Writing With Style

Tag: reading

2020 In Review: Books I Read and Things I Wrote

January 17th, 2021
2020! Yikes!

There’s a lot I could say about this year – taking an unexpected gap year due to a pandemic, political turmoil, multiple 1000 piece puzzles that I puzzled over, but “Yikes!” really does sum up most of it, right?

And yet, 2020 was still a whole year, which meant that I had the privilege to read great books and write fun stories. So here are my little literary delights of the year.

One of my favorite memories of 2020 – going to a sunflower field!

Reading

Bookstores + Masks

I met my reading goal of 52 books this year – I ended up reading 55. That’s a silver lining of suddenly and unexpectedly having more time – you can get a lot of reading done! Escapism was clearly on my mind, because middle-grade books were my leading genre for the year. It was a stellar year in books – every single Fiction book I read stayed with me for weeks after I finished it. This was also the first time I’d read a Mary Oliver collection, and after I read one, I couldn’t stop.

Favorite Books

OVERALL FAVORITE: Mary Oliver’s Collections, Felicity, Blue Horses, and American Primitive
Mary Oliver’s collections are a quilted blanket, and time and time again I wrapped myself up in her words. The peacefulness and careful observation in her words were the complete opposite – and the perfect antidote for – the chaos, uncertainty, and stress in this year. Let me share some of my favorite lines with you:
- “When it’s over, I want to say all my life / I was a bride married to amazement.”
- “Except for the body of someone you love, including all its expressions in privacy and in public, trees, I think, are the most beautiful forms on the earth. Though, admittedly, if this were a contest, the trees would come in an extremely distant second.”
- “To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
- “Things! Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful fire! More room in your heart for love, for the trees! For the birds who own nothing—the reason they can fly.”
- “I’ll just tell you this: / only if there are / angels in your / head will you / ever, possibly, see one.”
- There is nothing more pathetic than caution / when headlong might save a life, / even, possibly, your own.”
- “I don’t want to lose a single thread / from the intricate brocade of this happiness / I want to remember everything.”
- “I did think, let’s go about this slowly. / This is important. This should take some really deep thought. We should take small thoughtful steps. / But, bless us, we didn’t.”
- “I live / now in a sky-house, through every / window the sun. Also your presence. / Our touching, our stories. Earthy / and holy both. How can this be, but / it is. Every day has something in / it whose name is Forever.”
HONORABLE MENTIONS BY GENRE

Fiction: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (“In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Có nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me? I miss you more than I remember you.”)

Poetry: Pecking Order by Nicole Homer (“Motherhood is like / being pecked / to death / by my / favorite birds / made from my / body, torn / by beaks sharpened.”)

Play: Machinal by Sophie Treadwell (In my costume design class, we envisioned different wardrobes for the characters in Machinal!)

Graphic Novel: On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden (“It’s like the older you get the more you forget that you can change things. Which is stupid because adults have money. Which means you can afford to buy a sledgehammer and break down the room you’re stuck in. Kids don’t have sledgehammer money.)

Nonfiction: Paperback Crush by Gabrielle Moss (Completely and totally delightful book about the paperbacks of the 80s and 90s – my favorite bit was about the Teen Angel series, which featured teen girls who were dead. The characters live in Teen Heaven, a place overseen by James Dean, and go to Heaven High. every now and then James Dean makes them go do good deeds on Earth. Can’t make this stuff up.)

Young Adult: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (“If summer was a book then I was going to write something beautiful in it. In my own handwriting. But I had no idea what to write.”)

Middle Grade: Bob by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead (“But it’s important to think about words. You can’t understand how you feel sometimes until you know the words for it. Words make things real. You can quote me on that.”)

Total List of 2020 Books

Fiction
1. Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
2. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
3. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
7. The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno
8. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Poetry
1. American Sonnet For My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes
2. Great Sonnets (Collection) edited by Paul Negri
3. American Primitive by Mary Oliver
4. Blue Horses by Mary Oliver
5. Felicity by Mary Oliver
6. Norma Jeane Baker of Troy by Anne Carson
7. Pecking Order by Nicole Homer
Plays
1. Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
2. Getting Out by Marsha Norman
3. Hecuba by Euripides
4. The Tempest by Shakespeare
Graphic Novels
1. Queer: a Graphic History by Meg-John Barker
2. The Low Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado
3. On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
4. Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug
5. Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill
Memoir / Nonfiction
1. Picture This: How Pictures Work by Molly Bang
2. How to Read Literature by Terry Eagleton
3. Elements of Style (Illustrated Edition) by Strunk and White
4. Cut My Cote by Dorothy K. Burnham
5. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
6. Bill Cunningham: On the Street: Five Decades of Iconic Photography by Bill Cunningham
7. Barbie Forever: Her Inspiration, History, and Legacy by Robin Gerber
8. Women in Clothes by Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton, and Sheila Heti
9. When They Call You a Terrorist by Asha Bandele and Patrisse Cullors
10. Paperback Crush by Gabrielle Moss
11. When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams
Young Adult
1. Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy
2. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
3. With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
4. I Kissed Alice by Anna Birch
5. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Children’s / Middle Grade
1. The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane by Kate O’Shaughnessy
2. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
3. Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo
4. To Night Owl From Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer
5. Short by Holly Goldberg Sloan
6. The Gollywhopper Games: Friend or Foe by Jody Feldman
7. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
8. The Line Tender by Kate Allen
9. Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo
10. Writing Radar by Jack Gantos
11. Bob by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead
12. Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo
13. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
14. Merci Suárez Changes Gears by Meg Medina
15. Blended by Sharon M. Draper
Writing

