Amy Makechnie's Blog, page 4
April 29, 2025
What I Read this Month
April was full of reading - and listening as I have finally (!) embraced the audiobook. I’ve been listening via the Hoolpa or Libby app and have a whole bunch of holds. Both apps are free through your local libraries - and at risk of disappearing with federal funding being cut. PLEASE SAVE THE BOOKS!
This month I recommend…
Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow, thriller: The third installment of Turow’s courtroom drama featuring Rusty, now a judge. This is a “ripped-from-the-headlines” story that you will recognize…
James by Percival Everett, fiction: um WOW. I wish I’d reread Huck Finn before reading this, but I remembered the story enough to be all in, right away. “When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.” This is MUST-READ, an amazing read. Percival James has written a masterpiece. Recommended: Libby app; wonderful audiobook narrator.
The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Septys and Steve Sheinkin middle grade historical fiction: Based on the true story of the young mathematician code breakers of World War II, and the real life and super secret Bletchley Park - Britain’s top secret code-breaking center. Because of their remarkable work, historians estimate that the war against Hitler was shortened by as much as two years. Winston Churchhill said these hidden heroes were “the geese that laid the golden egg and never cracked.” Fascinating, funny, inspiring, and hard to put down! Septys and Sheinkin are most definitely a dynamic duo.
When Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, (now a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and professor), stumbled upon Martha Ballard’s diary, she spent the next eight years writing Martha's biography: A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812.
Last month I gobbled up The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon and then had to go straight to the definitive source. It’s astonishingly good. (thank you, Cecily, for the push!)
"Martha Ballard ensured that she would not be forgotten. There was nothing in Christian tradition that said a midwife ought to keep a diary...For some complex of reasons, probably unknown even to her, Martha felt an intense need to re-create her own life day by day...she not only documented her prayers, her lost sleep, her deeds of charity and compassion, she savored and wrote down the petty struggles and small graces of ordinary life. The diary is a selective record, shaped by her need to justify and understand her life, yet is also a remarkably honest one...(it) tells us that Martha was a devout Christian and humble nurse whose intelligence sometimes made it difficult for her to attend church or defer to her town's physicians, a loving mother, a gentle woman with a sense of duty and an anatomical curiosity that allowed her to observe autopsies as well as cry over the dead, a courageous woman..."
The Mystery of the Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie, middle grade mystery: Crack the codes. Find the treasure. Escape the house. The twists and turns make this really fun - and middle grade always has a happy and hopeful ending!
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan, three short stories: If says Claire Keegan is one of the best fiction writers in the world, I pay attention. With the sparest language, this short novella accomplishes what great fiction does: makes you care. Such simple stories, so powerful.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten, memoir: I have no interest in celebrity memoirs, and definitely not cooking ones so it was a surprise even to me when I picked this in my Libby app. Maybe because it was short, or maybe because I’d heard it was good - and it was! What a delightful surprise to learn so much about Ina - her feminism, her difficult childhood home life, Jeffrey, working for the government, discovering cooking later in life, opening a store…I was inspired! She taken big risks her whole life and I feel I’ve met a mentor and friend.
What are you reading? I always love to hear…
Amy 💖
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
Mailbag:
When I wrote “Love is a Handwritten Letter,” you delivered! Thank you for making my day - Patti, Connie, Maple Elementary, and Herbie <3
The Last Part:School visits: Looking for a class visit? Let’s talk creativity, brain and books, resilience and story, the power of reading and writing…be in touch.
I work with a literacy organization called CLIF. We bring books to low income and underserved communities. If you live in New Hampshire or Vermont, check it out - and request a visit. I WILL COME!I Feel I’m Walking Off a Cliff: After TWENTY-SIX YEARS of mothering, my youngest is graduating from high school. I know I’ll always be a mom, but this year has been a year of “lasts.” We’ve had a really great time getting here (she weeps).
Mid-life Crisis: See above. Who am I now?
Boiled Eggs: I don’t like eggs but I eat them a couple times a week bc they’re healthy and make me feel better. Like I tell my kids, “you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.” yay, mummy! (do you eat foods you hate b/c you “should”?)
