The Ready Writer

So every once in a while I like to take a trip back in time and read something that I've read before. Sometimes its something that I read in High School and hated (mostly because I was an angsty kid and hated everything the teachers told me I had to read), but sometimes I go back and read something that I loved as a kid. This results in a few realizations: The first is that I didn't have great taste as a tween. The second though, is that through the simple storytelling, the middle school feelings, and the #deep lessons of the story, they aren't really all that bad. It's fun to look at them through the lens of an adult. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The premise of the story is that while she is drinking milk during lunch, Janie comes to the realization that it is her face that is on the milk carton. That she was in fact, kidnapped. I can tell why I wanted to read this as a kid. This was probably the gateway drug into my true crime obsession, even th...

Okay there are so many places I want to take this post, and I'm not sure where I want to start, so I'll just start with cover art and a quick summary of the book: This story focuses on the adventures of 5 Americans on an uncharted island.  It starts during the American Civil War, where 5 northern prisoners of war decide to escape by hijacking an air balloon. After flying through a storm for several days, they finally land on some unknown island. They name it "Lincoln Island" as tribute to their president, Abraham Lincoln. The five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerin (!), iron, an electric telegraph (!) a cliff side home, and even a seaworthy ship. Throughout their time on the island, there seems to be a deus ex machina at work, delivering chests of goods and rescuing them when in danger. Eventually, they find out the secret of the island and the gifts. Captain Nemo.  Yes, that Captain Nemo from 20,000...

Today's post is gonna be a short one guys. I am not feeling 100% but I am still determined to get SOMETHING out there...even if it is short and sweet, and late. So I just recently celebrated my 30th birthday.  I am no longer in my 20s! This of course means that I am full on heading into "adulthood".  Now, I don't really know what that means.  There are some adulty things that I'm good at, and have been good at, since my early 20s (doing taxes, paying bills mostly on time, not going completely and utterly broke), and there are still some things that I don't think I'll ever get the hang of (like doing the laundry on time, or what I should be doing to prepare for my retirement).  Being an adult means something different to everyone.  For some it means settling down, having a family, and for others it means not getting drunk on a Tuesday. So for my birthday I was gifted this book: If you aren't familiar with Sarah Andersen's work , I highl...

So one of my reading resolutions for 2018 is to read outside of my comfort zone.  I joined a fantasy/sci-fi book club (even though I read very little of both of those genres), and I'm specifically trying to avoid horror (though I have a couple classics on my 2018 reading list) because I don't want it to influence my project too much. I also just think that reading outside of your comfort zone can be good. Now, as a librarian and a writer OF COURSE I have the view of "read whatever you want, don't feel like you can't read something or HAVE to read something else", but for me personally, I'm trying to take in as many different kinds of stories as possible. So. My first book of 2018 is "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" by Neil deGrasse Tyson I gave this book 3 stars, which for me isn't a bad number. 3 stars in right in the middle. I liked it, it wasn't my favorite, I probably won't re-read it, but I've suggested it to a c...

2017 was a...rough year.  BUT there were a lot of good stories to come from it, so in no particular order, here were my favorite stories of 2017.  We'll start with the Podcasts: I know I've mentioned this podcast before , but it remains one of the best stories I've ever listened to. It made me laugh, cry, and just generally FEEL (which was hard to do in the numbing shock that was 2017). Even though this is nonfiction, it still influences me and helps me to think about the ways in which to tell a good story.  Told in a similar way as S-Town, Dirty John is an episodic (but limited) nonfiction podcast.  It is about love, deception, forgiveness, denial, and pretty much every other feeling you could feel. You can listen to the destruction that John Michael Meehan causes as the podcast or you can read about him on the LA Times website .  The podcast isn't quite as...lyrical? Poetic? as S-Town, but it's content will make you want to binge it. You...