We are still inching toward darkness, the time of year of woodsmoke, decaying pine, and shadows. Bonfires, traces of first frost, and hints of magic. Long hours reading in cozy cafes, studying in libraries, creating sigils by candlelight. Long walks through darkening wood, cold, sandy beach, or stone paths through quaint streets of cities and villages where the sky opens and pours starlight and love from the deepest of distances.
A part of me wishes I still had the steady beat of experiential seasons, seasons of youth--the deep autumns of Ohio, Montana, northern California, the mountains of New Mexico. But I can recreate them, reexperience them through my imagination and words. Lived and relived, again and again. Like dogeared pages, faded scars, and thick, worn fabrics.
I deep dive into dark academia, portal fiction, and the softest speculative. As lost in these worlds as I am my own, sometimes it's hard to distinguish them. Immersed in traveling, reading, and working on several writing projects, I follow my own seasonal trajectory these days which completely breaks down in the face of reality, like reaching a singularity, like drinking moonlight through the skin.
Wrap yourself in the warmest of comforts, fireside shadows, and soft lighting. And dig in to deep autumn reading to spark creativity and otherworldly magic lurking in the depths of your being.
We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad 🐰 If you thought Bunny was a wild, unhinged ride, just wait. If you thought the boundaries of metaphor and allegory couldn't be pushed anymore, you're in for quite the tumble down a rabbit hole where you might not find your way out.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow 🚪 People like to talk about how writers have a command of language as though they've somehow domesticated it, tamed it, taken the reigns of control, as though it's a good thing. This novel does the opposite. Harrow flings words on the page like paint on canvas, wild and uncontrollable, creating art more awe-inspiring than any author with so called command. A celebration of language and stories, escapism and belonging. Wander, get lost, find magic through every door. Taste it, feel it, experience it.
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino 👽 There is never an easy answer to why some of us are wired so differently, why our thought processes and feelings and perceptions seem so disparate from the rest of humanity. This novel explores these questions in one of the most, beautiful, resonant, and refreshing ways. In a world of disconnect and othering, it reconnects us to something beyond, to something within us no one else can touch.
Where do you spend your deep autumns--immersed in fantastical worlds, meandering in crisp, cool nature, or invoking incantations in the light of bonfires or candlelight or fireplaces? Or like me, drinking from all of them until they seep from your very being.