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
April 15, 2025
The Power of a Crowd
My daughter recently told me about being in Boston for a Quest. They needed one person to smile and be in their group photo. Person after person said no no no. Then they saw a group of students walking toward them and thought, these kids are our age and of course they’ll be cool say yes!
But the first person in the group said, No. After that, every other teenager in the group said No.
Until suddenly, one teenage boy stopped and said, “Guys, why are we all saying No? Let’s just do this.”
And suddenly, everyone was like, Yeah, sure. I’ll be in your picture. Wait, let be in it! Move over, I’m not in it. Wait for me. Smile!
In an instant, ONE PERSON changed the entire moment. Suddenly, everyone in the crowd is saying YES.
No judgment on whether it was wrong or right to say yes or no in the first place (you might not want your picture taken with a stranger) - but it’s astonishing to hear about how one person so quickly turned the entire crowd around.
Happy Holy Week. In the Christian tradition, Sunday was Palm Sunday, the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey.
On that day, palm leaves were excitedly waved and laid down in respect.
The crowd shouted “Hallelujah” at His coming (which translates to a prayer - Save Us!)
Just five days later the tide would turn. The crowd would begin chanting “Crucify Him!” Wow.
How do we have this story? Someone wrote it down.
We’re seeing the power of crowds play out in a big way right now.
We are in the crowd right now.
I think it’s a really good time to ponder our role - online, in person, and otherwise, in this big, brutal, beautiful world. What are we lifting up or supporting with our voices - or our silence? Half the time I feel like I’m inwardly screaming Save Us!
Inspiring books about the power of one person (or lion):
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
Solitary: A Biography by Albert Woodfox
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (New Testament)
How do we have these stories? Someone wrote them down.
Here’s a writer plug: Write down your stories! Write down your life. The world feels like it’s on fire - and we are part of the crowd. Write it down.
This week I’m going to be writing, and I’m also going to take time to read the written accounts of Jesus’s last week of life. His is the ultimate “right vs might” archetype and feels incredibly relevant today.
My intention1 is to read and ponder in still, quiet places - because the crowd is so very very loud.
If you celebrate, Happy Easter! Is this a Holy Week for you (or more about bunnies? :)
Send me your reflections. I would love to hear.
Amy 💖
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
MailbagI adore NPR. I even have NPR socks and carry books in an NPR tote bag (TOTAL NERD)! So imagine my delight to see my comment in the online NPR mailbag on April 14 (even if it was because I was sad about NaNoWriMo’s official demise):
Baby Bump Painting of the Week: the cauliflower (Cope is 24 weeks!)
Painting the baby bump “fruits” week by week is helping me pay attention to the miracle of life, and Attention is the beginning of devotion…
The Last Part:School visits: Looking for a class visit? I love visiting classrooms. Let’s talk creativity, brain and books, resilience and story, the power of reading and writing…be in touch.
Bike Rides: It SNOWED A LOT on Saturday, but yesterday it mostly melted and today we’re going to take our bikes out for the first ride of the year. WHEEEEE.
Seeing: Green sprouts pushing up through dirt and snow. This is so exciting.
Smelling: Manure melting all over the neighborhood
Hearing: Peepers!!!
Tasting: I made enchilada pie for the first time last night and I’ll be making it MORE OFTEN. I deviated from the recipe and used a casserole pan, added black beans, and swapped flour for corn tortillas. My mother used to make this when I was growing up. I was missing her secret ingredient of black olives. My husband gets a lot of mileage from my family’s black olives obsession (which is practically in its own food group).
Very important question: are you a black olive fan?
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
1and oh, I have so many good intentions…
April 8, 2025
Love is a Handwritten Letter
April is National Card and Letter Writing Month! A holiday initiated by the United States Postal Service “as a way to honor and celebrate the efforts that go into mail service.” Hey, everyone needs to feel appreciated, right?
Plus, there are so many cool stamps to use - like my iconic Tomie dePaola, Maya Angelous, and US Women’s Soccer Team ones. It gives me such delight to use them. I never use them on the utility company, but maybe I should?
In February, 2023, I wrote a post called Happiness is a Handwritten Letter and do you know what happened? I had at least five people read that post and send me a handwritten letter! It made me so happy. And then I wrote back and it made THEM happy.
This, my friends, is what makes the world go round.
