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 Untimely Times and Obvious Absence
|
30 Aug 2026 Reader, Upgrading is not always faster . . .When I made the decision to upgrade my main studio computer, I was optimistic when the tech said he could have my new build inside a single day. Then it was simply a matter of restoring all of my former backups. Ah, that word "simply!" Of course, it was nonsense, but hey, at least my browser is up again and I could respond to emails on a full monitor and even access my newsletter software! (After three weeks.) As for the rest? Mostly, partly, in some undefinable in-between are all the connections and workflows I had set up but were running as if in traction on my old system. Faster now, yes; all the piece reconnected? Not so much. And so thank you for your patience while I continue to update and reconnect (and even improve) my Waywords processes! I've fallen behind in several areas/schedules, but--famously fatal words--I see a path towards "catching up" without overwhelming production. So this newsletter is as much a status report as some fresh stuff! 13 Days of Halloween 2026Bibliographic Horror is this year's theme: horror around books and the communicated idea. And it feels quite fitting, so much so that when I started scouting titles I've found many years worth of tales! What's more, I've found a series of motifs/niche genres beneath the theme: The The Corrupting Text, The Flesh as Text, Spatial Texts, Sentient Journals, Visual Infection, Forbidden Glyphs, and others! I'll be looking at films like In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Late Night with the Devil (2023), A Dark Song (2016), and of course The Ninth Gate (1999). And for readings, I have Borges, Danielewski, Emil Ferris, King, Hawthorne, Eco, and others! A lucrative six weeks ahead! If you have any other bookish horror I should consider, let me know!
“I think that seeing a psychotherapist to talk about my first therapist seems kinda disloyal." Character John Wayne Cleaver, I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016) Literary Nomads: Dark MontgomeryPreviewing the next two episodes, I want to offer us a way into Montgomery's life, a biography of sorts, but as also witnessed through her own writing. We might imagine she had a life reflective of her famous Anne's, but this is sadly not the case. More, we might imagine that Anne therefore served as a kind of release valve, an escape for the writer from her own conditions. But here, too, I think such readings of Anne and author are too incomplete, too basic. What's more, they relegate Lucy Maud to the role of "victim" of circumstance instead of being an active agent in building her own identity and strength. So while our next two episodes might reveal parts of the Anne story most never know, they may help us understand how easy it is to Psych 101 our favorite authors, to simplify their complex lives into sound bytes, or to misread them completely. Episodes ahead: Drops may be irregular in addition to Fridays for the next few weeks!
Calendar: September Sweeps InAnd the schools are in session!
Blackhawk: The Re-Discovery of America - Chapter 8: Foreign Policy FormationsChapters 8 and 9 will drop in succession to get me back on track, but the next chapter looks at California's indigenous history and the early formation of the US foreign policy, which had significant cause from and impact upon the tribal nations and descendants. Specifically, I'll highlight our "white history" conceptions of:
<< A Video Will Go Back Here Next Time! >>
Book RecommendationThe Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1941) I know, I know, you've avoided Fitzgerald ever since your high school reading trauma of Gatsby. And, having taught that "Great American Novel" about a dozen times or so, I feel you. It's why I set so many other FSF titles aside ever since. So when I finally picked this off my shelf to "polish off" some of the long-abandoned spines lamenting there, I was amazed: frankly, Gatsby is sophomoric compared to what Fitzgerald does in his later years: complex characters, subtle omissions, nuanced dreams and maneuverings, and the flagrant corruptions of Hollywood. Gone are the go-lucky car wrecks of the 20s! Yes, know in advance: this is his last book and Fitzgerald died before completing it. But this in no way spoiled my reading of it. More, depending on the copy you have, his notes and outlines and revision ideas are all retained, and these too---especially for aspiring writers----are worth poring over. An easy five star read! “"What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story."
"These lights, this brightness, these clusters of human hope, of wild desire—I shall take these lights in my fingers. I shall make them bright, and whether they shine or not, it is in these fingers that they shall succeed or fail."
“It was my first inkling that he was a writer. And while I like writers—because if you ask a writer anything you usually get an answer—still it belittled him in my eyes. Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person. It’s like actors, who try so pathetically not to look in mirrors. Who lean backward trying—only to see their faces in the reflecting chandeliers.”
And For Our Teachers Returning By now, most of you fine readers of this little newsletter know that I link our critical literacy into the larger public sphere of democracy building, into nothing less than the building of a civic culture that is healthy and responsive to thoughtful change. And this is one of the reasons why I've loved Umberto Eco's work in all its forms. He was probably formative for my own teaching (in more fundamental ways than the radical peace of Freire). So as teachers return to the classroom this fall, in any field, I'd like to offer Eco to you here in one of his brief but potent essays on "Semiological Guerrilla Warfare." Written first in 1967 and published in his amazing collection Travels in Hyperreality, he outlines the civic role of teachers, or literacy study, of its vitality beyond Friday's quiz. Give it a quick read. Then a long thought. No regrets.
And, as I composed this newsletter, my website update/import failed for the fifth time. *Sigh.* We keep trudging. But I am excited for the fall and winter works ahead! Steve What's Still Ahead?
|
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!