Hi lovely readers.

If shoveling hasn’t put you in traction, and you’re able to read this, I salute you!

Books From Phoebe’s Writing Group

I have a cozy little writing group that’s helping me get through this epic midwinter, and I surveyed them for what they’ve been reading of late.

They recommend the novel The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow. It's about three sisters in late-19th Century America who are descended from witches and get involved in the suffrage movement.

Also The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy, Ravens in Winter by Bernd Heinrich (a theme emerges), Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders.

Someone else is reading nonfiction like Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Hahneman, and Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, who passed away last month. I just finished Felon by Reginald Dwayne Betts, an incredible book of poetry that takes on the American prison system, and Euphoria by Lily King, which is loosely based on Margaret Mead’s life and made me question the moral ground of whole entire field of anthropology.

Any of these could be had at either Binnacle Books or Split Rock Books or requested for curbside pickup at the Howland Library!

What else is going down besides rock salt?

Well, the Hudson Valley Writer’s Center has a pretty serious lineup of awesomeness if you want to join on Zoom. There’s a great workshop with Karen Finley (!!!!) on February 13th called What’s Love Got To Do With It. The center also has an open mic on February 19th if you feel brave.

In conjunction with Bard College, the phenomenal Meshell Ndegocello has created this amazing project inspired by James Baldwin. Chapter & Verse “is a 21st century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times.” You can call in for meditations, songs, readings; it’s such a creative work.

I just discovered the Albany Poets group and that’s a website you can spend some time in. They have a number of performance recordings, lots of calls for submissions, and they just published two poems by Mike Jurkovic, who is a really fun poet to hear read.

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Kingston Reads presents A Community Conversation about Race and Social Classifications on February 18th, in collaboration with one of my favorite bookstores, Rough Draft. Moderators Shaniqua Bowden, Erica Brown, and Charlotte Adamis “will hold the space for a spirited conversation about race and social classifications inspired by Isabel Wilkerson’s award-winning book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”

For a book discussion closer to home, you can join the Newburgh LGBTQ+ Center for their Abolitionist Study Group in March. Email them to join in. And if you want to exercise your abolitionist muscles in a different way, consider the Black & Pink, a nationwide PenPal program in which incarcerated LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS are matched with PenPals who correspond, build relationships, and participate in harm reduction and affirmation.

The Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center in Kingston has some scheduled meetings to virtually write these letters with a group! In partnership with the TMI Project, the Center is also putting out a call for storytellers who self-identify as members of the Black Transgender & Gender Non-Conforming community.

Finally, on February 25th, SUNY Dutchess Community College presents New York Times best selling author Hanif Abdurraqib. This is a great opportunity to hear a really prolific writer.

This should be enough to warm you up, dear readers! Stay safe, stay cozy, keep shoveling.