Monthly Newsletter, Dancing on the Ashes for April

Dear Fetching and Insightful Readers,

The end of April is here. I had this whole opening monologue planned wherein I would make fun of myself for taking on new projects and making myself so busy that I’m avoiding the pandemic outside my door by risking a stress-induced heart attack indoors. But you know what? This month has been rough for a lot of folks, far rougher for many than it has been for me. So let’s just skip to the good stuff, shall we? 

Lotsa’ Good Stuff:

Kate Ristau’s Shadow Queene, the sequel to Shadow Girl, launched on Tuesday, and Kate did a bunch of cool online events. That was a great day for me, a milestone for Not a Pipe Publishing (25 books in print!), and an even better day for all the folks getting their copies of her great novel.

William Schreiber’s Someone to Watch Over, will have its cover reveal and pre-order announcement on the 4th of May. Excited for that launch. It’s a wonderful story about family and redemption which gets lumped into the unfortunately named category “Women’s Fiction.” Sorry, dudes, but women read more fiction in just about every genre; it’s all “Women’s Fiction.” But then, calling Bill’s book “Literary Fiction” tells you next to nothing about it, either. We need better descriptors.

Claudine Griggs’ Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, an LGBTQ Thriller (see, that actually tells you something!) will have its cover reveal during May and launch on June 1st, the first day of Pride Month. Keep an eye out for that one; it may force you to ask yourself some uncomfortable questions about how far you would go to fight for what’s right.

In addition to these other author’s books, I have been working on my own. For those of you who dared to defy the title of Don’t Read This Book and have been clamoring for the sequel … yes, for both of you ... I’m about nine chapters in and making good progress. But I also started a different novel I’m writing simultaneously. “Why would someone do that?” you ask. Because my girlfriend, Sandra, really wants to read more of my writing, and I’m not used that in a relationship, so I want to keep her wanting more. I’m thinking I’ll release this other novel as a serial if you all like it. It’s about a guy stuck in a room during a quarantine, only his room is in a spaceship traveling from Earth to Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn … and then it turns out the situation is even more dire than he thought. Sound like something you might like? Check it out HERE and let me know if you want more!

[Working Title] Ellipsis Between Worlds, Chapter 1

Tweet from someone you should consider following

One of my favorite people on twitter is Jamelle Bouie. I’ve admired his writing and thinking since he was on Slate and a frequent guest on The Slate Political Gabfest. Now he’s at the New York Times and on CBS. I feel like I almost know him personally. He’s into cooking (not my thing), photography (I admire it but am not good at it), and comic books (so with him on that), but mostly I appreciate his incisive political commentary and eye for important and illuminating stories. Give him a follow. 

Racism is a system for the distribution of personhood. To be white is to presumptively be a person, to be black is to presumptively be a non-person. https://t.co/3uNnzGSsCK

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) April 28, 2020

Monthly Poem

No long introduction is necessary for this month’s poem. You’ll be able to guess what inspired it.

Little Bird

Sometimes

Do even the smallest birds

while chirping their way through

a sun-dappled

cloud-splattered dawn

greeting their neighbors

and flitting about

looking for worms or seeds

just doing their daily chores

fix their wings out stiffly

and glide in a fast arc downwards

that swoops up

so they are perfect models

of the freedom of flight

and think to themselves

"Damn I'm cool!"?

Or is that the point of 

millions of years of evolution

to make creatures 

who can stand beneath them

watch their perfect shapes

silhouetted against the sky

to learn we are lesser

lower

than their simple greatness?

Book recommendation

The most powerful book I read this month was Roxanne Gay’s An Untamed State, but it is so brutal, I’m not sure I’d recommend reading it during a global pandemic. Want to cry? Then grab a copy. I tweeted about how much I admired it, and Roxanne Gay replied! That was a high point of the month, certainly. 

Announcements/reminders

Last month I encouraged you to sign up for our Writing Against the Darkness Team. On the longest day of the year, June 20th, we’re going to participate in The Alzheimer’s Associations annual The Longest Day fundraiser by writing from dawn to dusk. Well, we might not be getting together in person this year, but this is the perfect opportunity to do some good for the world from home, and doing good is a great way to maintain your own mental health, so please consider it. Find out more and sign up HERE.

Sign off

I hope this finds you physically and mentally well and weathering this storm as best you can. I’ll keep sending you flowers every day (digitally, through Instagram and twitter and FB) to try to bring some added beauty into your life. Take care!

-Ben

Sponsored section

No sponsors yet, so if you have a friend who wants to reach a few hundred of the very best people, tell them to contact me. I think I’ll do the first one free just so folks can see that I really do post them. Got something you want to advertise for free?

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