12 Days of Bookmas – A Room of One’s Own

Title: A Room of One’s Own Author: Virginia Woolf Genre: Essay/Fiction Read it if: You want a reminder of how far we’ve come “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” A Room of One’s Own is …

12 Days of Bookmas – Eating Fire

Title: Eating Fire Author: Margaret Atwood Genre: Poetry Collection Read it if: You want to read something heart-wrenchingly beautiful   Strangely enough, I didn’t start seriously reading poetry until I was in my early twenties, but when I did, I read with voracity. The first poetry book I ever bought myself was Atwood’s The Door …

12 Days of Bookmas – The Haunting of Hill House

Title: The Haunting of Hill House Author: Shirley Jackson Genre: Horror Read it if: You want a slow descent into madness “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.” I used to have a hard time answering the …

12 Days of Bookmas – The Garden of Eden

Title: The Garden of Eden Author: Ernest Hemingway Genre: Realist fiction Read it if: You want a romance that's not very romantic “You’ll ache. And you’re going to love it. It will crush you. And you’re still going to love all of it. Doesn’t it sound lovely beyond belief?” I get that not everyone is …

12 Days of Bookmas – The Year of the Flood

Title: The Year of the Flood Author: Margaret Atwood Genre: Dystopian fiction Read it if: You need an escape from the mundane “I could see how you could do extreme things for the person you loved. Adam One said that when you loved a person, that love might not always get returned the way you …

12 Days of Bookmas – Burning Your Boats

Title: Burning Your Boats Author: Angela Carter Genre: Short stories Read it if: You like dreamy, alluring, unnatural narratives “The woods enclose. You step between fir trees and then you are no longer in open air; the woods swallow you up.” Angela Carter’s Burning Your Boats is her entire collection of short stories. That means …

12 Days of Bookmas

  12 Days of Bookmas Book Reviews Since I have a bit of free time before I’m inevitably crushed by the month of January (and everything I’ve taken on), I wanted to do something fun. And for me, fun means writing about books. And taking pictures of books. And talking about books. BOOKS. So I’m …

Logging in to the Present Moment – Rachael Moorthy

“In ancient times having power meant having access to data. Today having power means knowing what to ignore.” -Yuval Noah Harari By the tap of our thumbs, we have access to an ocean of knowledge. As writers, having an ever-evolving Encyclopedia at our fingertips is nothing short of magic. We can sift through vintage news …

Finishing NaNoWriMo (and what I learned from it)

This past Saturday, I finished the first draft of my NaNoWriMo novel. It’s rough — as a first draft often is — and there are some holes I need to fill in, but overall, I’m thrilled with how it turned out, and proud to say I cranked out a first draft in under a month. …

Just Add Water

November is a rough month. Daylight savings takes away an hour of sunlight in the evening so it’s pitch black by 5:30 p.m. It’s cold, it’s wet, and all you want to do is curl up and sleep. If you’re in university, you’re gearing up for final exams, papers, and group projects. If you’re like …