2025 week 8 in reading, teaching (w/ some prompts), & writing

Sam Thielman, Ling Ma, Emily Fridlund, Brian Evenson, Josh Denslow, & Alejandro Zambra + some prompts inspired by Hanif Abdurraqib + some notes on my novel-in-progress...

Mar 01, 2025

I splurged some on books this week! Went to the used bookstore between classes on Wednesday, ended up getting ten (10!) books (and all just from the M-P section and “anthologies”), then met a buddy at the local bookstore after class on Thursday, and picked up a couple Alejandro Zambra books (then we went and grabbed a couple beers; a pretty great end to the teaching week, and segue into a week off for break!).

Last month, I tweeted,

a fun, great way I’ve come to think about my “budget” is that money spent on art (books, music, visual arts, etc.) doesn’t “count.” (not super great news for my bank account, but very great news for my well being, happiness, general being a human-ness, etc.)

Which isn’t 100% true, but also kinda is. Buying books, and just spending money on art in general, feels a little like therapy, or self-care, or just generally like a good way to be a human in the world.

Also, it’s the end of the month! I finished these three this month. All bangers!

the stories I read this week:

Sat. 2/22: “Watcher of the Skies” by Sam Thielman

I think

Jim Ruland

recommended this sometime around Christmas, in reply to one of these weekly reading logs, though I can’t find that email anymore so it’s possible I’m misremembering. I printed it out at the time, and then it just sat on the table next to my comfy chair in the basement that I have my coffee and story in (almost) every morning. I finally picked it up, and really enjoyed it! Not totally typically “my kind” of story, but a fun read, and one of the things I so love about a recommendation — stepping outside your “normal” zone a bit, discovering some new stuff.

Sun. 2/23: “Office Hours” by Ling Ma

I taught this story on Monday, so this was a reread. I didn’t actually especially love all of Bliss Montage when I read it last year, though I enjoyed most of them, but this one became one of my favorites of the last few years.

A few months ago, I wanted to do Inktober to get back into drawing more. I ended up only doing a few, and then got busy with classes and life, but “discover” made me think of this Ling Ma story and I drew this:

Mon. 2/24: N/A :(

I either didn’t read a story this morning, or didn’t write it down and now have totally forgotten. Either is possible!

Tues. 2/25: “Lake Arcturus Lodge” by Emily Fridlund

I remember it as a fun read, but otherwise don’t really remember anything about it. I think this (Catapult) is probably a strong collection that just isn’t quite totally my thing. So it goes. I’ve got three more left in it and then I’ll return it to the library, and make space in my reading for the next thing!

Wed. 2/26: “The Rider” by Brian Evenson

This story “turns” at least twice. It feels totally Evenson-y, and also pretty unique and a little different from anything else of his I’ve read.

The story starts with the protagonist, Reiter, pulling over to the side of the road, as his car had “began to rattle and smoke.” The first page or two feels almost surreal, for an Evenson story, in how “normal”/“real”/“unsurreal” it felt. Reiter walks into town and it is quiet and empty and something feels off, making it—again, as Evenson story—feel more “on.” The story continues with that, exploring this kind of confusing neither here nor there, neither real nor not quality that so many Evenson stories live in. As often (always?), it is really hypnotic.

Alas, Reiter finally finds one house with the lights on, and people inside. They invite Reiter in and the story continues inside their house… and then, at least to my expectations, it turns again, into something that I felt like I was unprepared for but also that was incredibly interesting in its own way.

Thur. 2/27: “Silence” by Josh Denslow

These stories are just so great. I’m excited for you all to get to read them! Book’s out in May!

One thing I love about Denslow’s writing is how fun and natural and just readable it is… and then also there’s these amazing sentences, perfect descriptions, sparkling observations.

Here’s a few:

That stung a little, even though I knew we were just bantering. I don’t tell many people how distant I feel from my family, and I didn’t like her using it as ammunition.

Whereas my mom was a viper. You could tell she was mean the moment you met her, but you didn’t know she’d drawn blood with her words until parts of you were strewn across the floor.

Maybe life was a series of aftermaths and by leaving the craters smoldering in my past, I was finding it difficult to move into the future.

Fri. 2/28: “Childish Literature” by Alejandro Zambra

I read Zambra’s Multiple Choice last year (or maybe the year before? time, how does it work?!) and really loved it. And ever since, Zambra’s name keeps popping up. Chilean Poet, especially. So I picked it up, and am excited to dig in, and also grabbed Childish Literature while I was at it, because I’ve been reading a story every day and so I thought I’d add him to the rotation. And I loved this first story. Excited for more!

Here’s something I taught this week (and the series of free-write prompts I turned it into in class):

I’m teaching a couple sections of this Art of the Essay class, which I teach almost every semester. It’s maybe my favorite class to teach.

