READ TO ME with Becky Karush

Wild. It's wild. Reading this poem, I feel a gathering up of my attention all along the front of my body — like I was a slack windsock that's suddenly full and taut with wind.

And then that wind plays me, tosses me around into wryness and laughter, and then into devastation, and into intimacy —

into the straight hard line of a story and through circular eddies of a scene that doesn't have a beginning or end —

so that by the end the skin along my arms feels taut, too, my heart feels open and pouring, my low belly is feeling a kind of drum beat of something like authority, or inevitability, and somehow a finch is singing on top of my head too.

Wild, right? Wild, courtesy of Kirun Kapur.

For more info about this book and to read Becky's thoughts, visit here: https://www.readtomepod.com/season2episodes/kirun-kapur

This week on READ TO ME we are introducing our first mini episode, starring Makenna Goodman, author of THE SHAME. (Listen to last week's episode on THE SHAME.)

Today Makenna and I chat about the main character of THE SHAME, about books that make her happy, and about craft that she's drawn to.

For more info about this book and to read Becky's thoughts, visit here: https://www.readtomepod.com/season2episodes/mini-makenna-goodman

This week on READ TO ME, let's be thankful for sacred spaces, spaces where we are free to be and free to work. In my sacred space this week, the coffee shop, I read to you from THE SHAME by Makenna Goodman. Together we'll experience the power of monologue, being in the body, and the surge of a good story. Head on over to your favorite couch, your favorite coffee shop, or on your morning commute and join me as we listen for what we love.

For more info about this book and to read Becky's thoughts, visit here: https://www.readtomepod.com/season2episodes/the-shame

This spring and summer and fall has been improbably glorious. Raging hot and dry. Grueling funk. Showing up for kids, for work, for your people, for your city, on the page because you have to, because you get to, because you want to. Because you are here.

So, let's do what we do on this podcast, waking up after a seven-week rest, let's turn ourselves to beauty in words, and lift up in eager awe the wonder that we find. Today, I am reading a song called "Gentle Soldier of My Soul", performed by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer.

Visit this episode's show notes here: https://www.readtomepod.com/season2episodes/gentle-soldier-of-my-soul

Today we read "a dark scrawl" by Evie Shockley, and get this, get this, get this there is only ONE VOWEL used in every word of this poem.

One vowel. The letter A.

As a gymnastics move, this is AWESOME, like, she's flipping, she's flipping, she's still flipping!!! SHE IS STILL IN THE AIR FLIPPING.

And then, and then — what happens to us when that one vowel sound, that open a and ahh and ahr, pellets us, like bullets in image after image of war?

It's enough to love the artistry, the sheer attitude and talent of having one vowel sound in a poem. But Evie Shockley does more than impress us. Her work has more to do. Lucky, lucky us.

Why do middle grade books last and last and last? Books about wizards, books about twin girls with a red Spider Fiat, books about... babysitters? Because the writing dedicates itself to characters and action, and the best of them hold the author's heart and mind in the white space. Come listen to the warm authority and craft in KRISTY'S GREAT IDEA, the first book in the The Baby-sitters Club series by ANN M. MARTIN.

A year ago, I swam in the ocean before breakfast. So did Kelly, so did Elise. Lizbeth, Lisa, Eaddy, Jan. Sage. A clutch of my sister Gateless teachers. We swam to the dock. Lunched on the porch. Wrote in the morning. Improv'd in the evening. And one afternoon, we read aloud from THE SUMMER FLETCHER GREEL LOVED ME by Suzanne Kingsbury. We aren't able to gather this year, so we raise up this book by the founder of Gateless Writing, and we love its lush sorrow. Come swim with us.