Books Books Books

It's obviously nerve wracking for writers at the end of the year to see best of lists come out. You can end up feeling pretty queasy about whether or not you're seeing your own work appear or not. However, I love to find out about books my friends love because I almost exclusively read books suggested by people in my sm feeds and friends, and not by any of the major book outlets, which takes the rat race factor out of it for me. (Not all who gain the spotlight are the most talented, and every writer I know knows this--it's a good protection against the feeling of being unsung). 

In case anyone is wanting to know, here are the books I read this year and I did write at least notes on most of them if not an out and out mini review.

That was almost all prose, so if you want to know what poetry I really really recommend for this year, please check out The Last Word's Instagram page, and consider listening to The Last Word here on Spotify.

I'm on sabbatical this year, and did some writing in Berlin and some thinking about life in Iceland. I'm working on short stories still, and getting closer to having about ten. I also participated in NaNoWriMo for fun, and am going to do some fun regional workshopping with the South Jersey community in the spring term.