Right now, we’re in the middle of a unit I have focused on “personal pop culture essays.” One of the essays I assigned for this week was Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib’s “A Night In Bruce Springsteen's America.” I’ve taught this one a bunch now, and still love it more and more with every reread and with every class discussion.

Maybe the third or fourth time I taught it, I figured out how to teach it. Or figured out how I can teach it. And I’ve been doing that with it ever since. Here’s what I do:

At this point in the semester, they each have a piece of pop culture (a song, album, TV show, movie, video game, etc.) that they’ve chosen to use as a kind of anchor for their own object/lensing essay. And so what I’m wanting to do is help them generate ideas and writing, and to think about different ways of thinking about or using their item.

I go through the first few paragraphs of this Abdurraqib essay, one at a time, reading it aloud and discussing it a bit, and then distill it down into one thing it “does.” And then I give them five minutes to freewrite about their own piece of pop culture in a similar way. So…

To watch Bruce Springsteen step onto a stage in New Jersey is to watch Moses walk to the edge of the Red Sea, so confident in his ability to perform a miracle, to carry his people to the Promised Land. I believe in the magic of seeing a musician perform in the place they once called home. The Jersey air felt different, lighter than usual, as I walked into the massive Prudential Center and made my way to my seat.

I love the opening here. “To watch Bruce Springsteen step onto a stage in New Jersey is to watch Moses walk to the edge of the Red Sea.” Abdurraqib is introducing this Springsteen concert by way of metaphor, and the metaphor he goes to is literally Biblical in scale.

prompt: Describe your thing in big, exaggerated, hyperbolic, grand terms. If seeing Springsteen in New Jersey is like seeing Moses part the Red Sea, what is your thing like?

Having seen Springsteen before, I wasn’t surprised by the aesthetics of the arena. I imagine, though, that this could be overwhelming for someone who has never seen Springsteen live. The chanting and relentless fist-pumping beforehand while the stage is being set up, the American flags wrapped around foreheads or hanging off of backs. From another angle, this may feel like a strange political rally. On its face, it matches the tone, passion, and volume of political theater at its base form.

In the very next paragraph, Abdurraqib makes another comparison, but this one back down to the straightforward. We get some rendered description — “The chanting and relentless fist-pumping beforehand while the stage is being set up, the American flags wrapped around foreheads or hanging off of back” — and then the comparison itself: “From another angle, this may feel like a strange political rally.”

prompt: What does your thing look/sound/feel like, “from another angle.” How might you describe it, what might you compare it to, to someone who has never seen/heard/experienced it before?

Whether or not the preacher himself intends this, in the church of Bruce Springsteen, it is understood that there is a singular America, one where there is a dream to be had for all who enter, and everyone emerges, hours later, closer to that dream.

Here in the third paragraph, Abdurraqib zooms out a bit, adds some context which is going to start to introduce where the essay is headed as far as larger ideas. “…in the church of Bruce Springsteen, it is understood that there is a singular America, one where there is a dream to be had for all who enter.”

prompt: “In the church of…” your thing, what is understood/known/believed? Meaning, possibly, what does your thing represent to its fans? What might be commonly believed or enjoyed among them?

I found my seat next to an older man who, despite our fairly close proximity to the stage, was still using binoculars to scan the rapidly growing crowd around us. Without looking away from his binoculars, he told me that he saw Bruce back in 1980, when The River was first released. He explained that he saw Bruce play on December 8, 1980. I thought on this for a moment, before it came together. “Lennon,” I said. “The night Lennon was murdered.” He finally put down his binoculars, nodded lightly, looked at the exit, toward the outside world, and said “I hope no one gets killed out there during the show this time.”

And now, here, we get Abdurraqib at the concert. Again, it is doing more than just putting him, and us, at the concert (introducing death and murder and mortality and life expectancy), but it starts by just giving us a little scene of finding his seat, who he sat next to, a tiny moment of dialogue.

prompt: Freewrite about a moment of you interacting with your object. A scene of a specific time of you playing your video game, watching your movie, listening to your song…

Here’s something I wrote this week:

I went to the cafe again this morning and wrote for a few hours, as has become my weekly Friday schedule this semester. The last couple of weeks, my fave coffee place in town didn’t have any open seats, so I had to pivot and go to another shop, but today there were a couple tables! It felt good to be there again.

Nothing to really share this week. Wrote another chapter. Longhand, so nothing to easily copy and paste here. Just chugging along.

A novel is hard and daunting and frustrating and all those other similar adjectives, but mostly when you think about the whole. (Or the selling of it, which… I did send another half a dozen queries out for my completed novel, and that process is certainly frustrating and daunting, and kinda depressing, tbh. I also got four story rejections this week. A kinda hard birthday week of writing “no”s.)

Writing a novel doesn’t happen as a whole though; it’s all day-by-day, and that aspect of it is often super fun. Pick up where you left off, push the forward story a little, surprise yourself a time or two, and then do that again the next day!

Thanks!

—Aaron