eel been busy baybee
As always, the eel part of the eel report
I like to begin this newsletter with something about eels. Because there’s always something about eels, even if you haven’t thought about eels before or in awhile. Sometimes it’s about eels in general, but other times it’s just me thinking about eel news. Today is about eels news updates.
A large eel washed up in Texas, and was described as “straight out of hell,” when what I think they really meant was, “straight out of the ocean.” I do think the ocean is terrifying and mysterious, but I don’t know, I think maybe hellish is too far? I haven’t read The Soul of an Octopus, but I’ve been reading a lot about souls in general, and do eels have souls? And if they do, where do their souls live? Another eel mystery.
Anyway. In other eel news and excellent eel pun headlines, I thought it would be nice to share a story about eels and environmental and ecosystem health.
So, we don’t have eels where I live and we’ve already talked about lampreys, but we have rivers and streams and I feel like everyone where I live in Idaho understands the importance of salmon as a keystone species that indicates the health of our river ecosystems— and even beyond rivers. It’s a whole thing. Salmon’s nutrient rich bodies decompose and then birds will eat their carcasses and then the soil and trees near rivers get all kinds of great nutrients specific to salmon that they have from their unique trip to the ocean and back. Also a reminder that I am not a scientist, just a woman who once took a fish class to graduate from college who also happens to have an internet connection and a newsletter. But if you want to read more about nutrient rich salmon carcasses, you can do that here, here, and here.
Anyway, every time I read something about eels I learn new information. And after reading this article, I had this image in my mind of an excavator digging up silt from the bottom of a stream and then plopping that down to find eels and other silt-dwelling animals in the mucky muck muck. Eels in excavators.
I think I shared an article in this newsletter before about a truckload of eels cruising along somewhere in Pennsylvania to be rerouted to their habitat (this is not the same as the truck that spilled eels and eel slime in Oregon), and I hope that as I continue to have eel news notifications, that someday I’ll read about eels taking rides in all types of transportation and construction vehicles. I think it might be possible.
I don’t know yet how eels on a plane or eels on helicopters might come to fruition, but I will be really excited when that happens. Maybe I will write EELS ON A PLANE, for fun, or maybe I will get an eel news alert one day with that headline and I will shout, “Enough is enough! I have had it with these catadromous eels on this catadromous* plane! Everybody strap in!”
*I guess airplanes could maybe be considered migratory. But sorry to all my readers but planes don’t spawn or migrate from fresh water to the sea. I don’t know. This is not a scientific newsletter, especially in this moment.
Book News
Crocodile Hungry is officially one year old!
I celebrated with sour patch candies and turmeric chicken. To celebrate you should read John Martz’s Newsletter, Notes from Beyond, for a behind the scenes peek at his illustration process for Crocodile Hungry.
I’m very grateful for John’s sense of humor and incredible illustrations. The team at Tundra has been incredible to work with, and I feel very proud of the book we made together. I can’t believe it’s been out there in the world for one whole year! This calls for cake.
A couple weeks ago, I got the best news that Crocodile Hungry would be included in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Canada program! The DPIL partners with nonprofits to deliver books straight to young readers' homes. It’s a wonderful program and I’m honored to be a part of it to help boost early childhood literacy and to play a small part in hopefully developing a love of reading. ILY Dolly. Thank you.
I get asked pretty frequently about what’s next or what’s my next book. I don’t think I can share too many details yet, but I can say that I saw rough sketches for the next picture book. The illustrations, they are eel-y amazing! If you are not subscribed, you might want to so you can catch any author updates and cover reveals.
Reading Life
I love reading a book that I know would make a fantastic movie. That is precisely how I felt reading Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn. It begins with an extravagant retirement party for four aging assassins— four women who have given decades to a private assassin organization. The ladies soon discover that their all inclusive retirement cruise is actually an assassination attempt but they’re the marks.
Imagine Jamie Lee Curtis, Michelle Yeoh, Viola Davis, Jennifer Coolidge, Angela Bassett, and Catherine O’Hara as longtime friends and assassins who have to kill or be killed. I know I said there were only supposed to be four assassins, but I got carried away with the casting possibilities. Anyway, sign me up. I am ready to watch this right now.
I cried my eyes out reading Aviva vs. The Dybukk an incredible middle grade novel about friendship, community, and grief. Himawari House is a new household favorite— turns out my children and I all love slice of life graphic novels. Frizzy is a great middle grade graphic novel about identity and celebrating yourself, and Wash Day Diaries is an excellent adult graphic novel counterpart about friendship, community, and wash day rituals. And of course I’m including some new picture books that I’ve found to be special stories published in this new year, including a picture book by my friend and critique partner, Amanda Henke!
Last year reading was a challenge (okay at this point, everything was a challenge), and I’m really trying hard to make time to read this year. Send book recommendations my way. My TBR list is ridiculous along with my library holds and check-outs. But I’m reading at least some of those books I bring home!
Spring titles from friends that I can’t wait for: Ari Tison’s Saints of the Household, Claire Forrest’s Where You See Yourself, and Kalena Miller’s Shannon in the Spotlight.
That writing life
I had grand plans of sending this newsletter in January, or now that I have more time for writing, maybe even sending this newsletter twice a month! But I have not done that. Instead I worked on a neglected writing project that was not a newsletter at all. Juggling projects and jobs and all the things means sometimes I gotta prioritize the writing writing. Sometimes, the eel reports have to wait. “Enough is enough! I have had it with these catadromous eels in this catadromous newsletter!”
I think I’ve been pretty candid in this space about failing to write during 2022. I know there are peaks and valleys especially in creative pursuits, but last year was like a below sea level valley!
The good news is that the project I was directed to revise, I finally did. And for the past few months I’ve been deep in that revision and writing thousands upon thousands of words. Enough words that I could send it to my agent and say, sorry this took me so long!
So now I’m in that in between project phase, where I have more neglected revisions from other projects but also shiny new ideas. And I’m going to use this newsletter to take a breath before I jump back into deep revisions and problem solving on a novel I started back in 2019. A novel that was too closely set to current times, and then as I was trying to revise it a pandemic happened. I had no idea what that meant for real life let alone my characters in their fictional world where they looked up to Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate. So I set that project aside because I didn’t know how to fix it. Maybe this spring before the forsythia blooms I will figure out how to fix it.
Hopefully I’ll see y’all next month, but if I don’t, I hope it’s because I’m thousands upon thousands of words into revising this project with the finish line in sight.