June Listopia 2025

What I read, watched, & listened to

I’m happy to (tentatively) report that my writing mojo has (shakily) returned. Maybe I needed the fallow time during the week I was bed-bound with my back to think, just think, without writing it all down. In the past week I’ve started reading and writing from Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy and started participating in Kathy Fish’s Flash Extravaganza workshop. So far, I’ve done one or the other every day.

June has been a month of changes and challenges for me, not all on the positive side, either. Reading, music, and, yes, TV have pushed me through it.

Here’s some of what I read, watched, and listened to in June:

Creative Nonfiction/Essays/Memoir:

Mondegreen by Diane Gottlieb in Riverteeth’s Beautiful Things - I’m not sharing a quote from this wonderful piece because it is brief and impactful and you need to read it in its entirety. This piece exemplifies why I love micro writing - especially micro-memoir. It’s a real honor to have work accepted by Beautiful Things so, Yay Diane!

Woman Naps with Book by Gina Harlow in The Ekphrastic Review - I loved this essay about Gina’s aunt, her life, her choices, the bond between them. Families are often complicated but Gina writes it with gentleness and honesty. I appreciate when writers allow grace into their family focused memories. This is an ekphrastic memoir inspired by a painting by the aunt she writes of. I love ekphrastic writing!

I think of a puzzled young Alfonsina, having grown accustomed to the sound of her place in the world, attaching herself to those vowels and consonants when they rang out, being told she would now be Frances, the anglicized version of her mother’s Francesca. Maybe this and her fair skin would save her from the slurs of Dego, Wop.

Making Plans with Friends by Beth Ann Fennelly in The Missouri Review - Wow, I loved this story! It lets the reader into a personal and unusual pact between two young friends then segues into now and how the pact changed with the times. An impactful piece with Beth Ann’s signature humor.

At some point, one of you—and now it’s thirty-five years later, so neither of you can remember who—came up with the Plan. You’d continue putting yourselves out there, sure. But if you were losers and loveless at thirty—an age that seemed impossibly geriatric—you’d meet up and mess around until you had kids.

Krasner by Melissa Ostrom in Lost Balloon - Everyone knows Jackson Pollack but what do you know about his wife, Lee Krasner, who was an accomplished artist herself? Melissa writes a nuanced and personal piece about Lee before and after Pollack. Do not miss this short and important piece! If you haven’t seen the film Pollock, I recommend it. Marcia Gay Harden was a brilliant Krasner.

Meanwhile, Lee composed inside the house—small pieces crafted in a small bedroom. She even gave them a small name: Little Image. In this series of thirty-one paintings, she covered the canvases in grids of diminutive blocks, individual containers for vitality, squiggles, signs, swirls, like hieroglyphs, those symbols that line a tomb. An enclosed language, yet untranslatable, unheard. Enclosed. Yes, entombed.

13 Smells: Observations from My 10-Year-Old Daughter by Jeffrey Hermann in Moonpark Review - Y’all. When I say I laughed out loud at every one of these 13 smells, I’m not exaggerating. I love, love, love this short piece that, honestly, made my day. This is a piece I’ll read again and again.

5. Like a spoon shouldn’t smell
[About to eat a bowl of cereal.] Can I have a different spoon? I can’t use this one. It smells like a spoon shouldn’t smell.

Fiction:

Salvage by Daryl Scroggins in MacQueen’s Quinterly - I’m thrilled to discover this new-to-me writer. Both of his pieces in MacQ are brilliantly told. The narrator in “Salvage” has a working man’s voice, something in short supply in the litmag world outside of grit lit. I’m happy to see it in this litmag.

I said I didn’t mean to bother her, but what was the deal with rust spots and chipping paint? We both stood and looked at a big curve of pitted silver paint over what used to be blue or maybe green, with rust pretty much covering everything in blotches. She said it looked like the surface of a planet seen from orbit. I asked her if she had been up there to see that and she laughed. Said no, but she could see it.

Also by Scroggins, Offerings - After Border Baby by James H. Evans - an ekphrastic piece (yay!) that will break your damn heart. Again, from a working class pov. (yay!)

Carlos, the oldest child at ten, remained silent throughout such talk. He listened, but stayed at the edges, appearing to be simply sullen in his usual way. But he had been the one to bring the armload of toys. Some dusty and smelling of rain. His thought had been that they might lure the baby back to playing again.

