Flashlight #10: Crafty Little Thing
‘Tis the season for an admission: in my heart of hearts, I am a crafter. Not gorgeous cool-girl crafts like my dear friend Anna who makes stained glass pieces, one of which hangs in my window. Not true art craft like the letterpress printed book arts my dear friend AB Gorham makes, some of which hang around my house. No. I mean the kind of crafts your Great Aunt Gretchen used to make and gift you each Christmas, which you had to smile and say you liked even though they smelled like cat pee and were made of her old toothpicks. Too-small sweaters. Corn husk dolls already molding. A bird wedding scene made from shells she bought on her cruise.
If I were left to my own devices, I’d spend my days gluing macaroni shells on picture frames and beading earrings on a loom. But I don’t. Too Type-A for it, maybe. But there is something about the holidays that allows me to indulge these particular crafty desires—perhaps it’s the inherent cheesiness of decorations everywhere (love them), or perhaps it’s my overly-enthusiastic wrapping of presents that acts as a gateway drug. (Do you need anything wrapped?? PLS pick me.)
So: I have been felting. There it is, the admission. I buy dyed wool, then use a long sharp needle to stab it into shapes. I make animals, mostly. I stab myself in the finger all the time, even through the thick leather finger condoms I wear for safety. I am not very good at felting, but I truly don’t care.
Crafts are almost always a gift. There is the physical labor involved, and there is the manipulation of tools and materials, which feels so good and is, in many ways, writing’s antithesis. There’s the pleasure of thinking of another person and deciding on something that will bring them joy and then making that thing, not in a quick trip to the store (or click of the mouse more realistically), but through sustained action with your body. It takes labor. And that, that, brings me great pleasure.
Rare is it that I keep a felted creature for myself, though in a moment of absolute braggery, I will share that I made my daughter a stocking and feel nothing but shimmering pride.
So if you need me, I’ll just be over here, gouging a tuft of wool until it becomes a raccoon.
Book news!
I mentioned in my last newsletter that galleys of The Red Grove had arrived to my publisher, but I didn’t yet have them in my possession. Now I do! And holy smokes, they feel great, so pals, please excuse me while I photobomb you with this gorgeous baby and gorgeous book:
Do you know what would make for an excellent holiday gift for the reader in your life? Preordering The Red Grove! Any bookstore will be able to preorder it for you.
And y’all, let me pinch myself while I share this blurb freshly in from best-selling writer Paul Tremblay:
At once a haunting dream, a taut mystery, a level stare at gender violence, and an intricate generational tale of love and fear, Tessa Fontaine’s humane and stirring The Red Grove is unlike any other novel I’ve ever read.
—PAUL TREMBLAY, author of The Cabin at the End of the World
I know, I know - it’s so nice. I feel both terror and delight at the idea of my book going out into the world, suddenly in the hands of strangers. And there’s something hopeful about it too—all the time and thought and care I have put into this story being released into the air like a bunch of carrier pigeons. It’s an idea that makes me think of Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, an amazing book wherein Hyde makes an argument for all art being a gift, and meticulously recounts “the core nature of what it is that artists do, and also the relation of these activities to our overwhelmingly commercial society.” That’s a quote from Margaret Atwood’s great essay on The Gift from the Paris Review. Seems a good time of year to read The Gift, maybe?
Leela is off school for a few weeks, so we’ve been busy playing fun games like wash the dishes and roll the baby into a burrito.
Honestly she looks a little more like a joint than a burrito, but we won’t mention that to her.
Upcoming classes and offerings:
Ongoing- Accountability Workshops —we are starting a new cohort in January that will meet every other Monday from 1-2:30pm ET. Want to gift the writer or creative in your life something that will actually make a world of difference? Get them a month (or two!) of real creative accountability. Is the writer or creative in your life YOU? Gift yourself it, friend.
I’m teaching a new class in January: Going Deep: Writing Interiority in Fiction and Nonfiction, at the Flatiron Writers Room in Asheville, NC. Sunday, January 28, 2024, 1pm-4pm ET.
Good Moms on Paper Podcast: Join me and Annie Hartnett for season 3 as we interview other writers about writing, parenting, and creative accountability. Listen to any of the past 40+ episodes we’ve recorded for fantastic conversations.
And as always, I take on a limited number of editorial clients each year, so please reach out via my website if you’re interested in learning more.
Endorsements:
Fellowship Point by Alice Elliot Dark. Novel. Dark says she modeled this after the 19th century novels she loved, and I totally get it. It’s long and not a ton happens in the way of fast-moving contemporary plots, but the book is truly wonderful. Our protagonists are two women in their eighties, and the book is centrally concerned with friendship, and land ownership/stewardship, and how we do and don’t care for others - and it’s just really great.
Blackouts by Justin Torres. Novel. This just won the National Book Award in fiction, and Torres and I share the same editor at FSG, so did I also a tiny bit win? That’s besides the point. The point is, this is a really stunning book. It’s fragmented and collaged with redacted text and images, and is really about erasure. I absolutely loved Torres’s first book, We the Animals, and this one is wildly ambitious and ultimately about storytelling and I’m very glad he wrote it.
Eileen. Movie. Based on the novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, this is a fantastic, dark film about a young woman who works at a correctional facility and falls for a new councilor. And then things take a very dark turn. I haven’t read the novel Eileen because, ok, next confession, Ottessa is married to an ex of mine, who is the co-writer on this screenplay, as it turns out, but I thought the movie was excellent and now I’m excited to read the book too and if you’re wondering whether I saw myself written into any of the cool sexy female characters, obvs I did.
Tourtière. I grew up eating this meat pie at Christmas with my dad’s family. My grandma made a ton of them, and we’d eat them through Christmas eve, go to midnight mass, and eat more when we got home. I won’t send you my grandma’s recipe, but this one is close and makes a good pie. We just had our annual French-Canadian meat pie and whiskey party and it was excellent, as always. Eat this with ketchup or, even better green tomato chutney.
Smoked salmon trim. I loooove smoked salmon, but it’s pretty pricey. So sometimes I buy the trim instead, a big bag of pieces that are too thick or chewy or look weird, and cut it up and then blend it with cream cheese and fresh dill (and maybe lemon pepper, red onion, salt and pepper, however you want to flavor it). You make a delicious salmon spread to put on crackers or bread. Add a fresh slice of cucumber, and bam.
This blueberry muffin recipe. Leela and I made them, and they did not last long.
Happy holidays, pals. I’m sending you so much gratitude for being in my life, for supporting me in big and tiny ways, and for telling me about your favorite kind of crafts. Mwah.
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Xo,
Tessa
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Those crafts are brilliant! And imagine my middle of the night joy when I saw your shout out to fellowship point! Thank you. Your life sounds wonderful and full.