A Shake-Up

Which is always needed in February, amiright

Hello Readers and Writers,

It’s February! Are you barely hanging on? Me too. Kinda. It depends on the day.

I confess— I missed the last several stories of January. I felt their weight pressing on me as I navigated two writing deadlines unrelated to this newsletter. I wanted to read all of them, but was also absorbed in doing research for the introduction to my book, so I could fact check everything I was claiming. I turned that introduction in yesterday, along with a blog post for a conservation agency.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t reading. I was. I am obsessed with “Hamnet” right now, about two thirds of the way through the book, and it’s been my evening reading. I stayed up too late last night, engrossed in the story of Shakespeare’s son, his wife, and the pestilence. Is it all told in the present tense? I asked myself that last night and will have to flip back to the beginning and look over it to find out. I think it is.