Newsletter: January 2024 Edition

New Year New Things, My Latest Book Review, an Excellent Author Interview, and More

New Year New Things

Happy New Year! I hope you’re 2024 is an exceptional year and, if not, well give it your best. What more can we do, right? Anyway, you may have noticed my newsletter looks a little different. I made a switch from Substack to Mailchimp last month, mainly because the owners of Substack wouldn’t denounce the proliferation of Nazi and white-supremacist content on their platform or the fact they were making money off this disgusting content. You can read all about it here, if you’d like:

https://www.techpolicy.press/substack-founder-defends-commercial-relationships-with-nazis/

Now, I’m all for free speech, but there comes a time when a stance needs to be scrutinized and I morally can’t get behind a company who thinks it’s okay to take money from Nazis or white supremacist groups. As a person with fifty-percent Jewish heritage, I just can’t. I understand corporations are not perfect and the owners of Mailchimp, Intuit, may not be perfect as well, but I haven’t found any public comments from Intuit stating their cool with Nazis using their services. And so, for me, if someone asks me, “Are you cool being associated with a company that is okay with making money from Nazi content?” then my answer is a “hard NO.” It wasn’t a difficult decision for me to make.

But, it was a pain in the ass. Switching to a different newsletter service with great email features was not easy to do. It was quite time consuming and tedious. I had to update a ton of things on my website including CNAME references on my web host and all the links in my website menus and content. I’m having to use a different interface and, I have to admit, Substack’s was pretty nice. But Mailchimp’s is nice, too. Substack was more about “platform building” and connecting me with new readers. Mailchimp is more an email service rather than a platform builder. If all of this makes your head hurt, then—yeah, I get that. Nerd stuff and blah blah blah. Sorry.

This leads me to the important question: will you—my special readers—stick around and keep subscribing to my newsletter? I really hope you do. Nothing about it will change except that it’s being emailed to you via Mailchimp instead of Nazi-loving Substack. I hope you’re okay with that. If you are, then we’re cool. If you’re not, well... you can always unsubscribe. But, please give my newsletter a chance. I’ll send you book reviews and author interviews and my take on book publishing and living the writer life and updates about my latest book or events where I’ll appearing and so much more. I hope you’ll stick around. And Happy New Year! I hope 2024 is fabulous.

Now, for my latest book review. Read on!

My Latest Book Review

The Theory of Light and Matter by Andrew Porter is a book of short stories categorized as literary fiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “These ten stories take us across the country—from rural Pennsylvania to Southern California to suburban Connecticut—and deep into characters struggling to find meaning in their day-to-day lives. The Theory of Light and Matter is a stunningly astute vision of contemporary American suburbia, full of tension, heartbreak, and emotional complexity—the work of an important new voice. Long Listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.”

Earlier this year, I read the new collection The Disappeared by Andrew Porter and knew I’d have to dive into this earlier collection by the same author. There is a different cast of characters in this one, an array of disaffected yet searching narrators looking for meaning in their lives when they aren’t receiving answers from their loved ones or friends or neighbors. All of the stories are told in first-person and are intimate retellings of very personal situations and memories.

“Azul” is about a husband’s awkward relationship to a foreign exchange student—who is named Azul—and the close relationship the student has to the narrator’s wife. The narrator—Paul—is baffled by how close his wife becomes with Azul and often wonders why he’s tasked with driving Azul to his lover’s place. Paul often delights in observing Azul’s spats with his gay lover Ramón. When they break up, Paul unwittingly invites Ramón to a house party for Azul with unsettling results.

In “Merkin,” Lynn and Michael are neighbors who support each other when their respective relationships and marriages fall apart. They’re platonic friends even though they speak about a mutual attraction. Lynn keeps her lesbian relationship from her father, using Michael as a stand-in boyfriend. Michael organizes a poetry reading for deaf students. Even though they don’t seem to understand why the other does what they do, they are deeply supportive of each other.

By far the best and most moving story in the collection is the titular “The Theory of Light and Matter.” It’s the story of college student Heather and the relationships she has with two men: her boyfriend Colin and her professor Robert. She loves the two men for very different reasons, but is drawn to older Robert because he truly seems to know the real her. Their relationship is mostly platonic, but Heather confesses to the reader a very deep connection she feels to Robert. Colin is the more practical choice and she reveals that she eventually marries him, but she confesses to a couple of rendezvous that expose her true feelings toward Robert and her disconnection from Colin. It’s a story filled with emotion and mystery and the undeniable truth that people are full of secrets—some worth sharing with others and some which can never be excavated. After Colin discovers Heather spending time with Robert at a bar, she agrees to never see Robert again, yet she still secretly visits him and reveals even more to the reader. It’s a devastating admission to the denial of her true feelings. I loved this story.

I really enjoyed this book of stories and I highly recommend it. I would give this book five stars.

Buy the paperback on Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/152/9780307475176

An Excellent Author Interview

Watch my Austin Lit Limits interview with Matt Bell, an excellent interview with a fantastic writer as well as a great creative writing professor. His craft book REFUSE TO BE DONE is a must-have for all writers. Watch the interview here:

https://austinlitilimits.com/episodes/episode-39-matt-bell.html

Buy a copy of REFUSE TO BE DONE here: https://bookshop.org/a/152/9781641293419

Support This Newsletter, Please

I can’t sign off without mentioning the book I have coming out March 22, 2024: THE CODGER AND THE SPARROW. It’s a comical yet moving story about a widower’s unlikely friendship with a young troublemaker. New York Times bestselling author Kevin Wilson (yes, that Kevin Wilson!) said this wonderful thing about it. “Scott Semegran’s The Codger and the Sparrow is a wondrous novel of the road, where two unlikely people seek out the larger world, and in their uncertainty, help each other navigate the way toward something like home. Told with such an abundance of both humor and tenderness, this is a novel of discovery, of searching for answers, and I could not think of two people I’d rather ride alongside than Hank and Luis.” You can read more about this novel here or preorder the paperback at the following book retailers: Bookshop, BookPeople, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Thrift Books. eBook and audiobook links coming soon.

Please consider supporting this newsletter by buying one of the books I mentioned or preorder my new book. Until next time, read more books, support your local bookstores, support your local libraries, and above all else: please hug a friend or family member. Until next time...

Sincerely,
Scott

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Header photo by Cody Chan on Unsplash