Hello Inkmongers!

It is finally October, which means it is time to run our FIRST EVER Inkmonger Book Club!

This month, our book club pick is:

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Before I get into the "why" of this selection, let me gather some context around it. As you may know, one of the goals of this Bindery community is to become a publishing imprint. Once Inkmonger has enough members, we'll be able to make real publishing decisions, and our community members will be a part of the process.

My dream for this community is to contribute to the literary tradition that Ursula K. Le Guin and other visionary speculative fiction (SF) writers founded: SF that asks important questions, imagines alternative worlds to the one we currently inhabit, and imagines equitable futures for humanity. How cool (exciting, fulfilling, mind-blowing) would it be for Inkmonger to publish a future winner of the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize?

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu was a 2022 finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, and was chosen for that honor because of its place in the SF canon– in many ways, it's part of the continuation of Le Guin's literary lineage. The 2026 winner will be announced on 10/21, so reading a book from the Prize's backlog feels fitting this month.

"The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction is an annual $25,000 cash prize given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction. This award is intended to recognize those writers Ursula spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech—realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now" (The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction).

While this book was not selected as the winner of the Prize, it is the only finalist that I currently own a copy of (and that's quite important to me, financially).

I'll be starting my read of How High We Go in the Dark as soon as I finish my current read! I hope you'll read with me :)

Sam 🦑

Hello my friends! And a very happy Tuesday to you! I hope this week has been gentle and peaceful for you. This week is also Banned Books Week! So, I also hope you're squeezing in a banned book to read, too.

I wanted to share my TBR pile this morning, and talk nerd shit, if that's okay? I tend to keep my journaling, and personal curriculum, and "nerdy" stuff to myself, but I wanted to talk about it! I will start off with saying that I always make a TBR pile.... and I always go rogue. lol. Making a loose personal curriculum for Q4 is going to be my trial and error to see if I can make a TBR and stick to it. And if I can't? Well, oh well! Here's my October hopeful TBR stack:

Now, you might be asking why the hell Thirst was wrapped. lol. I have mentioned previously both here (I think) and on social media, that my friend Kelli created an Unhinged Reading Challenge a few years back. I adopted that challenge, and naturally being me, put a Queer twist to it and created the Unhinged Reading Challenge: Queer Edition. I wrapped (yes, on the floor, wrapped, I'm too old for that shit I have learned) like 500 books in my queer collection that are unread. With this, I separately wrapped all horror/spooky books in the Nightmare Before Christmas paper, and then all my Christmas/holiday books in Christmas paper to read according to the holiday. I attempted to start this in January of this year, but it just didn't stick. (I also started a personal curriculum for the first time this year too, and that didn't stick, either.. more on that later.) For Q4 of this year, I decided to tackle both - my personal curriculum AND the Unhinged Reading Challenge: Queer Edition, beginning with the horror books! Before I get into that, though, I'll share my blank monthly planner I created to track my reads for self accountability and ease. It's also hella rewarding to check something off at the end of the day, too!

I also color code everything for my own personal preference, too. This is my October breakdown - it also includes our breakdown of To Our Untamed Core that we're reading for our Q4 Book Club Pick. I give myself one week to finish one of the "spooky" books, and as you can see in week 1, October 4-10, I break it down even further by page count per day. This may not work with everyone, but it helps me stay on track, if that makes sense? And also, to pick up a fucking book every day! Sometimes we get so caught up in chores or feelings or doom scrolling, we go long periods of time without reading, and I don't like that for myself, because reading and books are a form of self-care for me.

If you noticed, I only wrote in the Unhinged Reading Challenge: Queer Spooky Edition books and our Q4 book breakdown. I still want to remain flexible with my other TBR selections and not give myself too many deadlines or rules to follow, because then I get the overwhelm and quit. lol

The other books I want to get to from the TBR hopeful photo I posted above are:

1. Pure Ox by Mateo Askaripour

2. Cemetery Boys: Espiritu by Aiden Thomas

I won't lie, I also have like fifty-eleven hundred other books side-eyeing me that I really want to read, too. But those are the ones I definitely want to read this month.

Let's talk planners, shall we? The Carpe Fucking Diem planner is a EOY 2026/2027 planner that is for every day purposes for me - work schedule/meetings/various appointments, etc. But I think I'm going to toy with the idea of incorporating my personal curriculum goals INTO that planner as a trial run for Q4 to see if I like it all together, or want to keep things separated. Sometimes, I also get bogged down by having too many things to keep up with, and then just... stop. And then feel bad months later for all the unused days, and then just don't pick it up again because of said guilt. lol. What a time. I also picked up a Wisconsin Poets weekly planner for 2027 with various poems from Wisconsin poets that includes some journal prompts. I'm going to use this planner exclusively for a "sentence a day" journal. I think sometimes for me as a writer, I don't know what to write and so I just don't, and then I never write for long periods of time; so I'm hoping this will get me writing again by writing on sentence a day as a daily recap or thoughts for the day.

