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Just received one of my most anticipated books of the year! Jake Skeets new poetry collection will be released in 4 days by Milkweed Editions! We will be posting our giveaway next week so stay tuned. They also sent me extra copies for friends and family so I’ll probably save a couple for more giveaways! :)

I will be reading this over the weekend and will try to get a review up.

About:

“Beauty is possible even when it appears impossible. An astounding book.” —Joy Harjo, author of Washing My Mother’s Body

“For now, go out and dream of joy, we know the labor of feeling it.”

With Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, Jake Skeets emerged as a visionary new literary voice, offering readers a queer, Indigenous poetics inextricable from a connection to land. With Horses, Skeets tracks the shifting land of the Navajo Nation: What changes and what remains the same in a place that has been inhabited for thousands of years?

In poems employing numbers significant to Diné thought and lifeway, Skeets explores the reclamation of land, imagination, and language—a world beyond environmental apocalypse, where joy is possible and where transformation is embraced over erasure. Arranged as a quartet, Horses begins with a meditation on two hundred horses found dead, mired in mud that had once been a stock pond on Navajo land in Arizona. What was once a source of life had become a death trap for a herd living on the edge of survival. From here, Skeets’s poems radiate outward, tracing the body and its relationship to a landscape marked by geologic time and the fragile, eroding moments of the present.

Fiercely observant, brilliantly constructed, and hauntingly incisive, Horses evokes both the end of a world and a new dawn emerging on the horizon.

And we have a winner! April's Book Club read will by Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic (or The Color of Magic if you prefer). The first in his incredible Discworld series. Definitely a little lighter after Same Bed Different Dreams. Can't wait to hear what you think and a new poll for May will be up soon!

Reporting back after 2 weeks of going no-contact with IG and TikTok

First, I'll tell you the good news. I read a lot. I finished Didion's YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING and Rose Macaulay's KEEPING UP APPEARANCES and A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES (which I made a TikTok about today). And I'm almost done with part 2 of Henry IV. Plus, I knocked a bunch of books off my tbr (by deciding I didn't want to read them).

The main good news is hard to say in a clever way: I just felt way better without content in my life. Many times I thought, How was I living like that for so long?? But I also knew I'd go back to it.

The bad news

is that the terrible habit of mindless phone unlocking is so engrained that my pickup stat (the # of times I opened my phone) didn't go down at all. I'm still clocking 90-100 pickups per day, even without IG/TikTok on my phone.

In their absence, I was using apps I haven't used in ages.

I was a menace on poshmark the past 2 weeks. I wish I were joking. I sold 7 listings (I bought some stuff too.) I was at the post office practically every other day to ship them. (Sidebar: I love the post office. I mail a lot of stuff. I am very worried about the recent headlines.)

I am stalking individual pairs of shoes and sweaters on TheRealReal, which is something I haven't done in years.

I bought 6 pairs of shoes (2 pairs of Tod's heels, 1 pair of Tod's boots, 1 pair of rag&bone boots, 1 pair new balance sneakers, 1 pair hunter short rain boots) mostly at Nordstrom Rack (I downloaded the Nordstrom Rack app😳).

I got these silver david bowie-ish boots because they were $65 on clearance (they retail for $498). They're not really my taste but for 87% off I can cosplay Dorian Greene.

I'm not framing this as shopping addiction ("All I did was sub 1 vice with another!") Truth be told, I desperately needed to go shopping for a while. I was looking sha-bby. Also, I did really need to address my plantar fasciitis situation (I bought 4 diff kinds of orthotics).

So shopping a lot and averaging 2 hrs/screentime per day isn't exactly good but it's not bad either. If anything, it just shows that as soon as some free time opened up I finally attended to tasks that I'd been putting off. I took 2 pairs of boots to the cobbler. I got a haircut. I'm not calling this SeLf-CaRe - but some people would.

What's bad is that I couldn't stop reaching for my phone. And when I opened it and discovered no IG, most of the time I didn't do the right thing and just re-lock it. I opened other apps. I was browsing listings on Airbnb with absolutely no intention of going anywhere. This is mortifying behavior.

