Friday Favorites

I am a voracious reader and every week I come across either a book, online piece or website I want to share with others. I’ve decided to curate these gems and highlight them on Friday. I hope you find these faves as insightful as I do.

  • Dina Relles’s words often push me to think and reflect. Her lyricism and imagery is powerful and lingers days after I read her work. I urge you to read her latest, Quiet. This musing is one I won’t likely forget. You won’t either. 
  • I loved reading these beautiful and wise words in Literary Mama about competition and community by the lovely Andrea Jarrell. This in particular resonated with me: “Social media makes it easy to compare one’s insides to others’ outsides. Easy to tally another writer’s publication credits and awards. Easy to think that beautiful family viewed through the screen is gliding through life. The irony is such thinking – driven by a thirst for a bigger life – actually contracts one’s possibilities.”
  • If you enjoy short stories, this piece by my good friend, Windy Lynn Harris is a must read. “A Town Built on Salt” debuted in Crack the Spine literary journal earlier this year. 
  • Dana Schwartz’s piece, Creating Despite the Odds, is an essay I will return to again and again in the future. She points out the difficulty in the writing life and the fact that there are no guarantees. But there is this:  “We can’t all win big prizes or sell millions of books, but we can make the decision not to quit, even when commercial failure is a possibility. We can continue to create art because it feeds our soul. Because of the wisdom and magic it offers.” 

 

What are some of your reading faves this week?