Inklings - Liz Busby

What I Read: Aug 2023

August was a back-to-school month for our family. We arrived back from the church history mega-road trip with only ten days to spare until school started for the kids. Once the dust settled from that, it was time for me to get ready to head back to school as well. This time, I get to be on both sides of the proverbial podium as I’m teaching first-year writing while starting my graduate school classes.

back to school flatlay — Photo by olia danilevich on Pexels.com

It’s going to be a challenge to keep my personal writing projects going while also managing school writing. My goal is to save at least 15 minutes in the morning to work on a personal project, but even that may get thrown out the window as we get further into the semester. But perhaps that doesn’t matter since I also want to polish up my academic writing skills–that’s the whole reason I’m in the program. Perhaps the right mindset is to just consider myself as shifting genres for a while, and maybe focus on flash fiction and flash essays for a while.

In other positive news, my piece for Exponent II fall issue was accepted! The issue was themed around ordinary things, and my essay “Turning the Corner” is about being sick at the holidays, something that happens far too often when you have kids. We’ve finished the editing process, and the issue launch party will be October 5th at 6 pm MT. Anyone can sign up to attend and listen to the authors read and talk about their work. I also proposed a half-scholarly half-creative nonfiction piece for Wayfare which was accepted, so I’m busily typing away at that.

Over on Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree, we started our Barbenheimer miniseries with an episode about Oppenheimer. I am in the midst of editing the Barbie episode which should come out tomorrow. What a good summer for movies, right?

What I Read: June 2023

Summer has been a mix of lazy days with massive productivity. At home, I’ve been letting myself indulge in hours of Tears of the Kingdom gameplay with my kids and also reading the first Harry Potter book aloud to my two youngest ones (their first time!). We’ve also been teaching my daughter how to ride a bike: both exhilarating and heartbreaking knowing that she’s the last one! On the weeks that my older kids are going to camps at BYU, I have spent the whole day on campus, practicing for the fall and putting my head down to get through edits while my husband watches the younger ones at home. I’m also prepping for our big family road trip for the summer–we’re driving all the way to New York on a self-guided church history tour, so there’s a lot of planning to be done if we’re to survive with our relationships intact. I hope you’re all finding time to relax and staying cool in the heat!

The biggest writing news from June was the publication of “Reclaiming the Desert” at Wayfare Magazine. They paired my story with amazing artwork of the Utah landscape by Brekke Sjoblom. Her geometric landscapes really fit the futuristic yet natural solar punk feeling I was going for. I’m thinking I have to buy one of her works for my wall now. Anyway, the story is free to read, and once you’re finished, you can take a look at my author’s note to find out about some of the real-world science behind the setting.

I was also invited to present my paper on Mormons writing about aliens to the Mormon Transhumanist Association at their June gathering. (Reading list from the paper here.) Turns out, the MTA has a lot of speculative fiction fans, which in hindsight should have been obvious. They had some great discussion points for me to consider which will influence my future work on the history of LDS speculative fiction.

Our final two episodes of Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree before taking a summer break are about space Jews in season three of the Mandalorian and the movie version of the Les Miserables musical.

And if you’re reading this when it’s posted, we’re at the beginning of week two of the “Around the World in Mormon Literature” contest by the Mormon Lit Lab. I’m on the Lit Lab board and it’s been exciting and exhausting to see all the work that goes into producing a multi-language contest. Please read along with me and vote for your favorites! (Not to bias you, but I’m loving the invented folklore of “The Five Angels of Eden” by Claudio Oliveria.)

And now, on to the book reviews!

What I Read: May 2023

School officially ended and summer officially begins! We had a successful camping and kayaking trip at Deer Creek Reservoir to kick off the summer. The lake is so much fuller than it was last year. The rocks I remembered being halfway up the beach were almost completely underwater! A testament to Utah’s insane water year.

Playing Phase 10 is an important part of our family camping culture

Some really good writing news this month: I sold a story! “Birthright” will appear in an anthology of speculative fiction detective stories by Inklings Press! This story features a very costly magic system that twists the relationships in a family to the breaking point. I’m sure it will be a while before the anthology will be available, but I’ll keep you up to date on it. I also turned in my edits on “Reclaiming the Desert” to Wayfare, so hopefully you’ll see that one sooner.

On the other side of the writing desk, I’ve finished the developmental edits for my portion of Irreantum‘s genre fiction issue. I should be diving into copy edits soon. The stories we received for the issue are truly amazing and only getting better with every draft. I’m excited to share them with you.

For Mother’s Day, we released an episode of Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree about the portrayal of Mothers in the Media. Our other episode was one of my kids’ favorites for me to prep for, an episode of the Australian sensation that is Bluey.

This month was a bit light on the reading with all the end of school activities, but I’m hoping to get back on track with the summer months before grad school takes over my reading list in the fall. That is, if I don’t spend all my spare time exploring Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom. I cannot believe they made a game this good with a reused map. Every minute of the seven year wait was worth it.

Book reviews after the jump!

What I Read: January 2023

January was full throttle around here. My kids are finally getting back into the after-school activities that we hadn’t really been doing since the pandemic, so I feel like mom-Uber most evenings. And I’ve been working on my last PTA obligation of the year, the school read-a-thon. I’m keeping it pretty low-key, but it’s still going to be a lot of work. It’s all for the kids, right?

pink rose flower on blue hardbound books — Photo by Jess Bailey Designs on Pexels.com

I nearly hit my word count goal this month, 7242/8000, despite starting a week late due to recovery from the holidays. A lot of those words went into a new personal essay that that the muses dumped into my head right before the BYU Studies contest deadline. I think it turned out really well and my beta readers had good things to say about it. It’s already been submitted to the contest, so wish me luck! I’ve also been working on a fairy tale codenamed “Cats with Footnotes,” though the footnote aspect has yet to appear, so it may just end up being “Cats.” The idea was to write a fairy tale with some elements from my childhood and then have semi-fictional footnotes explaining some of the background. I liked fiction with footnotes (such as Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell), and the idea of combining speculative fiction with creative nonfiction was intriguing, so we’ll see if it turns out. I’ve committed to my writing group to get a draft to them by next week.

In February I’m heading Life, the Universe, and Everything in Provo. I’m especially excited to hear “Could The Way of Kings have saved the Nephites?” by Nick Fredrick. Always happy for more literary engagement with Brandon Sanderson! I’m also going to focus on marketing the podcast and taking some classes about plotting, which is my weakness as a fiction writer. If you’re coming to LTUE this year, drop a comment below or send me an email and let’s do lunch!

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