What a colossal waste of time that I know where to stay in Naples, FL and also Naples, Italy if someone wanted to take a trip next week.

Just stop

I had a compulsion to scroll: rental houses, jeans, platform sandals (that is a real shoe that I have my eye on). It sounds like it didn't matter what I was looking at because that was indeed the case. The unlocking/checking behavior was agnostic of any rational motivation.

Why did I keep looking at junk on my phone when I was sitting in front of work that needed to be done? This is the real question. This is the nexus of my problem.

Because I wasn't craving short-form content. It's not like i had to fight the urge to check my stats or look at TikTok in my browser. I wasn't jonesing for brain rot. Going on poshmark and airbnb wasn't a methadone thing-- it was an unthinking thing.

It was out of habit that I kept reaching for my phone when I was in the middle of working on my book or a pitch or a essay -- any time I came to a point where I needed to stop and think (pick the right word, figure out what I'm really trying to say, make a decision)-- before I could do that, I would open my phone and kill a few minutes.

I thought taking the apps off my phone would cure this self-sabotaging instinct but it didn't🙃

The unconsciousness of it

is what's bothering me. I wouldn't call it lack of self-control because when I thought ooh you're reaching for your phone again, I would stop myself. But mostly, I found myself looking at my phone already unlocked thinking, damn, it happened again... might as well see if there are any good listings in Paris on the weekend of my birthday. just for fun.

I wasn't on airbnb 3 hours a day, though. In this 2 week period, I did sit with my thoughts more. I brought my kindle with me every time I went out. I (mercifully) had fewer ideas/hooks for videos running through my mind. But what I'm mad at myself for is how I couldn't get rid of the automatic unlocking aka I am so addicted and not even getting any pleasure out of it.

"Successful People"

I'm always wary of so-called studies about "successful people" but I saw this thing (which seems to be attributed to Jeff Olson's The Slight Edge) that says successful people (whatever that means) don't have better willpower, they just create situations in which their willpower is not tested. They remove temptations rather than resisting them.

That feels legit to me because my screentime did decrease a ton (compare with the screenshot at the top) and I felt like I "got my life back" when I took the social apps off my phone.

I didn't screenshot my screentime before I deleted IG/TikTok so I can't show a precise before/after but pre-hiatus I was averaging 3hr16min without IG. So it must've been, what, at least 4 hours of daily screentime pre-hiatus?

I always think of this bit in 30Rock where Jack Donaghy is lying in a hospital bed, imagining he might die, and he says, "I have only one regret: I should have worked more."

I have only one regret: I should have scrolled more.

2 weeks

wasn't enough for me to change my habits. Gemini says it takes 66 days. I'm better smarter and more talented than the average person so I think I could make a dent in a month but alas - I just shot and edited a tiktok (in 7 minutes : this is not a brag. it's a warning to not waste your time watching it) in the middle of writing this.

Casual as this sounds, I am editing these posts. The formatting and punctuation is a little wonky because I want you to know it's written with love, not with AI (this is gonna be my next topic-- the way writing, esp on substack, is getting a weird because people are trying to make it clear they are not using AI). I do not subscribe to Kerouac's "first draft best draft" for anything except short form content.

I'm not going straight back to posting in full-throttle mode. I'm going back reluctantly with a healthy respect for how much I hate it and how mind-numbing (this is such a great phrase) content is. Great art isn't mind-numbing. Good art isn't mind-numbing. Even pop art isn't mind-numbing.

Anything that numbs your mind, takes you out of reality without giving you something to chew on, that's dangerous. That's soma.

Hello friends! Just a few fun updates for you on our Twig's Traveling Tomes process. It's been an active month behind the scenes and we have SO MUCH to celebrate. Here's a few highlights:

COVER DESIGN:
As we were wrapping up the cover art, we realized that Everett wasn't standing out as much as we'd like. So with a few key adjustments we went from this:

To THIS:

I think the pop of blue really helps highlight our scrappy rogue and can't WAIT to see this in person and in YOUR hands! What do you think of the change?

