Margaret's Nearly Monthly News - September 2024
Los Angeles weather, films that celebrate the end of summer, and my readings in a very specific post-apocalyptic sub-genre
Having grown up on the East Coast, all of my instincts tell me that once the calendar says "September" the weather should be cooling off, and it's time to look for signs of fall. This belief persists in spite of the fact that I have lived in Los Angeles for two decades, where the first two weeks of September are historically the two hottest weeks of the year.
(In fairness, I did not learn that particular fun fact until this year. Next year, no excuse for surprise when we kick off September with another heat wave.)
But enough about the weather. On to the news!
From my Desk
I've got a couple new projects simmering, but, alas, nothing yet ready for public consumption. So, since we're on the cusp of spooky season, let me direct your gaze toward The Deadlands, a magazine full stories, poems and non-fiction all about death and what lies beyond it.
It's a great little publication that deserves more attention, something I would say even if they hadn't published two of my stories.
What I’m Reading and Watching
In a fitting tribute to the end of summer, there are two excellent "last month of summer" movies currently in American theaters. The first is DiDi, about a Taiwanese-American kid in Southern California learning how to skate, how to film, and how to kiss (not to mention how to navigate his family) before he begins high school and his older sister leaves to college.
In a way, My Old Ass, tells the sister's story. Except Elliot is a white girl in rural Canada who’s desperate to leave the family cranberry farm for college in Toronto, when she meets a mushroom-trip-fueled thirty-nine year old version of herself who is reluctant to hand out advice, with one exception: "Avoid Chad." (If that’s not enough to hook you, My Old Ass also contains my favorite surprise musical interlude since D.E.B.S.)
On the book front, I mentioned last month I was reading Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower, which I followed up with its sequel, The Parable of the Talents, which both continues and reframes the story of the first.
But in an odd bit of synergy, I then decided it was time to finish reading Meg Elison's Road to Nowhere trilogy. I picked up the full series on sale when I was still only partway through The Book of the Unnamed Midwife because I already knew I was going to want to read them all. That said, the series is not exactly a light read, and I’ve been parceling it out. Somehow, it didn't occur to me until I started reading The Book of Flora that I was continuing my American-post-apocalyptic-fiction-told-through-journals-of-women-on-the-road binge.
It's a tribute to both Butler's and Elison's clear-eyed observations of the human condition and mastery of their craft that the two series both feel grounded in broadly similar worlds, and also remain fresh and different.
From the Cutting Room Floor of the Duolingo Dystopia
Well, I didn’t, so I’m not in any position to twist your arm, Lin. You do you.
And That’s the Nearly Monthly News!
Comments? Questions? Would you like to talk about your work in progress? Got evidence of fall that can give hope to the rest of us? Drop me a line! Otherwise, I'll be here sweltering. See you next month!