One more journal, and I think I'm done sharing about journals for the day. lol. I purchased a binder ring that holds 100 index cards to create a "photo of the day" journal (I found it at Five Below, but they are literally everywhere) - and it has changed my day to day. I am aware of the little things that bring me joy and I remember to snap a photo, too! It's just a way to recap my highlights of the day. I also use my HP Sprocket photo printer for sticker photos (which can get expensive, to be honest) and sometimes I'll use washi tape or various stickers or write a little blurb, but the index cards are small, so it requires me to limit what I say. Big notebooks or even journals, with so much blank space, sometimes lead to anxiety of filling it up, and that ALSO gives me the overwhelm, so the index card size is perfect for me:

It's truly the perfect size and fits nicely for "on the go" purposes, too!

So, now tell me, what do YOU do to nerd out about? Are you also nerdy when it comes to planners and journals and color coding literally all the things? I also want to know, how do your TBR piles go, or do you just abandon ship and read whatever when the mood strikes? I fear that is me, but I try so hard to be a TBR person. lol

Thank you all for being here and allowing me the space to be nerdy. I appreciate you all so much, and hope the rest of your Tuesday is gentle and kind.

See you on Thursday for Trans Joy Thursday.

With all my trans joy,

Sawyer Cole

The darkness isn't empty. It's hungry. And as of today, you can hold a piece of it.

I’m so excited to announce the What Feeds Below: Void Vault is now available to purchase! This is our very limited pub day thank-you to the readers who've been waiting to descend into the Sixth Layer with us for months. 

What's inside the Vault:

• A paperback copy of the book with a bookplate signed by Tatiana herself

• A gorgeous handmade leather mushroom bookmark

• An exclusive Boozhoo Books “Women in Horror” sticker

• A bumper sticker to let everyone know you’re on your way to The Void

• The cutest erasable mushroom pen

• A mini cross-stitch embroidery kit, because you'll need something to do with your hands once you're too scared to keep reading

Thank you for supporting my imprint, for showing up for Tatiana’s work, and for trusting us to take you somewhere this strange and gruesome.

The Vault won't stay open long. Grab yours before it's gone.

Naomi, Tatiana, and Bindery

Welcome back to This Week on the Shelf. In this edition, we are talking a little ICYMI, a little bookish group chat, and whatever Link has decided she has opinions about this week.

Basically, everything we’d be talking about if we were sitting around together with coffee and an irresponsibly large stack of books.

📚 ICYMI: Around the Shelf

September is officially over, which means I wrapped up everything I read last month, and despite being in a bit of a reading slump, I still somehow finished 20 books. There were some major standouts, including Blacktail, All the Colors of the Dark, and Love Felt Like This.

I also shared the October new releases I’m most excited about because apparently, my TBR has not suffered enough.

And because October is officially here, we’re getting spooky.

My latest genre guide is all about Gothic horror and I discuss what actually makes something Gothic and where the genre overlaps with horror. I also give some book recs if you want crumbling houses, buried secrets, psychological dread, and an atmosphere that feels like something terrible happened here 100 years ago and nobody wants to talk about it.

Finally, in honor of National Audiophile Day, I shared some of the audiobooks I absolutely love, including the audiobook that turned me into an audiobook reader in the first place.

🎥 On YouTube

Two author conversations went up recently, and they're very different books, which is exactly why I love doing these interviews.

First, I sat down with Noah Brisk, author of The Tethered God, to talk about writing cinematic fantasy, creating a magic system intertwined with religion and politics, and building a world that doesn't stop to hold the reader's hand.

If your fantasy taste lives somewhere in the vicinity of Malazan, The First Law, and The Wheel of Time, you're going to want this one on your radar.

I also talked with Tom Ryan about Return to Breakneck Island, his follow-up to The Treasure Hunters Club.

We talked mysteries, found family, writing multiple timelines, and returning to a world readers already love without simply recreating the first book. I absolutely adored Return to Breakneck Island, so getting to dig into how Tom built this story was especially fun.

Both full conversations are up on my YouTube channel now.

💬 The Bookish Group Chat

Cozy mysteries are just SO GOOD in the fall. Give me a small town, an eccentric cast of suspects, an amateur detective who absolutely should not be involved in this investigation, and a murder that somehow still feels cozy? I'm seated.

So naturally, this article immediately got my attention: “I was asked to write a new Miss Marple, so I sent her to the Alps.”

Lucy Foley recently wrote about taking on one of Agatha Christie's most iconic characters, and I loved reading about how she approached writing Miss Marple while still making the story her own.

The part that stuck with me most was Foley explaining that she saw the novel as being in conversation with Christie's original books rather than simply trying to recreate them, and THAT is what I want from something like this.

I don't necessarily want another writer to imitate Agatha Christie. I want to recognize the character and the DNA of those stories while also understanding why this particular author was chosen to tell a new one.

And honestly? Sending Miss Marple to the Alps is already a pretty convincing argument.

Group chat question: How do you feel about modern authors writing new stories featuring classic characters? Are you immediately intrigued or would you rather the originals be left alone?

🐾 Link's Corner

This week, Link had to endure something truly exhausting...watching her mother rank 31 Stephen King books.

After spending October reading and rereading King, I finally ranked every Stephen King book I've read from #31 all the way to #1. You can listen now on Spotify or on YouTube at 9 pm ET.

Link would like everyone to know that my ranking is irrelevant because she has already identified the objectively best Stephen King novel: Fairy Tale. Obviously.

There is a very good dog named Radar. No further analysis required. Honestly, I can't even argue with her logic.

Until next week,
Brittany + Link 🐾