Our teeny tiny actions have ripple effects.
And so, I’m writing to encourage you to:
write one person a handwritten letter this month
Or, type it
Or, use a typewriter
Or, send a postcard
Find address
Put stamp on
Put in mailbox
Feel JOY (dopamine!!!)
The effect will be the same - you will make someone’s day or moment - GUARANTEED!
I find this concept fascinating. Doing for others is so often as beneficial to us as it is the recipient - sometimes more.
Yes, I hear you on the boundaries, but lately if feels we overlook the fact that part of self-care also includes caring for others.
Some postcards I mailed and wrote my typewriter!I remain obsessed with the mail. And you. So write your letters, yes?
The handwritten letter has become a rare gift. It is an act of love, and the world could use a little more of that.
Love is a hand written letter and I give it five stars.
❤️ Amy
Picture Book Publishing Opportunity:As of 2025, the SCBWI Impact and Legacy Fund has taken over the iconic Ann Whitford Paul and Writer’s Digest Most Promising Picture Book Manuscript Award.
There are two awards: one for a fiction manuscript and one for a nonfiction manuscript. Each winner will receive a $1,500 no-strings-attached prize and an additional $500 to help them sell their work, to be used for submission advice, counseling, professional editing, or querying.
If you’re working on your first picture book manuscript, please send it in for consideration!
This wonderful award opens for submissions today, and closes on May 1st, 2025.
Please go to the award's webpage or read on for criteria and submission guidelines.
Good luck!
I didn’t paint this week, but I’m writing a lot of quotes in my notebook:
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
The Last PartWatching: daffodil stems push up through the ground
Smelling: the manure thawing from the farm up the road
Tasting: homemade pitas from The Mediterranean Dish
Hearing: “Most Beautiful Classical Music” playlist on Spotify and messages from General Conference. Ya’ll, I just need Jesus in my life and this was that.
Reading: The Bletchley Riddle and it’s so good
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
Lit With Amy Makechnie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
April 1, 2025
Meta stole millions of books. Two of them were mine.
Happy April 1. Sadly, this is not an April Fool’s Joke. This is a true story:
I’m not flattered. I’m really sad.
They stole 72 books from David Sedaris, 200 from Jodi Picoult, Kate Dicamillo. It goes on and on.
On March 20, 2025, journalist Alex Reisner wrote an article for The Atlantic about it: THE UNBELIEVABLE SCALE OF AI’s PIRATED BOOKS PROBLEM. This isn’t a new problem for authors and AI, but it’s still a major, unacceptable problem.
Books are copyrighted. Meaning you can’t steal them, acquire illegally, or pass them off as your own work to make money off of.
This is basic integrity.
Reisner writes:
“When employees at Meta started developing their flagship AI model, Llama 3, they faced a simple ethical question. The program would need to be trained on a huge amount of high-quality writing to be competitive with products such as ChatGPT, and acquiring all of that text legally could take time. Should they just pirate it instead?”
A simple ethical question.
(My eye caught on “high-quality.” That high quality comes from years spent being very writing poor. It’s betting on yourself when the odds are so against you it’s absolutely foolish. It’s writing and editing and querying and being rejected for multiple years and having multiple life crises and editing and editing until eventually there are the high quality and multiple professional editors and copyeditors.)
Obviously, the right thing to do is to NOT STEAL that work.
Court documents released last night show that the senior manager felt it was “really important for [Meta] to get books ASAP,” as “books are actually more important than web data.” Meta employees turned their attention to Library Genesis, or LibGen, one of the largest of the pirated libraries that circulate online. It currently contains more than 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers. Eventually, the team at Meta got permission from “MZ”—an apparent reference to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—to download and use the data set.
So that’s what they did. Meta/Facebook STOLE books to train their AI program.
I’m still processing the feelings, though resisting acceptance if that means it’s a shrug of the shoulders and “this is just what the billionaire tech bros do.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but still…I am.
They knew it was wrong AND THEY DID IT ANYWAY.
When I think about how wealthy Meta/Zuckerberg is and how little money most authors make and what disregard they showed for a writer’s years of toil and creativity…I have many mean and angry thoughts. Life is just not fair, my friends.
