Shelf Life October Roundup
Everything That Was Unfit to Print in October 2020
Welcome to the first monthly roundup from Shelf Life. Just dropping some newsletter metrics, past-month highlights, and upcoming-month events of interest on you. This feature will appear in the newsletter archive on the first of each month (or thereabouts) but will not deliver to your inbox (housekeeping posts will never be emailed).
October 2020 Highlights
October was Shelf Life’s first full month publishing and we made every Tuesday and Thursday at 9 o’clock, as promised.
Y’all’s favorite article in October was Pencils and Markers I Have Known. I don’t know why you like pencils so much. Pens are obviously superior in every way.
The Shelf Life community Discord server launched on October 4. Click here to join!
Substack doesn’t have a lot of space for information about the newsletter so I launched a homepage on October 24 that gathers everything in one place for all your meta-Shelf Life needs.
Shelf Life published an interview with Jamie Aughenbaugh of RE:Written LLC on October 27. This is the first 3Q4 feature in a planned ongoing series. Stay tuned to meet another word-industry wiz soon!
November 2020 News and Events
NaNoWriMo starts today. Leave a comment to let us know if you’re doing the thing.
Shelf Life has a three-part series on respectful writing coming up in November. This means that during one week in November, Shelf Life will send you three articles instead of two. Consider this your warning! Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss this series, it’s a good one.
Dearly by Margaret Atwood launches November 10. It’s her first poetry collection since The Door in 2007.
Naomi Novik and Fonda Lee will be chatting about Novik’s new book, A Deadly Education, at Portland Book Festival on November 11 (livestreaming for free).
University of Portsmouth is offering a free writing workshop on November 14 with Calum Kerr. The workshop will focus on speculative fiction and dystopias present and future.
Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review editor, interviews Margaret Atwood at the Miami Book Fair on November 15 (livestreaming for free).
The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother, a graphic novel by Marisa Acocella, launches November 17.
Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics launches November 17. To say that Shelf Life is “a Dolly Parton fan” would be a massive understatement.
Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline launches November 24. (Easily the most polarizing statement to appear in Shelf Life so far.)
I hope you had a pleasant Halloween, and make sure you vote on Tuesday. As always, thanks for reading.