BLURBS:

We were so fortunate this year to receive DREAM blurbs for Twig's! You'll begin to see them used in our marketing and you'll see them on your physical ARCs soon, which is exciting.

One of my FAVORITE moments of this entire process was hopping on the phone with Gryffin the moment I heard a very special blurb come in.

If you'd like to see the video of that call, CLICK HERE!

Here's what our favorite cozy authors are saying about Twigs:

"Whimsical and wonderful, Twig's Traveling Tomes is a delightful treat for book lovers in search of a charming escape!" - Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of THE SPELLSHOP

"Have you ever fallen in love while tumbling into a comfortable armchair with a crackling fire, and cup of tea waiting for you? If not, then this is the book you should read to experience it!" - Delemhach, bestselling author of the House Witch  

"Full of found family and flirty banter, Twig’s Traveling Tomes puts a fun spin on the idea that books really can take you anywhere. This world-hopping quest with a charming band of misfits is delightfully chaotic and inventive, and will make you wish for your own magical traveling bookshop (and a good grappling hook)!" - Julie Leong, USA Today bestselling author of The Keeper of Magical Things

And we have MORE where that came from! Such a joy seeing this sweet story land with authors that have championed the genre. I couldn't be prouder of Gryffin and all the work that's led her here. She deserves every bit of this celebration and praise!

AUDIO BOOK:
I'm DELIGHTED to announce that there will be an audio book releasing for Twig's as well! We're over the moon about this news and will be partnering with RB Media (Recorded Books imprint) to publish later this year. I will keep you updated as we start the narrator hunt, but I'm confident that this team will find the perfect person to voice Louella's adventures. More to come!

BOOK BOX WINNER:
And finally, it's time to share our March Book Box winner! If you're new to SBC, each month I randomly choose a winner to receive a curated book box I make just for you. It's one of my favorite things we do here!

Today I'm delighted to announce that mickeybooklore is our March winner! Mickey, you should see an email in your inbox already, but all you need to do is fill out that form and I'll get you your box asap. Thank you so much for being a part of this cozy community!

That's all for now, friends. Looking forward to more updates soon and a LIVE interview with Gryffin to catch up and answer any questions about the process so far. Will keep you in the loop once that's scheduled.

xx,

Meg

I'm having a hard time. NOTHING IS HITTING.

I am all caught up on our bookclub assignments.

The Year of the Witching is really missing something for me. I am not connecting with this one at all. When I put it down, I'm not looking forward to picking it up again.

The Night Watchman? I'm into it when we are hearing what is going on with Patrice. When we switch over to Thomas? I zone out. Erdrich usually has multiple storylines going on at once and they usually blend well, but this one isn't working for me.

I thought why not pick up a quick thriller? I grabbed How to Survive in the Woods by Kat Rosenfield. I listened to one chapter and this was the first book to hit my Goodreads DNF shelf.

I do not feel like reading on Kindle. I don't feel like picking up my physical books.

600 books and nothing to read!

Someone please recommend the best audio book you've read! Immediately!

Bindery is sometimes difficult to get all the names for each category. Please let us know if you are not on this graphic or with the right role on Discord :). Apologies for any errors!

Hey Guys,

Some important deadlines for What Feeds Below:

Upgrade to a paid subscriber to guarantee your WFB arc. $5 subscribers get e*arcs, $12/$25 will get physical arcs (US ONLY).

Deadline is March 30.

Paid Members fill out this form to get sent a What Feeds Below bookmark ($5 subscribers and Coloring postcard ($12/$25 subscribers). Deadline this Friday.

As a paid subscriber, you are directly supporting our publishing projects (meaning we get to publish more books!) and have access to exclusive content.

I have a very big stretch goal of 100 new paid subscribers by April! If you can afford to upgrade (for the cost of a cup of coffee or a salad) and support an indie, Indigenous led press, please do!

Lastly, preorders are so important! I just read that paperbacks typically need 4,000 sales by week one! I'd love to have at least 2,000 preorders! If you have not purchased What Feeds Below yet, now is the time! (Please purchase from bookshop)