Dear family, friends, fellow travelers,
We're reaching the end of a wearying August here in Boston. On Friday, August 7th we hit 150 days since the commonwealth declared a state of emergency due to coronavirus. Yesterday, I posted by 24th romance e-book giveaway title. As of Friday, August 21st, Massachusetts has had 113,198 confirmed cases and 8,751 Massachusetts residents have died. While our region is doing much better than many areas currently, we are still grieving, we are still social distancing, we are still wearing masks, we are still operating in a "safer at home" environment, and we know that the pandemic is far from over.
Image: Me, wearing my homemade cloth mask (rainbow stripes) and a tie-dyed shirt from Gather Here, our local craft store, that reads"gather remotely!" while waiting for the MBTA bus.
It's exhausting. What makes it even more exhausting is the knowledge that a not-inconsiderable percentage of people in the nation believe the virus isn't real, and perhaps -- in some cases -- actively want us to die. It really sucks to be reminded on a daily basis just how little Republicans care. That they not-so-secretly delight in the fact that this plague will "decrease the surplus population" of people they don't actually think of as people. Mitch McConnell is an evil man. I'm grateful to be voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in November. (Make your plan to vote!) I'm grateful to have Elizabeth Warren and Ayanna Pressley representing me in Congress. I am trying to put one foot in front of the other and remember that many, many others are doing the same in the fight for a sustainable future.
Image: Black and white photograph of my dining room "home office" set up, now with a second monitor since 90% of my job involves writing emails while referring to information in other applications.
This coming week, I'll be hunkered down at home and away from work channels getting as far along on my draft of the Ida B. Wells biography for ABC-CLIO as I can before the official "fifty percent of the manuscript" deadline arrives on September 1st. When I signed the contract for the book a year ago the physical and mental landscape ahead for completing this work looked very different from what 2020 delivered ... says me and every writer who put fingers to keyboard this year. But I'm actually looking forward to ten days of focus on a single project. A luxury I don't think I've had since I was doing thesis research in graduate school a decade ago. Not exactly a vacation. But certainly a change of pace.
Both Hanna and I will be continuing a mostly-remote work routine after Labor Day, with intermittent work days on site (staff only) with the expectation being that Boston/Massachusetts will return to full shelter-in-place orders at some point later this fall. Aside from the pandemic, we continue to enjoy the lack of a grueling daily commute, eating at home throughout the day, and having a more flexible hourly work schedule.
Image: Close up of one of our neighbor's front garden flowers, taken on our morning walk. A large pink blossom with layered petals. (I'm sorry gardeners -- I don't know what it is called!)
Knitting with beautiful yarn has been a balm for my soul these past few months and we recently received our first order from Songbird Yarn & Fibres in Canada, a yarn shop that offers yarns dyed to match the colors of wild birds! I have blue heron, Baltimore oriole, and brow-headed cowbird -- much excite! My reward for turning in the first 50% of the Wells manuscript is going to be an order from another Canadian shop, Ravenswood, where Hanna and I agree we basically want one of everything.
Image: A compliation photograph of our spoils from Songbird! Hanna bought a skein of Puffin and two of the Northern Flicker.
I'll be making a lot of teapot sweaters and magical scarves in the months ahead. And I've also promised a colleague to try my hand at a small pupper sweater! I will definitely be sharing photos.
Image: Working from home and at work means I was issued a laptop and I have purchased a separate carrying case for it (the green satchel) which we have named Sidney.
This past Thursday, I had the pleasure of recording an episode of the RomBkPod podcast with host Sarah Jean (@queer_reader) on the theme of "friends to lovers" in genre romance. The episode will be out September 30th so look for a link in the October newsletter. We had a lot of fun talking about some of our favorite "friends to lovers" stories and about what feels so dang queer (or at least queer friendly) about that trope anyway.
And with that, I think I'll leave you all with this photograph of Christopher jealously guarding his new favorite bed of tissue paper against all comers.
Joy matters, and cannot wait until tomorrow.
Stay safe, stay furious,
Anna
P.S. As a reminder that local elections matter, my friend Lyn Raymond was elected for her first term as City Councilor at Large in my hometown of Holland, Michigan last fall and this week the City Council finally passed (at the end of a session that ran from 6:30pm - 2:30am!) an ordinance prohibiting discrimination "in the areas of housing, employment, public services and public accommodation ... on the basis of age, race, national origin, color, disability, education, familial status, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, height, marital status, religion, source of income or weight." Couldn't be more grateful to all of the hard work put in by activists and elected officials who organized to make this a successful campaign.