The Blue Dot that is Alice by Kaci Neves in BULL - Another new-to-me writer with a rural/working class voice that we have come to expect from BULL. This piece is written in one long breathless sentence which is a very effective form for the plot and feel of the piece. To be perfectly honest, I am not usually a fan of the one long sentence (hard on the eyes) but when it’s done well (like here) it is truly amazing (and worth the effort.)

…and so they peer into each boat stall looking for his body, and it isn’t there—it isn’t there thank God—and they exhale after squinting into the last stall, but also, they don’t know where to go, so the dot on the map remains unmoving as Alice stares off into the grayness of the clouds…

Come on Down! by Julia Strayer in Flash Frog - Oh, the voice, the story, the details, the sense of place & time in this little flash. Pitch perfect.

Laundromats are the night owls of stores, attracting the kind of people who want to be near people, but don’t want to interact with them. Boundaries for those of us who believe in relationships as transactions. Like a coin in a machine for wash and dry, candy bar, cigarettes, bag of chips and a root beer. Things I can consume in a short time with no obligation. They don’t stick around forever. My whole life’s been that way. Nothing’s permanent.

Instagram of the month: Shome Dasgupta

More and more writers are joining Instagram - or it seems that way to me, and I’m thrilled! Insta is my favorite social media platform, one that’s always been fun and positive for me. Shome has been a writer-friend online for a few years now and I was happy to see he recently joined Instagram. I look forward to Shome’s Insta posts every day or so. He posts reels where he talks about writing, his recovery, music, coffee, friends & family, and sometimes reads his work. It is always interesting and relatable. Do give him a visit!

TV:

Series:

Dept. Q on Netflix - Ok, I admit it. I went into this series with a chip on my shoulder because I bought the pundit comparisons to (dearly loved) Apple TV’s Slow Horses. That was bad on me. I even rolled my eyes during the first two episodes, comparing the Matthew Goode character to Gary Oldman’s, telling myself he was over-acting. Big mistake, as I discovered as I continued to watch. The storyline is dynamite, the actors completely believable, and you will be on the edge of your seat watching this series. I always enjoy seeing some of my favorite Scottish actors in a new series. In Q I added a couple more to the favorites list. Not at all like Slow Horses except for the excellence of the production, this is a series to watch for crime drama fans.

Outrageous on BritBox - this series is ongoing as I write this and I was hooked by the first 15 minutes. Based on the true-life Mitford sisters, it’s a study in 1930s England’s class, culture, and politics amid the misadventures of said sisters. So good, so far!

Film:

The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) on Prime - I stumbled on this delightful, dreamy film one afternoon during my confinement. I was desperate to find a movie to take me away from angst, tension, and high drama. I needed comfort - you know, like The Walton’s comfort. (Remember them?) It’s really hard to find a comfort movie of the sort I wanted. I don’t know how I lucked onto this one but I’m glad I did. I don’t usually go for fantasy or fairytale-like films but this one is set on the Irish coast and I didn’t realize it was fantasy-like until I was into it. Actually, I imagine it’s based on Irish folk tales about selkies. Anyway, it’s a lovely film that’s great for kids and adults. The acting is great, especially by the kids, and the scenery is to die for. Do click the link to watch the trailer. Loved this movie - a big A+ from me.

Music:

I listened to two newly released albums this month.

Van Morrison, Remembering Now - continuing in the Irish vein…. I love the bluesy, folksy, jazzy vibe of Morrison’s latest release. I first listened to it on a muted, rainy morning and it was the perfect companion to my writing practice. I love what the linked article says and I agree- “Remembering Now is Van Morrison doing what he’s always done: ignoring the map, following the sound, and letting it all blur until you stop trying to name it and just feel it.”

The song below, “Down to Joy,” first appeared in the brilliant film Belfast.

Garbage, Let All that We Imagined be the Light - the songs on this album were written during Shirley Manson’s hospitalization and rehabilitation for an hip injury in 2024. They are songs of pain, fragility, and survival but also of light and hope. It’s a powerful collection that I turned to again and again.

I think Manson’s quote from the linked article says everything we need to hear:

“We’re all freaked out, we’re all hurtling toward the same fate,” Manson reflects. “Our challenge is how to live joyfully in the circumstances we’re given.”