I apologize for the terrible pun
It has been about nine months since the last newsletter!
Either I am very bad at this or I have a newsletter schedule that is about the same gestation period for a human being. I think I might be bad at newsletters.
Since this is an Eel Report, who knows how long it takes for an eel to develop because scientists don’t actually know-- haven’t actually witnessed spawning. They have ideas and best guesses, but no direct observations. There’s still enough mystery around the developmental and reproductive stages of eel life that it is a best scientific guess scenario. And I love that. I love that we don’t actually know.
There could be tiny hats, a party, a specific phase of the moon. No idea. Or I should say, no certainties. There are probably not tiny hats, but I would like to imagine that there are.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how information is so readily available. How people know things. Or easily access information in order to know things. You can listen to any song you want anytime you want to. There are apps for identifying fish. There are probably apps for identifying eels! I looked up all this information about eels and spawning from my home where there are absolutely zero eels. Every phone can be a dictionary or a camera or social network. And as much as I enjoy learning new things and following along with current events, I’m kind of over it?
Maybe this is coming off of a year in quasi-lockdown with kids and screen time overtaking our lives. Maybe I have subscribed to one too many news outlets. Or maybe I am just tired of all the phone usage (it’s a lot, like an embarrassing amount). But I wonder if I’ve lost some sense of wonder and awe and mystery because all the answers seem to be right here. I guess what I am looking for is the need to slow down, to process what’s going on, to have time to wonder, to make time to be still. To disconnect.
And maybe this past year was supposed to be slowed down. But it wasn’t necessarily that, either. It was (and still is) a pandemic!
I think what I’m trying to articulate is the speed of information and media and content and best practices and activities and events and how quickly everything is thrown at us and then the next thing and the next thing and it’s like I don’t know how to sit with anything right now. News or information, activities, or otherwise. I’m not sure how to sit with my writing. I’m not sure how to sit with my stories. I am not sure how to turn it all down.
I think maybe my writing and my brain need to rewire themselves a little bit. I don’t have to fill in all the answers or know all the things in the moment. This isn’t a race. Writing and reading and work and life and living. We’re not supposed to be racing through it. I can wonder and wander. And I think that that is what I need. Is this way too long to type: I think I am burnt out despite not having done anything aside from basic necessities?
How are you doing with all of this? What do you need? Are we all burnt out? Just me?
Maybe I need to take some cues from my friends, the eels, and live mysteriously for a bit. Unobserved, disconnected, just swimming along in the Sargasso Sea being mysterious for thousands of years.
Reading Life
Despite my lack of attention span and inability to complete longer projects right now, I do have some book recommendations for books that I’ve read recently and loved.
XOXO - This made me want to go to Koreatown in LA and then all around Seoul. A delightful read about k-pop, music, family, being true to yourself and chasing love.
Crying in H Mart - Heartbreaking memoir about mothers, daughters, and grief. How Korean food is the foundation of a complicated yet loving relationship.
The Fire Keeper’s Daughter - My favorite young adult book of the year. Complex. Beautifully drawn characters in an Ojibwe community in the upper MI peninsula.
Watercress - A beautiful picture book. Jason Chin’s artwork is incredible as always. Beautiful family story about survival and connections to family heritage and past.
The Rock From the Sky - I love what Jon Klassen is able to do and explore here. A story about impending doom, nothing, and everything all at once. Perfection!
The Capybaras - I feel like European books lean into metaphor more easily than US picture books. And this one tells the story of outsiders with heart and humor.
Blackout - A wonderful collection of interconnected love stories that all take place during a NYC blackout. The representation is excellent. This book is delightful.
Hunt, Gather, Parent - I listened to this, and it’s really made me think about my parenting practices and culture of western parenting. Excellent.
Grandpa Across the Ocean - I love all of Hyewon Yum’s books, but I loved this sweet story about a child getting to know their grandparent and creating that relationship.
Some fun Announcements
Crocodile Hungry, a picture book that I made with illustrator, John Martz, is available to pre-order! You can pre-order it wherever books are sold, but if you pre-order it from my local indie bookstore, I will 100% sign it. I’m so grateful to my editor and publisher, Tundra Books, for taking a chance on this story. I hope y’all will love it.
Here’s a fun interview I did for the cover reveal for Crocodile Hungry over at The Storyteller’s Inkpot.
You can follow what I’m doing on twitter or instagram. Hopefully I am quieter over there in the next couple of months, but you can gentle tell me to log off if you see me extremely online. And you can check out my picture book debut group on twitter and instagram to see book updates from me and a wonderful group of picture book makers.
If you’d like to subscribe to this newsletter, I’d be honored. The schedule is a mystery! Like our dear eels, the namesake of this newsletter.