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Footnotes

Blurry

One of my favorite things is discovering that someone I love has secretly taken a selfie of themselves on my phone. I’ll be scrolling through photos at some event and among all the group photos is a random selfie of someone making a silly face before she snapped one of the group. It’s a little spark of surprise and always an indication of the personality that took it.
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But now my baby is old enough to steal my phone, so every now and then I find his selfies. This is his selfie. And in all its blurriness it somehow feels like life right now. I recognize what’s happening and yet I can’t quite grasp it either.
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I know Ive experienced a significant loss, but I can’t quite grasp it. I know aid trucks have finally entered Gaza but I can’t believe it’s so few compared to the need. I know our government is actively trying to eliminate the rights of marginalized folks and yet the brazenness of it is hard to wrap my mind around. And while the world is on fire, our personal lives keep falling apart and we keep taping it back together.

Blurriness can be disorienting. We feel around the edges, forced to imagine something beautiful. We squint living in the tension of the picture before us and what we choose to believe what could be.
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We hold onto gratitude with hands that ache from squeezing so tight. And if this is the kind of overwhelmed blurriness that you are experiencing too, I just want you to know that you’re not alone. I want you to know that your community loves you. I want you to know that we’ll help you tape everything back together so you can hold on just a little while longer, until one day joy is clear and silly and magical again.

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*PLEASE BE AWARE, THIS NEWSLETTER CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS TO BOOKSHOP.ORG, WHICH MEANS I RECEIVE A SMALL COMMISSION IF YOU CHOOSE TO MAKE A PURCHASE USING THE BOOK LINKS. I WILL BE USING SAID COMMISSION TO FEED MY BOOK ADDICTION, OFFER YOU MORE REVIEWS, AND AROUND AND AROUND WE GO. THE COMMISSION DOES NOT COST YOU ANYTHING, AND I WILL ALWAYS LET YOU KNOW IF I RECEIVED ANY OF THE BOOKS FOR FREE99.

Overdue

This is one of my all time favorite fiction books. Danzy Senna weaves a story primarily about identity, as a little girl tries to find her place in the world. But this book is filled with twists and turns you never see coming, and for our protagonist, Birdie, much her life feels blurry. ​Purchase Here​

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Bookworm

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Rebecca is a classic fiction tale, one that filmmakers keep trying to capture... but nothing quite lives up to the pages of the shadowy figure that is Rebecca- a woman we never see, who never speaks and yet is a force of nature. If you love shadowy figures, you must return to Manderley. ​Purchase Here​

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TBR

No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding, is at the top of my cozy mystery TBR. I flew through Mack's Every Time I Go on Vacation Someone Dies because the wittiness of the main character actually made me smile. (I often find that characters described as witty dont always live up to the description) I truly enjoyed the characters in the first one, and hope this "whodunit" is just as fun. ​Purchase Here​

Prose

Blurbs

There comes a time in the writing process when the book is almost finished, early copies are produced and an author has to do the unthinkable- send her story, still filled with typos, to the people she admires the most and hope they like it. Its terrifying. Before writing the email or sending the text, you know there will be some folks who simply dont have the time. You know some folks may not even get the email. but these are far less nerve-wrecking than the idea that someone will read it and not want to put their name on it. I cannot describe the relief that comes when just one person says, "yes because I loved it."

I dont know how big a role blurbs matter in your purchasing decisions, and it seems that publishing companies are unsure too. One publisher has actually stopped requiring that authors include blurbs.

After sending many, many emails- mine have started to come in, and I couldnt be more grateful to all the people who read my little purple book and said the kindest things.

Kiese Laymon, the author of Heavy (just recently named one of the best books of the 21st century by the New York Times) wrote, "In Full of Myself, Austin Channing Brown is in absolute control of her literary superpowers, and absolutely free enough to reckon with not feeling super at all. Here we have a spectrum of fullness and peculiar longing, that is born of rugged honesty and tender care."

Please excuse me while I go cry.

I cant wait to bring you this book.

PreOrder

Full of Myself

In a time of rising authoritarianism and attacks on personal freedoms, the New York Times bestselling author of I’m Still Here chronicles her efforts to live as her full self in a society that wants women—and Black women in particular—to do anything but that. ​

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