Following on Kamy Wicoff's recent call to post what you're reading, here's a peak at some of YOUR nightstand shelves. We've had the wonderful luck to have several of you contribute columns to our "What She's Reading Now" series (if you want to pitch us on one, check out the submission guidelines here), but we'd like to add a component to this that's a little more fast and loose: take a snapshot of the book (or books) on your bedside table, and give us a line or two about what you are reading now. Post this a blog post on your profile page here at She Writes, tag it "WSRN," and we'll feature some from time to time! "So happy to say these are all books written by my friends...and I LOVE to see my friends succeed! Let's me know there's hope for all of us struggling artists! And now they are the ones walking me through my scary submissions. What a process. I met Amy Ferris originally through She Writes last year, and now she's one of my very best friends. YAY for She Writes! Two of these are not personal friends but SheWrites friends: Meg Waite Clayton and Jennifer Lauck, whose books I loved. Rock on, girls! (and boys)." --HOLLYE DEXTER
******* "Right now, I'm re-reading Winning the Sugar War because I'm back on the sugar wagon (which sounds like the opposite of what I mean, so I am watching my sugar intake again) and When Things Fall Apart because I need a better mindset for writing and for life. The novel I'm rereading is Blue Diary. Next up is War Anthem by my online friend Keith Andrew Perry." --CARLEEN BRICE ******
"I stick to a kind of system in my reading so that at any one time I usually am listening to an audiobook while walking or driving, reading poetry or spiritual book each morning, and on my bedside I have a book that I'm re-reading, something of literary merit, and a mystery. Those slots are currently filled like this: Audiobook: Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake Shange & Ifa Bayeza. This is a perfect book to listen to as the authors include song throughout the book. It's an epic about African American women from the Reconstruction to the present, and it's powerful. Poetry: Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. A book to be savored for language, imagery, and truth. It certainly doubles as spiritual reading. Re-Reading: The Love of Impermanent Things by Mary Rose O'Reilly, definitely my favorite writer of all time for her sensibility and exquisite craft. I'm re-reading this collection of personal essays to study and understand better how she manages to touch me so deeply. Literary: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, and talented author of fiction and non-fiction. Her historical works such as Year of Wonders: A Novel about the Plague. But I also thought Nine Parts of Desire, a non-fiction book about Muslim Women in the Far East was brilliant. Mystery: Winter Study by Nevada Barr, who is definitely high on my list of mystery writers. I tend toward female mystery writers like Kathy Reich and Patricia Cornwall. Just started this one, and I know it will soon grab a whole afternoon from my life when I get so caught in the tale that I have to finish." -PATRICIA HARRELSON