Fair is for pigs and blue ribbons1
Alas. Facebook/Meta could have been so great. But instead they decided to be greedy. And I am so disappointed.
And so dear authors and future authors, here are some action items (so we are not merely acted upon!):
What we can doSend a formal notice: if your books are in the LibGen data set, send a letter to Meta and other AI companies stating they do not have the right to use your books. The Authors Guild of America gives a template here.
Tell your publisher (and agent if you have one) and protect your works: add a “NO AI TRAINING” notice on the copyright page of your works. For online work, you can update your website’s robots.txt file to block AI bots.
Add your voice to that of over 47,000 creators: Sign the Statement on AI training. The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.2
I have signed my name to the petitions, written to my publisher, and have contacted the law firm llmlitigation.com. They responded immediately and I am thankful! All stolen books will be added to the ongoing class action lawsuit.
As Ann Handley wrote,
Is it too much to ask that AI companies be transparent about data sources and use, obtain permission from creators, and provide fair payment for using their works?
I can't imagine why anyone would disagree.
SEARCH YOUR BOOK HERE and then please spread the word, send the letters, sign the petitions.
Emma Gannon wrote about owning your own work so well (I read this right after I finished this draft; it felt more than serendipitous) - thank you . Owning my work is one of many reasons I like . And just remember:
It’s never been more important to think about ownership of your art. Authors spend so much time working on their projects. I recently read about Martha Beck’s writing process—she takes six-mile walks, listens to audiobooks at 2x speed, writes on Post-its notes for a year, and then lies on the floor with huge sheets of paper to bring it all together, and then types it all up before sending a draft to her editor. The manual work authors do with their juicy little brains is intense. I’m sure AI can help with some stuff, but honestly, the reason you enjoyed the book you just read is because someone, a human, spent years churning it over inside their heart and mind, and stuck with it throughout so many ups and downs, just hoping it might change someone’s day.3
Don’t lose heart. Most people are good (I must believe this, I must believe, I must..)
Stay strong, have integrity 😊 (and protect your work!!!)
Love, Amy
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
Baby Bump Painting of the Week: the grapefruit!
I cleaned off my desk and painted! It was truly delightful and got my mind off the stealing. I used acrylic paint, which is so different than watercolor, but so enjoyable.
Painting my daughter’s baby bump “fruits” week by week is helping me pay attention to the miracle of life, and Attention is the beginning of devotion…
And lastly, want to do some Zoom writing sessions?
It works like this: You join a zoom session and write! That’s it. It’s shockingly productive. You can do whatever creative thing you’d like - I’ve been to “creative” hours where most people write, some people paint, some knit…whatever! But it’s a quiet work session and you’ll get your next chapter written. Let me know what works.
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
1not helpful, Amy. but sadly, true.
2This is an exact copy/paste paragraph from societyofauthors.org - thank you for this info (this is a UK site)
3I added the bold print
March 25, 2025
What I Read this Month
Here are four grand slams for you. I loved these books:
Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, historical fiction: Martha Ballard is a midwife and healer in 1789 Maine (shortly after the American Revolution) who is called to investigate the murder of a wicked man found frozen in the Kennebec River.
We would know nothing of the remarkable, real life Martha Ballard except that she kept a meticulous and detailed daily diary beginning in 1785 (at the age of 50) until her death twenty-seven years later.
*Born in 1735, Martha Ballard was illiterate until her husband, Ephraim, taught her to read (fewer than half of the women in America were literate at that time)
*Martha and Ephraim had nine children, three of whom would die during the diphtheria epidemic in 1769
*She delivered close to a thousand babies
*Martha wrote about the weather, daily drudgery, household tasks, midwifery, her medical practice, "and countless incidents that reveal the turmoil of a new nation — dizzying social change, intense religious conflict, economic boom and bust — as well as the grim realities of disease, domestic violence, and debtor's prison."
*She is the great-aunt of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and the great-great-grandmother of Mary Hobart (one of the first female physicians in U.S.)
*Martha's diaries were preserved and are now in the Maine State Library, where they were transcribed, organized, and bound (WE LOVE THE LIBRARIANS)
*In 1982, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and professor, stumbled upon the diary and for the next eight years, wrote Martha's definitive biography: "A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812."