Picnic journaling!

approx 110,000 words written in 2020
- I finished my final edit for book #2! I rewrote around 40,000 words, then shaved off another 10,000. That’s killing your darlings for ya.
- I won my third NaNoWriMo with 50,000 words written in November. It feels good to get back into the habit of writing daily.
- For the second year in a row, I finished a journal! I’m finally becoming the sort of person who keeps a consistent diary. Childhood me would be so proud – back in the day, almost every entry started with “Sorry it’s been three months since I’ve last written!”
- In the Spring, I was in a college fiction class. I wrote stories every week, and my final project was around 10,000 words. Also, one of my stories won an English Department award!
- My short story The Haircut was published in Kingdoms in the Wild.
- Finally, I had an incredible year with Project Write Now. I took a poetry class where I wrote weekly poems, and I co-taught two classes, the first for 3rd graders and the 2nd for teens. I also taught a virtual class over the summer called Fridays with Vivian. I can’t wait to keep teaching this year!
Resolutions
1. Read 100 books. (This one’s a long shot.)
2. Write a new book. (My big semester project!)
3. Learn French. (Duolingo, here I come.)
Thanks for reading! How did you make it through 2020? What were your favorite reads? Did you too become briefly and totally obsessed with puzzles? Let me know in the comments! Until next time, you can find me on Pinterest or Instagram.
Books & Looks: April/May Wrap-Up

May 29th, 2020
Hello, everybody! April and May flew by because time isn’t real anymore, so I’m doing a double month round-up. My time in quarantine has resulted in less looks but more books. (Turns out I was definitely not just “dressing for myself” because I’m writing this in a nightgown covered with penguins.)

I’ve been reading a lot of children’s fiction – middle-grade is my old reliable, especially when it comes to comfort. My wonderful first year of college is over (thanks, Smith!) so I’ve had more time to devote to writing, my job at Project Write Now, and of course, a bunch of hobbies that I’ll likely abandon in two weeks. (I swear I’m going to come out of this an embroiderer. And also maybe a knitter. And a crocheter. I don’t know why my automatic response to fear of the unknown is needle-crafts.)

What I Read This Month:
- The Gollywhopper Games: Friend Or Foe by Jody Feldman – This was a sequel to a book I’d read (and loved) as a kid. The same spark wasn’t quite there for me, but the interactive puzzles were still fun.
- We Are Okay by Nina Lacour – INCREDIBLE. Such exquisite prose. I cried.
- Short by Holly Goldberg Sloan – This book was not short. (Haha. Sorry.) I liked the precocious voice of this narrator. Teared up at the end. (So far, Vivian’s Cry Count = 2).
- To Night Owl From Dogfish by Meg Wolitzer and Holly Goldberg Sloan – LOVED this novel told through emails and letters. I didn’t expect to become so invested in the main character’s friendship, but I was truly rooting for them. Another cry. (Cry Count = 3).
- Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo – Wonderful. It’s Kate DiCamillo. Of course I cried. (Cry Count = 4).
- Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele – I took Introduction to Gender and Sexuality this fall in college, and I loved this informative book told through comics and art.
- The Tempest by Shakespeare – I read this for my spring English class, and we studied it from a colonialist perspective. Not my favorite Shakespeare. Probably my least favorite that I’ve read, actually, but it’s still the Bard, so there are some killer lines.
- A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o – Wow. I also read this for my English class, and it was such an intricate portrayal of life after war, colonialism, what it means to be a hero, and how secrets about the past can destroy the future. Would definitely recommend.
- The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams – OKAY. I’m aware that this is a short children’s book which usually I wouldn’t count towards my reading list, but I’ve got GRIEVANCES. I listened to this book through the Calm app. I wasn’t sleeping well, and the app (which my college paid for because the global pandemic was stressing the students out, thanks Smith) suggested that I listen to a bedtime story to go to sleep. Okay. Fine. A woman with a soothing British Accent reads the Velveteen Rabbit. I figured I would drift off to the comforting story about a stuffed animal. Ladies & gents, I was on the EDGE OF MY SEAT. This was not a gentle story!! This rabbit goes through trials and challenges!! I was rooting for it!! I gasped out loud at 12am!! By the end I was more awake than ever!! How does anyone go to sleep when they don’t know what happens to the rabbit!! (And…you guessed it. I cried. Cry Count = 5!)
Librarian-Who-Will-Read-You-To-Filth
I’ll help you check out a book, if you’re not busy checking me out. (In an alternate universe where I am a twenty-something man who wears boat shoes, I would be so good at pick-up-lines.)

