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Hello and Happy Wednesday,

First things first, I want to thank everybody who bought a hardcover edition of my memoir THE YEAR OF THE HORSES to gift around the Thanksgiving holiday. Happily, the promotion was such a success we’re going to keep it running through December.

Here’s how the promo works:

Express route: To get 50% off THE YEAR OF THE HORSES hardcover, simply go to indie bookseller BishopandWilde.com, choose the hardcover edition of THE YEAR OF THE HORSES and type in discount code MOREJOY at checkout.

12/7/23 Update: there is a temporary shortage of hardcovers— we’re waiting for more to come in. If you prove unable to order the hardcover, you can use the same code for the paperback as we wait for more stock!

The book will be mailed with a pre-signed Tin House bookplate. (Tin House is my publisher. A book plate is an adhesive pre-signed sticker that you can put into the book, thus turning it into a signed edition.)

Voila! You have supported an indie publisher, an indie bookseller, and this here book writer in one fell swoop!

Holiday gift option: If you have someone special you’d like to gift the book to (or you want a little extra something for yourself), follow the above instructions to claim your hardcover discount. Then write me at thequerydoula (at) gmail (dot) com. Let me know who the gift is for and a little bit about them. I’ll send on a special holiday themed bookplate and I’ll also write a holiday card for your special someone. If that special someone is you, all the better! Together we’ll figure out if I should mail the cards directly to the recipient, or to you. (Pending supplies, the bookplate is a festive but holiday neutral one featuring eucalyptus leaves. If I run out of those bookplates, you’ll get something equally neutral but merry.)

The above is an example of the bookplate + holiday card packet that I send out to recipients who want a little something extra with their hardcover. Thanks for letting me share this, Stacy!

A reminder that my memoir is not for horse people. Sure, horse people like it (and I love my horse peeps!), but really it’s a book for anyone who needs help claiming joy back in their lives, especially those who have lost some part of their identity in caretaking, in parenting, or through workaholism.

And that will do it! I’m excited to write holiday cards to the people that you care for. Handwritten cards are the freaking best.

Thanks for your attention. And Happy December to you!

Logline-apalooza: I’m not doing a proper paid post today because I’m still going through your incredible loglines and sharing my feedback. I’m so grateful that so many of you (re)shared your loglines in the comments—I think this is a far better way for us to see what our fellow writers are working on and to react to feedback than I had set up before. If you missed last Friday’s post with everybody’s loglines, definitely give it a visit! I’m personally inspired by the huge variety of projects that we’re all tackling, and by the hard work and dedication that everyone is putting into them. I think you’ll find that last Friday’s comment section is a happy place to be!

From StoryStudio’s website

Early Bird Pricing for StoryStudio’s Pub Crawl through December 4th! Over at Story Studio in Chicago (where one of my favorite writer slash people Rebecca Makkai is artistic director), they’re gearing up for their annual month-long Pub Crawl in February. Pub Crawl features classes, panels, and events centered around everything publishing for the whole dang month, and concludes with a Pitch Week dedicated to virtual meetings with agents and editors. Until December 4th, early bird pricing is $235 (I believe private pitch meetings with editors and agents is an added cost.) I think I’ll be teaching a lunchtime proposal writing class during the conference— more details coming soon!

Nonfiction writer Anna Badkhen is teaching a masterclass on revision: Lots of people are terrified of revision because they worry they’ll suck the magic from their prose. If you’re one of those people (or have other fears about revision) lyrical nonfiction writer Anna Badkhen is teaching a revision masterclass on February 15th through the Shipman Agency. It’s 100 dollars and caps at 25 students so I’d sign up faaaast.

Speaking of Nonfiction— congratulations, Whiting winners! The Whiting Foundation announced the 10 recipients of its Creative Nonfiction Grant today. These writers will be awarded $40,000 for a deeply researched nonfiction book that’s still in progress. According to the website, “the grant encourages original and ambitious projects by giving recipients the additional means to do exacting research and devote time to composition.” You have to love a grant that rewards the process, not the product!

Has anyone tried Substack’s new video tools yet? I’m scared to! If you have, let me know in the comments how it went. I’m looking for the right platform to host a series of craft classes I’ll be launching in 2024. Right now, I’m thinking that I’ll host the classes through my website using Squarespace, but if enough tech-savvy people walk the Substack video plank before me, and come back with good tidings, maybe I’ll host it here on Substack? I’m a words-first person and am scared of video, but I have all these classes I want to teach, so I have to up my video skills!

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Other than that, I’m reading Mona Awad’s ROUGE right now- anybody else? Away is the critically acclaimed author of the breakout debut novel BUNNY.¹ To me, Awad’s writing sounds like the love child of Melissa Border and David Lynch, especially ROUGE which pushes a satirical exploration of skincare regimen obsession into a dark and twisted fantasy. I’m loving it!

What are you all reading these first weeks of December? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for being here,

Courtney

1. These are affiliate links to Bookshop.org. If you take my excellent advice and purchase these titles, I get a tiny commission I use to purchase books there, myself.