I particularly enjoy reading acknowledgements (and sometimes read them before the book). Ariel Lawhon's were golden, and included Ulrich's words:
"Martha Ballard ensured that she would not be forgotten. There was nothing in Christian tradition that said a midwife ought to keep a diary...For some complex of reasons, probably unknown even to her, Martha felt an intense need to re-create her own life day by day...she not only documented her prayers, her lost sleep, her deeds of charity and compassion, she savored and wrote down the petty struggles and small graces of ordinary life. The diary is a selective record, shaped by her need to justify and understand her life, yet is also a remarkably honest one...(it) tells us that Martha was a devout Christian and humble nurse whose intelligence sometimes made it difficult for her to attend church or defer to her town's physicians, a loving mother, a gentle woman with a sense of duty and an anatomical curiosity that allowed her to observe autopsies as well as cry over the dead, a courageous woman..."
Dear reader, this book is so worth the read! The murder mystery was actually less interesting to me than the midwifery and the real life Ballard.
The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt, Middle Grade Fiction. I always say if a book is a good book, it’s a good book - no matter the genre. This is one of them! Seventh grader, Hercules, is grieving the loss of his parents when he’s given the assignment to complete all twelve of the legendary Hercules challenges. This story really makes you love the teachers in your life.
We are here to help you carry the sky when you have to, and we are here to help you put it down when you need to.
Why else would anyone ever become a teacher?
Go As a River by Shelley Read, Adult fiction (audiobook via Hoopla). This is a gorgeous, stirring, wonderfully-told story about a chance encounter with a stranger that changes a young girl’s life. It’s a coming-of-age story, it’s heartbreaking, life-affirming, and has a heroine you’re always rooting for.
Long Bright River by Liz Moore, Adult thriller (audiobook via Libby): Two sisters traveling the same streets of Philadelphia. Their lives diverge. Mickey becomes a cop, while Casey can’t kick addiction. Then, Casey goes missing. This is a really excellent book; I could not stop listening! Masterfully told (and one of Barack Obama’s favorites). I’m officially a major Liz Moore fan (loved God of the Woods, too, but probably this one better).
Currently reading (but falling asleep way too fast to be making much progress): Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow, and on my TBR: The Bletchley Riddle and Everything is Tuberculosis.
What are you reading? I always love to hear…
Amy 💖
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
Baby Bump Painting of the Week: the red pepper
I didn’t paint at all last week. Ya’ll I’ve fallen off the wagon!!! My excuse is that I’ve been hard at work on my boarding school mystery…even still, I feel called to paint and I don’t have a regular habit of doing so.
I do want to get back to painting. Painting the baby bump “fruits” week by week is helping me pay attention to the miracle of life, and Attention is the beginning of devotion…
The Last Part:School visits: Looking for a class visit? I love visiting classrooms. Let’s talk creativity, brain and books, resilience and story, the power of reading and writing…be in touch!
It’s Snowing: and officially spring. I’m annoyed. The end.
Running: Even though it snowed, I am seeing and hearing signs of spring…the heart rejoices.
Frustrated: On March 21, The Atlantic reported that Meta used hundreds of thousands of pirated, copyrighted books from LibGen to train its AI program. My books are among those stolen - and it really REALLY upsets me. Writers and authors work so hard for so little while a billionaire is profiting. This is not the end of the story…
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
March 18, 2025
our lives are murky, magnificent, malleable and full of meaning.
Hello my little leprechauns,
Here are ten things so lit(erary-ish) and otherwise worth sharing…
The snow is melting, the earth is warming. What this means in New Hampshire? MAPLE SYRUP! Sap has begun to flow from the mighty maples into buckets on trees all over town. The sap is then boiled down into syrup. Did you know that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup? Trees are so generous. Never let the good stuff go to waste; lick your pancake plate clean.