Wednesday-Adams-If-She-Was-On-A-Zoom-Call
“I got that red lip classic thing that you like, you’ve got that…what? You can’t hear me? Oh, sorry, I was on mute.”

I’m-Trying-To-Be-Transparent-With-You-Sleeves

Shoutout to my sister, Quinn DeRosa, for taking these photos! They are clearly 10,000x better than the photos I try to take myself and I WILL be using them as author photos, pls and thank you.
- Letters! Letters! Letters! Thank you to all my friends who write me letters. Getting mail is my #1 joy in life, and I love writing back. (Also, sorry to all my friends who have to read my handwriting.)
- I’m teaching a class, Fridays with Vivian, with Project Write Now, which has inspired me to think more about how I approach storytelling. It’s the highlight of my week. I’m also working on their teen program initiatives. (PSA: There’s a free teen Wordshare Open Mic, also on Fridays, that I moderate.)
- I wrote an article about hats for my school’s fashion magazine! (It’s got a bold thesis statement, but I stand by it.) You can read my article (and see my friends’ brilliant photographs and writing) HERE.
- I finished round #3564 of edits on my book! Just kidding. I think this is my 5th full draft. I cut 10,000 words this time. Oh, you smell something kind of weird? Don’t worry about it, that’s just the decaying bodies of all the darlings I had to kill. (This is the exact sort of melodrama I had to cut.)
- I’m writing some poems? For the first time in forever?
- Those Youtube advertisements finally won me over. I bought Margaret Atwood’s Masterclass. It was so fun! I think she is one of our most brilliant sentence-crafters, plotters, and storytellers. That is to say, she is one of my absolute favorite writers.
- I won Smith College’s Gertrude Posner Spencer Prize for fiction. Thanks, Smith! (This is the third time I’ve thanked my college in this blog post. I just miss them, okay?? ~~Please please please let us go back in the fall~~.)
- I wrote a 10,000 word short story for my fiction class, which will probably be a novel eventually.
- I think I might try to write a (different) book over the summer! We’ll see how it goes.
- My sister had the brilliant idea of doing presentation night: each family member presents a powerpoint about something they’re interested in. My sister ranked TV/Movie babies, my dad talked about cool toys he wanted as a kid, and my mom make a slide show from photos of our dog. I made a presentation about wordplay in one of my favorite songs ever, MOOO!
- Okay, disclaimer, I did not make that beautiful spinach-cheese-quiche. My mom did. However, I took that photo, and I did eat it, so I’m putting it in my round-up, gosh darn it. I haven’t become an avid baker, but I have tried my hand at some less useful hobbies. I’ve been knitting, jigsaw-puzzling (is that a verb?), and I’m hoping to learn how to embroider and/or sew. I should also probably learn how to drive but I don’t want to so that’s that.
- It turns out going outside is super good for you? I’ve been having a great time going on short bike rides and long walks around my town – I’m discovering places I didn’t even know existed. And you can never go wrong with a picnic. (This photo was taken right outside my house, so I wasn’t wearing a mask, but I wear one when I walk/bike around. Please wear masks and maintain social distancing!)
- We’re in a global pandemic and my entire future is uncertain, so I did what any young woman with an active Pinterest account and more than one bullet journal does: I made a vision board! According to my board, I want to read more books, wear red lipstick, own a nice home that’s walking distance to a quaint village, and adopt a bunny. (Other things that I want in my future that I couldn’t find pics of: health insurance, restored faith in democracy, and the destruction of the patriarchy.)
- I’m hanging out with my dog more! He got a cut on his leg, so now he has to wear a cone. I am protecting his dignity by posting a photo pre-cone, but rest assured that he looks just as cute/pathetic as you might expect.
- I finished schools, which means I finished finals! These three drawings are costume design illustrations I did for my sapphic psychedelic version of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shoutout to my professor for letting me carry-out that vision.
- Finally, I am reading magazines! I am cutting them up! I am pasting them in my journal! We’ve all got passions, folks. Here’s a photo of my process – I sort the photos by color before I create my journals.
Thanks for reading. What books have you been reading? Are you reading this in your PJs too, or have you been getting dressed? Do you have any writing projects at the moment? Let me know in the comments! You can also find me on You can find me on Pinterest or Instagram. Until next time, serve some looks and read some books.