Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!
On Side Trails, Crossings, and Measurings
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2 Nov 2025 What Happened to 2025?Reader, No, I'm not ready to lament the close of the year and all of the projects still undone. Surprisingly (to myself, anyway), I'm quite optimistic about what I've done and can still complete before 2026 unwraps itself. But I am measuring and recognizing that some personal developments may slow down a few things. I'm just going to drop these here, though, so you can see what to expect and to hold me accountable, okay?
That's Waywords Studio stuff. Beyond this, I'll be continuing my personal work and reading and offer my thoughts along the way.
Put simply, days are filled! (And I still have to pick up the leaves.) P.S. I'm thinking of attending the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) in Baltimore in March. Has anyone attended? Know anybody who has? Would like to get a sense of the value and culture before I decide!
Leaving this here one more time, since I have a whole batch of new readers! Welcome! Frictional Reading Last Call for Early WorkA final call to get in on the early sides of my next book, exploring my approach to comprehension and meaning-making through frictional reading. I'll be contacting volunteers shortly, so now is a good time to express your interest! More at the link!
Literary Nomads: A Horrifying Side TrailSometimes I surprise myself in where a trail takes me. This happened over the past few weeks when I thought, "Hey, Halloween is a Friday and the podcast will drop on it. I wonder what I can do." Since we've been talking a bit about fantasy as genre and I thought I could jump over to horror as genre, it seemed simple enough to play a bit with one of the founders of short fiction in horror, old E. A. Poe. So, heck, why not just do a reading of the classic "Tell-Tale Heart"? Done. Oh, but then . . . Most fans of Poe love his short fiction and poetry, perhaps know a bit about his life (whether or not they have accepted the false stories spread about him), but they've done little else. And for me, when reading "TTH" again, it fell close--even uncomfortably close--to what we've been talking about with Le Guin: the act of cruelty against the undeserving and innocent. And then I read (for the first time) his "The Imp of the Perverse" (another reading I dropped on Halloween). And then some more of his own thinking about literature. And then . . . So here we are, taking a few weeks to go down a kind of 'side trail' for Le Guin and the Suffering Child, but not really so 'side' at all. I'm revising the schedule again, but I think in some worthwhile ways. Episodes ahead:
And, despite the heady stuff of Cavarero and Bataille, I think it will well-demonstrate my thinking on the episodes which follow on the question of politics and art. Yup, Journey 6 is getting every bit as complicated as I anticipated, and I still haven't taken on a dozen or more titles on the list! But this is what we do, we follow threads and thoughts where they lead. Yes, completing the Arendt project has fed my thinking, but this too is what we do, allow our learning to inform our meaning-making. And By the Way . . .Now that the Intro episodes to the podcast are in place, if you've missed them (nine "hot takes" on Frost's "The Road Not Taken"), bounce over to the podcast page and give one (or all three!) a listen! Have a question or comment about what we're talking about? Use that mailbag and let me know!
FINISHING UP ARENDT: Ch. 12 - Totalitarianism in Power That beast of a Chapter 12, some 90 pages long, is finally coming together and the video will drop either later today or early this week. The remainder will follow in short succession to complete The Origins of Totalitarianism project before Thanksgiving:
After that, I will be releasing the complete Reading Guide, every chapter summarized section by section with key quotations and brief commentary, about 75+ pages of material. It will definitely be worth surveying or adding to your digital library, and I've designed it to be a perfect source for AI tools like Notebook LM. This will be free to newsletter subscribers and at a low price download on the website. But I've enjoyed the read and project so much that I'm looking towards future projects of larger non-fiction works which might be helpful or relevant to Waywords followers. What sorts of subjects or titles would you like to see?
It's a good time to catch up and take in the whole series!
How do I catch up on the chapter videos?
Calendar: Writing, Reading, Learning Make it a point to read more indigenous literature!
Mark Z. Danielewski: Tom's CrossingIf you know Danielewski (very likely and importantly, House of Leaves), then you don't need me to tell you how exciting it is this new book has arrived. But if by chance you have steered away from his enormous and convoluted literary horror, then let me say only that this newest work is more literary adventure than frights. I'm slaveringly eager to read it, but fear that it will consume every morsel of time I typically reserve for tasks like eating and sleeping. The LA Times hates it, so that's a good sign, and they compared it to the excesses of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, which is a better one. Joyce meets Pynchon meets Alan Moore? I don't know, but there's over 1200 pages of it to find out. Quick Tom's Crossing book club, anyone? "I’m old-fashioned, I guess. I still love the smell of paint on canvas. Cal Carneros was thinkin of those paintins in Chamber Five in the Time Gallery. Sure, maybe the colors had dimmed some and some of the artist’s names had fled from recollection, but there’d still been some dang fine pieces, fine enuf to remain dangerously volatile in his memory and imagination. He’d never forget the violence, the loss, the grandeur, the bloodshed, the absurdity, the stupidity, the unexpurgated repetitions of History."
Helping some thousand high school students stage a debate on the fast fashion industry in mid-November. What a mess of a business operation for the Global South and for our planet! (Perhaps because I too often wear old-man jeans, I just will never get it. Thankful.) Steve What's Still Ahead?
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Waywords Studio
Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!