This: “So let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends, and build altars. Let us listen to the sound of breath in our bodies. let us listen to the sounds of our own voices, of our own names, of our own fears. Let us name the harsh light and soft darkness that surround us. Let’s claw ourselves out of the graves we’ve dug, let’s lick the earth from our fingers. Let us look up, and out, and around. the world is big, and wide, and wild and wonderful and wicked, and our lives are murky, magnificent, malleable and full of meaning. -Pádrig Ó Tauma via
“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
Quoted in Shapiro, Miles. Maya Angelou (Black Americans of Achievement). Chelsea House Pub, 1994. via
NotedMaya Angelou's DraftsMaya Angelou (1928-2014) believed that words are things. That they have the ability to act in the world—to heal us, to hurt us. If, during one of her festive parties, she heard a racial slur in her home, she would kindly escort the speaker to the door. “Not in my house,” she’d say. Hate-filled words toward any group of people, she thought, were poison…Read more15 days ago · 209 likes · 66 comments · Jillian HessLet’s Define Our Terms: “Diversity is where everyone is invited to the party. Equity means that everyone gets to contribute to the playlist. Inclusion means that everyone has the opportunity to dance.” -Robert Sellers, former chief diversity officer at the University of Michigan, compares DEI to a high school dance. This is the kind of dance I want to be at.
We Were Made For These Times: Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. -Clarissa Pinkola Estes
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES FANS: Our girl Megan Follows is to play Lucy Maude Montgomery in the film adaptation of author’s life!
"This story is yours now. I hope you like it." Author John Green has a new book out! If anyone can make tuberculosis fascinating and timely, he can.
Such a Fun Birthday Idea: Set up an “appreciation campaign” for someone’s birthday (or any occasion). My dearest husband did this for me and for 81 days straight I’m getting a note from someone who loves me. I mean, that’s pretty awesome (esp since my love language is “words of affirmation”).
MEDITATE WITH ME: (I actually listened to this while riding a bike and my life changed for the better). In this inaugural podcast episode, Thomas McConkie introduces the lost jewel of contemplation in the Christian tradition. He shares a brief spiritual autobiography, invites the listener to come see for themselves, then dives right in with a wisdom bomb from Howard Thurman: on cultivating atmosphere and spiritual presence.
School visits: I would love to come to your class, library, or book group! Favorite presentations include “Real Life to Fantastic Fiction,” “Our Favorite Characters Are Resilient - and So Are You,” and “Brain, Heart, Stories.” I might even show up in these glasses ‘cause I’m fun like that…
What’s lighting up your week?
Love, Amy
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
March 11, 2025
In the thick of editing -
Written by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated and read by Joanna Macy
Listen
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
Love, Amy
p.s. I heard my friend and author read this stunning poem when she had a writing session a couple of weeks ago over zoom. After she read the poem, we silently wrote or knitted or painted (or whatever!) for an hour. I’m shockingly productive with this kind of meeting. Are you interested in a writing sprint with me over zoom? Let me know!
p.p.s. Did you know doing anything creative lowers anxiety and puts you in a more peaceful, meditative state? I think I’m finally understanding the phrase “making art is a form a resistance.”
Baby Bump Painting of the Week: the banana
I did something new! I used acrylic paint - why was I so scared? It was so fun. I love the texture it can create. I probably overdid it with the yellow all over the place. Will keep practicing.Painting these baby bump “fruits” week by week is helping me pay attention to the miracle of life, and remember - Attention is the beginning of devotion…
The Last Part:School visits: I’ll be in Peterborough, New Hampshire this week. I would love to come to your class, library, or book group! We can talk books, brain and heart anatomy, resilience, family relationships, reading and writing…be in touch!
Reading: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and Presumed Guilty
Editing: One last scene of my boarding school mystery…it’s almost time to hand back to my literary agent who will pitch to editors. We’ve got one shot at this, kids!
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
March 4, 2025
How Will We Write About This Moment?
Hey friends and happy March. I was going to write the ides of March but that has the negative connotation of doom and misfortune. Let’s head into March with the happy, bouncing fortune of the leprechauns!
Let’s also do something different today - scene analysis.
And to make it spicy, let’s analyze a very tense and charged moment: the scene where President Zelensky of Ukraine met with President Trump in the Oval Office on February 28, 2025.
Ya’ll ready for this?1
In every good scene, you will have story principles that include:
Context and Point of View (what is the history of this scene and who’s telling the story?)
Characters (motivations, dreams, fears)
Setting (sets and shapes the scene)
Plot (what’s the action? What’s happening?)
Conflict (tension; what’s at stake?)
What did you observe from this scene in the oval office?
