November 2025

It's the last day of November, and I am wrapping up a long weekend following a wonderful Thanksgiving. The weather has decided to get a little colder, and I have added the space heater back to my office, strategically placed under my desk, so I am toasty all day. I debate adding a blanket after seeing a Japanese kotatsu. Basically, a table with a space heater and a blanket. I won’t, but it will be debated. We’ve also had the fire running consistently, trying to keep the rest of the house toasty. The basic theme of November is 'keep warm', and we are trying.

As for writing this month (Note for folks who have read these posts in the past - I’m moving writing to the front of the things I’m doing.) Following the writing and printing of the short story zine 'The Summoning' in all of its hot pink colored cover glory, Jen and I started the next project. A zine with recipes that we have made for a Thanksgiving meal. Again, this was for Honora because who doesn’t want a recipe booklet from their parents with some of their favorite foods and commentary about such foods. 

We were inspired by a handful of small cookbook/recipe pamphlets Jen had collected over the years. One put out by a group selling Honey in the 70s or 80s, full of honey recipes. A collection of recipes for a town's anniversary. 

So we did that with a Thanksgiving focus. We picked the core requirements of an average dinner: Seiten Roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie, etc... I wrote commentary about each of the recipes, and a couple of the simpler recipes (Opening a can of cranberry sauce), Jen added the more complex recipes, and added the art. Then we pieced it together, printed it out, and 'Thanks Vegan’ was born. We sold a few copies, making its release official, and mailed a copy up to Honora at college. 

Following that, I wrote a short story that will be part of our Christmas release. It’s mostly edited and ready to go. Jen will be working on the art for that. We’ll be adding a title page with a Holiday greeting so we can use it as our Christmas Card. All of our Zines are mailable. Add an address here, and maybe we’ll be able to get one to you https://forms.gle/CJSQgrDPG9BaDL5a9. 

For January, I’ll be wrapping up another short story I started. 

If we can settle on a name, we’ll be hacking together a small publishing company because we’ve never started a publishing company before, and we think it would be fun. Will it be professional? No. Will it be interesting? Maybe. Will we be consistent? Nope. 

As far as where you can pick up these things we are making, you can ask us directly, and we’ll get you sorted. If you are local to Lewiston, Maine, you can swing by Ellard Studios, above Forage Market, for a copy of one of our zines or another from the growing collection of zines they have for sale.

Some things I’ve read and am reading.

I read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer for November's Difficult Book Club. And this once was not as difficult as others we have read. It's a mix of essays, and while some will break your heart, others follow, to bring you back. I loved the Native American folklore sections that tie into things that are modern. Shared the story of the Wendigo to explain some downsides of capitalism to a friend of mine. 

I started the second book in the Indian Lake Trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones, Don’t Fear the Reaper, and so far, so good. Very Slashery and similar vibe to the first book. A fun read if you are a fan of Horror.

I am still reading Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez, and it’s taking forever, not because I don’t like it, but because it’s my nighttime read and I have not been getting to bed and staying awake long enough to get through a couple of pages at a time. It is a weird book, though, and pretty creepy. I’m very curious to see where it ends up.

Some things I have watched.

A lot of watching has been limited to live recordings of bands I like on and a few too many zine videos and reviews of printers on YouTube, but I did watch the new Frankenstein movie by Guillermo del Toro. It was beautiful even though it was filled with some pretty nasty body horror. Based on the original story by the queen herself, Mary Shelley. Guillermo did pretty well

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I watched the first third of Season 5 of Stranger Things. The kids are not kids anymore, that's true, but I like that they shifted them out of school pretty fast, and after the first episode, you should be able to get past that. Overall, not the greatest, but it ended stronger than it began. They add a lot of new stuff and then a whole bunch of the old stuff to catch you up on what you may have forgotten. The thing that I didn’t really like was that they had the actors explaining everything all the time. I know some of these folks can act, but when listing off every step of a plan or explaining something again in detail, even the greatest can have some trouble breathing life into a character and not be weird. I read somewhere that Netflix is trying to get more of this type of explaining into movies so that people who half ass watch movies while scrolling on their phones can still keep up and enjoy the show. That seemed to be the case with this. Hopefully, they chill out on that with the rest of the season. 

That's it for November. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, if you celebrate. And have a great Holiday Season, regardless of what you celebrate.

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Here’s a picture I took of some plants and herbs this month. Jen brough the herbs in from the garden to grow a little more and add to the existing greenery in the dining room.