Books! Glorious Books!

The truth is, I don't read as much as I would like to. I mean, I don't read for pleasure as much as I would like to. Even when I have the time to read, I don't. I knit (sometimes). I watch tv (too much really). I bake. January 2015 has been rather good to me as far as finding time to read is concerned. I finsished two books: Team Seven, by Marcus Burke and All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Both were so good I couldn't put them down. I started and finished the Doerr in one day, yesterday in fact. I took it with me on my train ride down to DC and between the round trip train ride (about two hours), and being home alone with the cat, I finished just before midnight.

It felt good to binge read rather than binge watch episodes of a television series.

Up next: A Tale for the Time Being  by Ruth Ozeki. A friend is moderating a discussion between her and Claire Vaye Watkins in a little over a week and both my student and grown folks books club are reading it for February and March respectively. 

2014 was kind of a big year for me.

I stopped blogging. (Though I'm not really sure why.)

I got engaged.

I found purpose through Writers in Baltimore Schools.

I knit an Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi Shawl. Really.

My short story, La Sepoltura was published by Amazon's weekly literary journal, Day One.

I started a reading series called FriendsLit and Porochista Khakpour and Julia Fierro were my first visitors.

I helped organize and lead a Write-In on Ferguson for high school and middle school students. Their poetry was published in both the Washington Post and at www.blackwordsmatter.org.

My friend circle expanded and now feels really, really, complete.

I took two road trips. The first to Iowa City, Iowa in March. The second was to St. Louis, MO in August.

La Sepoltura was anthologized by Day One Year One, Best New Stories and Poems 2014.

It was a pretty good year but I expect 2015 to be even better.