Subscriber Writing Roundup

Edition IV

Greetings, my fellow bookworms!

We’re a week late, but better late than never — it’s time for our monthly Subscriber Writing Roundup!

But, before we get stuck into links, last week we featured an excellent essay from

Henry Oliver

on the writer who made him — Samuel Johnson.

Also, we are recommending:

• John Halbrooks
  ’s
  Personal Canon Formation
  — A newsletter about how we read and listen to enrich our lives.

• Jim Cummings
  ’s
  All Day Long
  — Short fiction from a seasoned observer of humans.

• Justin McCullough
  ’s
  The GSD Way
  — Mindset, toolset, skillset expertise to help modern leaders drive growth, scale, and strategic results through high performing teams that collaborate, trust, and have a bias to act.

Now onto the subscriber writing. What follows are 24 links to great pieces of writing from BTMU subscribers. From explorations of wealth and class to reflections on ambition , there’s something for everyone.

Dive in!

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david roberts

explores the Death of The Leisure Class and what it means for wealth and class in modern day America.

The Death Of The Leisure Class

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Zoe Carada

meets and greets chaos in a cross-cultural crash course in self-adjustment.

Istanbul Calling: Trust the Chaos

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Terry Freedman

has been writing the same story each week, but in a completely different style. In this post he wrote it as a soul song:

Experiments in Style: Soul

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Kameron Sanzo

discusses energy language, "sensitive" female mediums, and the flow of data in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The Dracula Series: Nineteenth-Century Gothic Horror and the Vampire as Late Victorian Energy Crisis (Part 1 of 3)

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Kevin LaTorre

celebrates two years of his newsletter by weighing the ambition of writing against the its temptation to vanity, foremost (of course) by close-reading G.M. Hopkins:

That Iron Ambition

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Sheila Dembowski

discusses her thoughts on how we can start to heal the world through compassion, one hug at a time...

Healing the world

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Ramona Grigg

looks at hate—eternal, ever-present hate—and once again attempts to make sense of it.

Hate is the Constant Enemy. It Gathers in Groups. It Makes Victims of us All.

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Author

Robin Reardon

, a het/cis woman, writes convincingly about gay characters; ask her how.

CONFESSIONS OF A HET CIS WOMAN WRITING GAY FICTION

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Latham Turner

explores his relationship to food and health and discusses how we could evolve to a more realistic vision of health.

Should I eat this?

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Edward Rooster

has written a meditation on Art & Science, that when new strange tools offer spontaneity, they free the artist in everyone.

Our Imagination Is A Camera Of The Mind

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Mikhail Skoptsov

analyzes how the picture's narrative rationalizes superhuman powers as the products of self-belief inside The Matrix, illustrating this concept though the emotional journey of its main protagonist from a skeptic to a believer:

How Neo’s Character Arc Reveals The Matrix Superpower System

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In his project to read and comment upon the 850-odd works and authors of the Western canon as enumerated by Harold Bloom,

Joe Steakley

discusses King David's detached, almost relativistic morality, and Bible's first hints of a dualistic soteriology, in the the Second Book of Samuel otherwise called, The Second Book of the Kings chapters 15-24.

As the Tender Grass Springing out of the Earth by Clear Shining after Rain

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Suzanne Taylor

, in her Evolution Revolution, where she looks to what we-the-people can do to help this hurting world, posted "A digestible 'Green Dragon.' Oh joy!," to introduce readers to "The Universe is a Green Dragon," a book she's bought more than 2,000 copies of, where physicist Brian Swimme turned mystic to teach what we most need to learn, which is that we are interlinked as one humanity, here to help the earth and not to destroy it.

A digestible "Green Dragon." Oh joy!

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Eric Goebelbecker

writes about Walmart setting aside a "workspace" for local police in one of their stores:

A Police Workspace

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John Halbrooks

explains why Tolstoy was so wrong about Shakespeare while being so right about so much else:

Realism and Anachronism in Shakespeare and Tolstoy

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A real story of the worst possible offense, deliberate and repeated torture, that required decades and determination to find a deep and almost incomprehensible level of forgiveness … what can only be called “extreme forgiveness.” By

Joyce Wycoff

.

Extreme Forgiveness

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Ann Gauger

explores the richness and trials of long-term marriage, and the foibles of communication between any two people.

Hawai՛i: Finding True Love

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Hermann J. Diehl

writes how dogs could’ve saved thousands of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, and after reading, I thought: but of course.

Health Care Needs Dogs

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S Peter Davis

talks about losing a good writing career, picking himself, and starting again from scratch at 40.

Arise! Zombie Writer

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In the second installment of "Talking Back to Walden,"

Julie Gabrielli

discovers that trees love our attention and in turn, teach us how to let go.

🌲 Talking Back to Walden

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Sutee Dee

shares the story about how food transformed Lima from just a layover to home for him.

Making Sense of Lima's Food Scene

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James Ron

tells tales from the Sauna.

It'Sauna Get Hot

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In a near-future city haunted by its own dark history, evil lurks beneath the surface in Marredbury, a chilling serial anthology that weaves together a tapestry of haunting tales from the past and a contemporary digital nightmare.

Marredbury

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Sue Ferrera

uses Norah Jones' beautiful rendition of "Humble Me" to serenade her writing as she reaches back in time weaving a story about the ability to heal even late in the game.

"It never rains when you want it to"

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