We're reaching the end of a wearying August here in Boston. On Friday, August 7th we hit 150 days since the commonwealth declared a state of emergency due to coronavirus. Yesterday, I posted by 24th romance e-book giveaway title. As of Friday, August 21st, Massachusetts has had 113,198 confirmed cases and 8,751 Massachusetts residents have died. While our region is doing much better than many areas currently, we are still grieving, we are still social distancing, we are still wearing masks, we are still operating in a "safer at home" environment, and we know that the pandemic is far from over.
Image: Me, wearing my homemade cloth mask (rainbow stripes) and a tie-dyed shirt from Gather Here, our local craft store, that reads"gather remotely!" while waiting for the MBTA bus.
It's exhausting. What makes it even more exhausting is the knowledge that a not-inconsiderable percentage of people in the nation believe the virus isn't real, and perhaps -- in some cases -- actively want us to die. It really sucks to be reminded on a daily basis just how little Republicans care. That they not-so-secretly delight in the fact that this plague will "decrease the surplus population" of people they don't actually think of as people. Mitch McConnell is an evil man. I'm grateful to be voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in November. (Make your plan to vote!) I'm grateful to have Elizabeth Warren and Ayanna Pressley representing me in Congress. I am trying to put one foot in front of the other and remember that many, many others are doing the same in the fight for a sustainable future.
Image: Black and white photograph of my dining room "home office" set up, now with a second monitor since 90% of my job involves writing emails while referring to information in other applications.
This coming week, I'll be hunkered down at home and away from work channels getting as far along on my draft of the Ida B. Wells biography for ABC-CLIO as I can before the official "fifty percent of the manuscript" deadline arrives on September 1st. When I signed the contract for the book a year ago the physical and mental landscape ahead for completing this work looked very different from what 2020 delivered ... says me and every writer who put fingers to keyboard this year. But I'm actually looking forward to ten days of focus on a single project. A luxury I don't think I've had since I was doing thesis research in graduate school a decade ago. Not exactly a vacation. But certainly a change of pace.
Both Hanna and I will be continuing a mostly-remote work routine after Labor Day, with intermittent work days on site (staff only) with the expectation being that Boston/Massachusetts will return to full shelter-in-place orders at some point later this fall. Aside from the pandemic, we continue to enjoy the lack of a grueling daily commute, eating at home throughout the day, and having a more flexible hourly work schedule.
Image: Close up of one of our neighbor's front garden flowers, taken on our morning walk. A large pink blossom with layered petals. (I'm sorry gardeners -- I don't know what it is called!)
Knitting with beautiful yarn has been a balm for my soul these past few months and we recently received our first order from Songbird Yarn & Fibres in Canada, a yarn shop that offers yarns dyed to match the colors of wild birds! I have blue heron, Baltimore oriole, and brow-headed cowbird -- much excite! My reward for turning in the first 50% of the Wells manuscript is going to be an order from another Canadian shop, Ravenswood, where Hanna and I agree we basically want one of everything.
Image: A compliation photograph of our spoils from Songbird! Hanna bought a skein of Puffin and two of the Northern Flicker.
I'll be making a lot of teapot sweaters and magical scarves in the months ahead. And I've also promised a colleague to try my hand at a small pupper sweater! I will definitely be sharing photos.
Image: Working from home and at work means I was issued a laptop and I have purchased a separate carrying case for it (the green satchel) which we have named Sidney.
This past Thursday, I had the pleasure of recording an episode of the RomBkPod podcast with host Sarah Jean (@queer_reader) on the theme of "friends to lovers" in genre romance. The episode will be out September 30th so look for a link in the October newsletter. We had a lot of fun talking about some of our favorite "friends to lovers" stories and about what feels so dang queer (or at least queer friendly) about that trope anyway.
And with that, I think I'll leave you all with this photograph of Christopher jealously guarding his new favorite bed of tissue paper against all comers.
Joy matters, and cannot wait until tomorrow.
Stay safe, stay furious,
Anna
P.S. As a reminder that local elections matter, my friend Lyn Raymond was elected for her first term as City Councilor at Large in my hometown of Holland, Michigan last fall and this week the City Council finally passed (at the end of a session that ran from 6:30pm - 2:30am!) an ordinance prohibiting discrimination "in the areas of housing, employment, public services and public accommodation ... on the basis of age, race, national origin, color, disability, education, familial status, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, height, marital status, religion, source of income or weight." Couldn't be more grateful to all of the hard work put in by activists and elected officials who organized to make this a successful campaign.