Hello friends,

(And I mean that! Last year I culled this list to people I know in some way, so we are all friends here. Unless you’re a secret enemy who I think is a friend, in that case hello as well.)

The last time I wrote to you, the inaugural Post Day was getting ready to happen on February 14th. It happened! And it was so much fun. icymi, you can still sign up and receive the celebratory gifts until I announce the official date for the next Post Day. That announcement probably won’t happen for a few weeks, so you have time.

My goal is to celebrate the next Post Day by the end of the summer. In the process of creating the celebratory gifts for it, I’ve started owning this long-latent desire in me to be a writer. Not only a writer of personal essays or of topics that establish expertise, but someone who takes writing seriously as their vocation. Someone who writes because they have something otherwise unsayable to say.

I don’t know that I’ve adopted that mindset completely yet, but I have begun to. I’ve started to write a few stories, even some poetry. I’m bad at it so far, at least as far as I can tell. Non-fiction, personal essay type writing comes much more easily (because I’ve had much more practice!). But there is something in me that needs to do this, and I’m following it. (You will get to see some of it on the next Post Day, if you choose to participate!)

When I was a kid, there used to be this Casey at the Bat cartoon where Casey was swinging ten bats so that he could swing the one bat really, really well. A funny thing has happened to me while I’ve been practicing fiction (which feels like swinging ten bats to me)—I have found that other types of writing feel like swinging just one bat. This is, frankly, a miracle. I’ve always written loads and loads of words every day, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more afraid of writing anything I might actually publish. Which is a problem I’ve known I’d need to solve if I was ever to consider writing my vocation.

Again, I don’t know if I’ve solved this problem entirely, but I have begun to. And I want to share that with you.

I’ve started writing letters to books I have loved. I have also started talking to my books on Twitter and pretending they talk back. It is a kind of writing that is both entertaining and fulfilling to me, helping me to leave a small monument to books I have read and deeply appreciated. And it is hopefully useful to you, since it’s not a “book review” kind of thing, but more of an eager recommendation from a friend that gives you enough information to decide whether it’s a book you would enjoy, and not more than that. While hopefully entertaining you in its own right (though, as it should be, the books I’m writing to and about are much better than anything anyone could say about them!)

If you’re a book lover like me, I hope you enjoy meeting some new beautiful books!

Until next time,

Sarah Avenir