Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 4

An Art of Noticing

Over on Mastodon I was made aware of the existence of this beautiful little zine, done in the traditional way (all printed on a single sheet of paper), Meditations with Insects: An Art of Noticing, so I decided to order it.

It came in a brown envelope with drawings of a beetle, small bird, and owl on it, and the sender was "Unfolding Connections."

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It was everything I hoped for and more. The main text directs readers to quiet, curious attention to creatures often ignored or disliked:

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And then, won...

I present to you "The Bee Wife"

Today “The Bee Wife” is available! You can get it from all the usual suspects ( Amazon , Barnes & Noble , Kobo , Apple, etc.) for 99 cents, or if you’d prefer to get it directly from me, drop me a message here or by email.

It’s the story of Florian, a beekeeper whose wife (Joy) has just died, and the swarm of bees that attempts to comfort him. Here’s what they do (this is what I read at the Mythic Delirium 25-plus-one-year anniversary reading):

(  Death is a law that cannot be broken  )

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Netflix content notes

(about half of these are real)

Netflix content notes

Peril
Language
Noteworthy soundtrack
Brief smoking
Introverted
Unstable
Suspenseful
Mutable
Provocative
Dizzying
Loneliness
Bravado
Last chances
Gritty
Barren
Fleeting
Gone

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In case this is useful or a good prompt

A friend here on Dreamwidth urged me to share with US readers the means of getting in touch with your legislators so you can keep them apprised of your feelings and concerns. [ ] (The square brackets are made of adamantium and are capable of holding the depth and heat of your feelings and concerns.)

It is very easy to contact your federal legislators. congress.gov has a "find your member" feature. Type in your address, and it will tell you your senators and your representative.

If you then go to ...

Billy Behind Me

Billy Behind Me, who was a character in the Patricia Russo flash story "Mena, Until," which I talked about back in February, makes an appearance in the second of this trio of short poems.

I like everything about that poem. I have a broken pot whose shards I want to try drawing with (though I have brilliant street chalks, so I don't really have the need--but it's the principle of the thing).

The end makes me think of how we talk with people when we can't talk to them in the waking world anymore. Ho...

Bright Water Bog

We went for a walk at Bright Water Bog in Shutesbury, MA, yesterday. It was a misty, moisty, equinoctial day, with ice still present in places.

It was perfect. I do love-love-love places that blur water and land. Best of all? There were cranberries. Enchanting.

Cranberry, lower portion of the photo


(  two more photos of two other cranberries, in case, like me, you can't get enough of them  )

I saw a few just out of reach and was going to put a foot off the boardwalk and onto a tussock to pick one.

"...

We have grass; it exists

Last week I saw No Other Land (2024; Oscar-winning documentary on destruction of a group of small hamlets in the West Bank, filmed from 2019 through 2023).

In it, at one point the father of Basel Adra (one of the two main young men making the documentary) takes several of the children in the extended family to school in a van. (The school is later destroyed.) The children are chanting in the van, they say--

We have grass; it exists.
We have a mountain; it exists.
We have a chicken house; it exists.
W...

A spectator society

A friend and I were talking asynchronously the other day**, and she put forward this interesting idea:

A thought: we've become a spectator society, where people often watch sports or plays rather than participating themselves. Are we also becoming a society where many people watch social relationships (on TV, the internet, etc.) rather than participating?

What do people think? More than an agree or disagree, what questions does the question raise for you, or what roads does it take your thoughts d...

Wednesday reading: Saint Death's Daughter

I am loving Saint Death's Daughter, by C. S. E. Cooney, with a powerful love and a deep wonder. No description I encountered of the book before starting it comes anywhere near doing it justice, including the author's own, so I'm not going to try. Instead I'll tell you about its effect on me and some of the things it's done so far. (I'm a little more than a third of the way through the story.)

I was enjoying from the start its humor, both in language and in in-story encounters, and its tenderness ...

A mixture

Choose what you're in the mood for and what you'd like to avoid.

(  my story The Bee Wife  )

(  heard and seen in the woods behind my house  )

(  a grimmer find in other woods  )

(  a fun moment from the public elementary schools of Japan  )

(  some recent microfictions  )

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