I felt a wide and wild range of emotions, but by the end, the overwhelming feeling was one of great sadness.
If only it was fiction.
How about you? What’s your take?
I’d love to hear your scene analysis (and hope you liked the video; kindof fun and maybe I’ll keep doing it…)
How will we write about this moment?
I think it’s important that we do. We, the writers, are the sacred keepers of history.
Love, Amy
p.s. just before I hit send, President Trump halted all U.S. aid going to Ukraine…
Baby Bump Painting of the Week: the sweet potato
Forgive me, I didn’t paint the sweet potato…but here’s the visual. Cope is 19 weeks along. Baby is half a pound and 6-7 inches long! Amazing.Attention is the beginning of devotion…
The Last Part:School visits: Looking for a class visit? I love visiting classrooms. Let’s talk brain and heart anatomy, resilience, family relationships, the power of reading and writing…be in touch!
Reading: The Labors of Hercules Beal, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store on Kindle, Go As a River on audiobook
Eating: This chocolate cake, oh my
Feeling: I wish I could say warm but it’s still so cold! 6 degrees this morning.
Taking: I’m still taking 5mg of creatine every morning (mixed with orange juice) and I think I can report: it’s making a difference in strength and longevity of workout.
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
1haha couldn’t help myself
February 25, 2025
Can I Read All of the Books I Own?
Hey look! It’s my first Substack video…and I decided to wear glasses. And move the camera around a lot. And I think I’m supposed to film horizontally if uploading from my phone? What a rookie. But hey - I tried something new!
Here’s the question - should we read all of the books we own?
By my count, I own over 376 books that I have not read + many more that I have. I want to read them, but I keep stopping at the library for that shiny new thing (for instance, The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys just arrived!)
Therefore, I own a lot of books that I still haven’t read. And if I keep going the way I’m going, I will never get around to reading Bittersweet by Susan Cain (an example of a book I really really want to read - I even bought this book.)
Is it important to you that you read all of the books you own? I’ve been pondering this question ever since and Caroline asked the question.
Here are some reasons I keep a book on the shelf:
I read the book and loved it and can never ever part with it
I want to read the book
It’s pretty
It’s a classic
It was a gift
It’s autographed
I *should* read it
Someone else might want to read the book
Research (as if I don’t google everything)
A source of pride? I like other people seeing that my home loves books
I grew up in a home filled with books. My mother, especially, wanted her home to be a library. So it’s completely normal to me to have at least one bookshelf in every room filled with books (with the occasional picture frame and/or decoration, but mostly books). And though I strive to be more minimalist in every other area of my life, this hasn’t yet applied to books. For all of the above reasons.
What about you?
Do you want to read all of the books you own? Do you have a plan?
Let me know - I am super interested in how you’re going about this (esp with how you’re going to read those books first without stopping at the library and checking out that new release!)
Amy 💖
What I read in January:
The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman: I’m transfixed and obsessed with Kalman’s work (which is mostly gouache and black ink). I adore her style, wit, and humor. I love how she writes personal stories with pictures that are sometimes funny and sometimes sad, and that her paintings teach us of history and wisdom without being preachy. Go down the rabbit hole with me.
Innocent by Scott Turow: A thrilling courtroom drama/murder mystery with a literary bent, Turow is so good. I finished Innocent just in time to read Presumed Guilty, (the 3rd in the series!)
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon: Based on the diaries of real life midwife, Martha Ballard, it’s Maine, 1789. When the Kennebec River freezes and it entombs a man in the ice, Martha is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. "Fans of Outlander’s Claire Fraser will enjoy Lawhon’s Martha, who is brave and outspoken when it comes to protecting the innocent. . . impressive."—The Washington Post (I concur! And who needs protecting here? The women).
I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron: Audiobook via free library app, Libby. It’s read by MERYL STREEP so you know it’s good. Memoir. Hilarious. Touching. I adore Ephron. Journalist, mother, novelist, essayist, producer, director, and screenwriter (the writer and director behind Julia & Julia, When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle). I laughed out loud several times and just loaded up Heartburn.
