. Well, not really, because actually we have a lot of really great stuff going on next week that I think will give us a little joy zap.
Here’s what’s up:
The Next in Person Retreat is a Go!:
Come hang. Retreat is January 10 at Cityspace in Easthampton as usual. This time I’m going 10-5 instead of 6. I think til 6 is sort of a long day. Book Buddies get a 10% off discount using the code BOOKBUDDY10 at checkout. You can add a half hour coaching session to the mix for $50 (make sure you do that at checkout as well). You can also come for a half day - 3 hours, for $55.
Link for full day registration is here.
Beautyland Salon is Sunday 12/7!
My studio-mate, Candace Clement of the bands All Feels and Bunny’s a Swine (the latter is also my husby’s band) are hosting an art salon featuring readers and musicians playing quiet sets all day from 11-5pm during Cottage Street Studios Open Studio weekend in Easthampton (this event is only for Sunday). Rachel Teferet Rosen Carroll, Elizabeth Bayou-Grace Seiler, Chris Geier, and Aimee Lundon are readers; and the some Book Buddy spouses are also in the music line-up. If you’re local and looking for something to do, drop by at any time during the day. Elizabeth is reading at 11, Aimee is reading at 1, Rachel is reading at 2, and Chris is reading at 3. Open studios is always a blast. Not only will you get to see our little salon, but you can tour the whole building/visit all the other artists and maybe buy some Christmas gifts while you’re at it :) Address is 1 Cottage Street, but GPS responds better to 15 Cottage Street. Directions from downtown Easthampton: At the bike trail and 7/11 on Union Street turn onto Liberty Street. When you see the green house and sign for Cottage Street Studios/Evolved gym take a right. Go straight until you see a little bridge on your left, drive over it and it will dump you out into a big parking lot. Turn right into it and drive all the way to the edge and park. Enter the building. Take the elevator to the 4th floor. We are studio number 420.
Book Club is Monday 12/8
This month we read All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett who will be joining us for this one! We meet at 7pm EST til 8:30pm on zoom. Link is the same as Gen writing, but I will send it the morning of as usual. Come with questions. Here’s her bio:
Emily Everett is an editor and writer from western Massachusetts. Her work appears in The New York Times Modern Love column, The Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and Tin House. She is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Everett grew up on a small family dairy farm, studied English and music at Smith College, and studied abroad for a year at University College London. After graduating, she returned to London to do an M.A. in literature at Queen Mary University of London. She lived and worked in the UK from 2009 to 2013. Everett has been managing editor of The Common, a literary magazine based at Amherst College, since 2016. At The Common, she edits fiction, manages print and online production, and hosts the magazine’s podcast. All That Life Can Afford is her debut novel.
Feedback Group Submission Schedules!
IRL Group Wednesdays @ beautyland 6:30-8:30: Meeting is December 10. Rich and Chris have floor time. Next meeting is the following week, so flagging that unusual schedule here. We meet again on December 17 and Aimee and Genna have the floor.
Noon Crew Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: Next Meeting is December 11 and Ezra has the floor. Jill has pages due December 18 and our next meeting is a weird date to account for Christmas rescheduling, Monday December 22 at noon.
Weirdlings Thursdays 12pm - 1:30: Dana has pages or other instructions for how she wants to use floor time due on December 11th. The next meeting is December 18.
Kool Kids Thursdays at 7pm - 8:30: Susan and Hilary have pages due on December 13 and the next meeting is December 18
OG Crew Thursdays at 7:30pm - 9: Next Meeting December 11. Malavika and Danae have the floor. Remember, we have a new BB - Tom! Be sure to include him when you send pages! We’ll on-board Tom and then adjust the submission schedule when we’re next together.
Saturday besties 12:30pm - 2: Ali and Nora have pages due December 13 and the next meeting is December 20.
12/9 and 12/13 Gen Writing Prompt
Situationships
This week we’ll work with a characters’ general situation as it relates to the people close to them in their lives as prompts. Below I will list a few general circumstances a person might find themselves in within their relationships at work, at home, within family, or within other communities. I’m thinking about this in similar terms to how I would think of settings: description of place tells me what the mood is, often, and so similarly I think description of the circumstances of a characters’ primary relationship(s) can be helpful in the same way.
Try this:
Write a new piece in the genre of your choice that features one the following situations:
Marriage:
One person loved the other more
Both people are out of love but stay for other reasons
An open marriage where only one partner has other partners
The protagonist knows their partner is cheating and is fine with it
The protagonist is cheating and suspects their partner has just figured it out
One person has a secret identity or a second hidden family
One partner is visited by the ghost of the other
Parent/child relationship:
Child or parent has recently gone no contact but one is trying to connect anyway
Child turns out to be a serious violent criminal
Parent turns out to be a serious violent criminal
Parent and child have opposite personalities
Parent and child have the same personality
Parent and child are revealed to not belong to each other biologically
See above suggestions re: ghost visitation
Boss/employee:
Employee thinks their boss is an idiot
Boss thinks employee is an idiot but can’t fire them
One is stealing from the other
An affair
Employee discovers a secret of the boss’s
Employee is staging a corporate coup
Other Stuff:
Got a success story? (publication, residency admittance, did you finish a draft of something that took half your lifetime to do?) Email me to tell me about it (include links where applicable) and I’ll post it here and on Substack.
Need Gift Ideas?
A short term book buddy membership could be a great Christmas gift for the writer in your life who already has too many notebooks. I designed some giftable packages in case you wanna hop on that band wagon. Here they are:
Three Months of Book Buddies Standard (Gen writing +feedback group): $500
Three Months of Book Buddies Basic (Gen Writing only): $350
One month of Gen Writing: $125
Seat in January 10 Retreat: $100/$150 with coaching sesh
Want a Book Buddy T-shirt or sweatshirt? Look out for an email later this week about Book Buddy merch!
That’s all for now, folks.
Keep writing. It will cure wha ails you.
Your bestie -
Kate
