This Week's Miscellany (07/15/23)

The next two weeks of my life will be bananas

Hello to new subscribers and welcome all to another edition of This Week’s Miscellany. TWM is full of my favorite things from around the web, typically trending literary.

On Saying Yes and No

My tendency is to say yes to everything. New ideas delight me! Travel fills my heart with joy! And yet, historically, this tendency has not served me well because I tend to let myself get burnt out, overstimulated, and overcommitted. And for a long time, I chalked it up to weakness, that I couldn’t handle all the spinning plates. I needed other people to help me see that there were simply too many plates. Over the past three years, I started to believe people close to me who told me, “Haley, you’re doing too many things. I’m worried it’s simply too much. You have to learn to say no.”

So I’ve been strengthening my saying no muscle. It’s never easy for me, especially combined with my people pleasing personality. But I’m getting better at it. And every time I do say “no,” I thank myself later. But sometimes…sometimes things are simply too good to pass up. I can’t keep myself from saying “yes!” So here’s the next two weeks of my life that will be a whirlwind of delightful madness:

The Very Exciting Bananas Two Weeks

Monday: Fly to Houston

Tuesday: At the University of St. Thomas—Houston I’ll film with MaxStudios and then give a keynote lecture for the Summer Literary Series. My topic is “The Door in the Wall: How Children's Literature Helps Us Escape to a Truer World.” It’s open to the public so if you’re in the Houston area, I’d love to see ya!

Wednesday: I’ll teach a seminar for the MFA candidates at UST and then pop into Zelie Beans Coffee for a quick reading of my books, The Sister Seraphina Mysteries, (2:30-3:30) so if you want a coffee and something fun to do for your kids, come say hi!

Thursday: I’ll get up at dark thirty to fly to New York City. From the airport I’ll make my way to Grand Central Station and take a train to the Plough Writers’ Weekend. I am so excited to see the good folks of Plough Quarterly and so many of the writers I admire and get to work with for Word on Fire Spark and our general WOF imprint!

Saturday: As the Writers Weekend wraps up, I’ll head back to Grand Central Station where my cousin, Tara, will meet me to commence 24 hours of NYC whirlwind sightseeing.

Sunday: Fly home!

Monday-Wednesday: It’s my husband’s chance for a work trip. Ships in the night, people!

Thursday-Saturday: Fly to Minneapolis for The Chesterton Conference. I’ll be speaking on Chesterton’s detective fiction (The Man Who Was Thursday and Father Brown) and the delight of order restored!

Sunday: Fly home. Plan time to hide in a dark room to recover from the inevitable overstimulation.

So…bonkers. But it’s going to be so fun! And in my defense, I have only ONE short trip on my calendar for the rest of 2023. After this madness, it’s going to be Tranquil Fall in the Stewart household.

If you’ll be at the Chesterton Conference, Writers Weekend, the UST lecture, or Zelie Beans, let me know. I want to say hello!

Currently Reading

This piece by my friend Claire really resonated with me. If I could go back and redo anything from early motherhood, I would remove the unnecessary burden of believing the lie that my children could never be away from me or else I was “outsourcing motherhood.” No breaks leads to inevitable burnout. When I was drowning in burnout, I struggled to ENJOY my kids. Now that I’m not constantly exhausted, being around my kids is my favorite thing.

The Prairie Woman of Shame by

Claire Swinarski

Motherhood is not some kind of test on who can be the most self-sacrificial. Who can give, give, give until there’s nothing left, until your identity as mother has fully usurped your identity as daughter of Christ. It is an honor, it is a joy, it is a cross. It is not a noose around your neck.

And for the best insights into what’s going on with men and why they’re drawn to figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate you MUST read

Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness. by

Christine Emba

Because men still dominate leadership positions in government and corporations, many assume they’re doing fine and bristle at male complaint. After all, all 45 U.S. presidents have been male, and men still make up more than two-thirds of Congress. A 2020 analysis of the S&P 500 found that there were more CEOs named Michael or James than there were female CEOs, period. Women are still dealing with historical discrimination and centuries of male domination that haven’t been fully accounted for or rectified. Are we really worrying that men feel a little emasculated because their female classmates are doing well?

But millions of men lack access to that kind of power and success — and, downstream, cut loose from a stable identity as patriarchs deserving of respect, they feel demoralized and adrift. The data show it, but so does the general mood: Men find themselves lonely, depressed, anxious and directionless.

And a lot of folks seemed to resonate with my recent piece on aging. So in case you missed it…

The Antidote to the Anti-Aging Scam

The millisecond I turned 35, the algorithm started sending me ads for anti-aging serums, weight loss apps, and botox. I’m now 37 and the push to beat the effects of aging is relentless. I asked around and this seems to be a universal experience for women over 30 who use the internet. At every turn someone is trying to make money from the insecurity that you don’t look 22 anymore. And you should look 22, they say. You should look 22 forever! 

Quick Notes

Due to the bananas rest of July, The Year of Jane book club is taking a quick summer pause. We’ll return in August with Sense & Sensibility!

And it’s my understanding that it’s the last day of this deal (although sometimes Amazon lets sales linger for a bit longer). But since it’s the only time I’ve EVER seen this book discounted so deeply, grab it for less than a dollar while you can.

For the first time in five years, the Kindle version of my first book, The Grace of Enough, is on sale today for $0.99! It’s a steal if I do say so myself.

So if you’ve been thinking about reading it, there’s no better time!

And that’s all folks! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. This email is free to receive but time-intensive to produce, so a huge thanks to Mary Ellen for upgrading to a paid subscription. This is a reader-supported newsletter so if you value these emails, please consider supporting this Substack by upgrading to a paid subscription with the button below.

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Thanks for reading!

Haley

(Editor of Word on Fire Spark, Author, Former Podcaster)

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