Watched:
Say Nothing, a 2024 historical drama limited series on hulu, and an adaptation of the 2018 book by Patrick Radden Keefe. The story details four decades of the IRA struggle in Northern Ireland during The Troubles using real life accounts (from The Belfast Project, a super secret oral history project conducted by Boston College researchers). It is so intense and will leave you asking - how far is too far when you believe you have a righteous cause?!? Read more here.
What are you reading, listening to, and watching?
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
Baby Bump Painting of the Week: the artichoke
I don’t love this painting but alas, I’ve never painted an artichokePainting these baby bump “fruits” week by week is helping me pay attention to the miracle of life, and Attention is the beginning of devotion…
The Last Part:School visits: Looking for a class visit? I love visiting classrooms. Let’s talk brain and heart anatomy, resilience, family relationships, the power of reading and writing…be in touch!
Reading: The Anxious Generation, Heartburn, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, and (pulitzer prize writer and historian)
Running: Ya’ll, it’s finally in the 30’s in New Hampshire and I am RUNNING outside again!
Supporting: Ukraine, USAID, National Parks, IRS, a bipartisan Justice Department and FBI…
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
February 18, 2025
how did she survive? she laughed and she read...and made friends
Hello my friends,
Here are ten things so lit (erary-ish) that are worth sharing with my favorite Substack peeps:
“Let each hour of the day have its allotted duty, and cultivate that power of concentration which grows with its exercise, so that the attention neither flags nor wavers, but settles with bull-dog tenacity on the subject before you. Constant repetition makes a good habit fit easily in your mind, and by the end of the session you may have gained that most precious of all knowledge—the power of work.” — Sir William Osler from Caroline Starr Rose
This interview by the ineffable Kate DiCamillo1 was so good and life-changing-life-affirming that I not only listened, but read the transcript and wrote down a dozen quotes. Kate always boils it down to this: LOVE. Thank you for sending, Ethney!
“We have been given the sacred task of making hearts large through story. We are working to make hearts that are capable of containing much joy and much sorrow, hearts capacious2 enough to contain the complexities and mysteries…of ourselves and of each other.” -Kate DiCamillo, in her 2nd Newbery speech
Kate was a sickly child. How did she survive? This is what she said:
using my new pentel brush pen - it’s hard! and fun.The four things we need to say before we die…
Thank you for reminding me of this quote!
I’ve discovered the artist Maira Kalman. I recently purchased THE PRINCIPLES OF UNCERTAINTY and am…obsessed. I love her whimsical work (mostly gouache and ink?)
I mean, look at this“Can you remake your life,” author and lawyer Scott Turow said, “when you have a sense of your own mistakes and your own role in your prior unhappiness?” I’m a big Scott Turow fan. His book, PRESUMED INNOCENT, was a mega hit in 1987 - I’ll never forget the SHOCKING ending. He made me want to write fiction (when I had little talent for it, really). Many years ago I wrote Turow an email to tell him how much I loved his book and he wrote me back! PRESUMED GUILTY (the third book in a trilogy) is on my bedside table - EXCITED. Btw, Turow is 75-years-old and still writing. What are you waiting for?!?
I WANT TO MAKE THIS cutest phone hotel
These Luddite Teens Don’t Want Your Likes. When the only thing better than a flip phone is no phone at all. I just love this.
Amy 💖
the very special pomegranate
my daughter, Cope, is 17 weeks this week! and we love pomegranates.The Last Part:School visits: I had a great visit to a middle school in Bedford, New Hampshire yesterday for their Literacy Day. I love school visits! Be in touch.
Running: It’s FREEZING here. Thus, the reign of the treadmill continues. I’m adjusting.
Reading: The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. Midwives, murder, historical fiction. It’s great.
Wearing: It’s still so cold that I can’t seem to get out of my sweatpants. I even went to dinner at an actual restaurant wearing fuschia color sweatpants…and I didn’t even care.
If you’d like to support my work with a paid yearly subscription, I will gratefully send you a signed copy of any one of my books 🙏 and then I will do cartwheels because you have made MY YEAR of writing possible <3
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
1INEFFABLE: incapable of being expressed in words : indescribable. ineffable joy. Let’s use this word this week!
2CAPACIOUS: adjective. capable of holding much; spacious or roomy. Reading, stories…can make our hearts bigger, roomier. Capable of holding more for each other.
