Spring is approaching slowly and steadily. Here on the Gulf Coast, the seasons may vary little, yet there is a shift noticed in the air when the sun suddenly kisses your skin with a deep warmth. I find that having grown up with the four seasons, I hibernate during the winter months: hiding inside, eating warm foods, reading. I crave the renewal of spring long before it arrives.
As the flowers begin to blossom again in the bushes outside my apartment, I’ll reach for my ever-growing “to be read” pile and anticipate the exciting releases to come this spring. Let us say goodbye to the chill and shed our layers to lie on the beach or the grass in the park with a book or two beside us, waiting to be read. I am very much in tune with the shifting seasons, the changes in the leaves, the color of the rising and receding waters. Nature is not separate from me, from us, and reading helps me to remember this.
Last issue, I wrote to you on the writing community in St. Petersburg. As a reminder: Book + Bottle hosts a Writer’s Happy Hour from 4:00-5:30 on Tuesdays; The Bad Writer’s Group meets from 10:30-12:00 on Saturdays at varying coffee shops; St. Petersburg’s Poet Laureate, Denzel Johnson-Green, hosts a poetry meetup from 3:00-5:00 at Black Crow Coffee Co. on First Ave. We are so rich to have a bountiful community of writers and readers. For one Bad Writer’s meetup a few Saturdays ago, we met in Crescent Lake Park. We settled beneath the billowing oaks, and the sunshine broke through the wavering branches. I had a thought then about the seasons of life and wondered if books have them too.
Some may argue that a summer read should be read on the beach, and a winter read should be read cozied up on the couch or by a fire. I argue that all books, with the inclusion of seasonal characteristics or not, touch on layered themes of discovery, and maybe even transformation. In this case, surely within them, seasons are inherent, as they are within us. When I look for a book to read, I am not merely inquiring whether or not it is reflective of my interests, or if it’s the correct time of year. I am looking for indications that the writer will take me on a journey through character, plot, or setting. A book I’ve recently read, The Overstory by Richard Powers, does this well I believe. We learn about the complexity of trees, their networks, and forest behaviors, but we also learn about the seasons of life and society through central characters and the natural environment. Perhaps the seasons are not dictated by weather, but by the phases of experience, though this can prove to be quite difficult to investigate with only a jacket synopsis!
Take a look at your “to be read” and “want to read” piles. Are there books in those lists that you saved to read for a certain time of year? What would happen if, instead, you read them now? Perhaps, there is more for you to discover.
Nonetheless, there are many exciting releases to watch for this spring. Below I have highlighted just a few to expect from Florida writers:
-Brawler: Stories by Lauren Groff, author of Florida and Arcadia
-Myra by Nicky Gonzales
-Maybe the Body: Poems by Asa Drake
In January, I wrote that writing is recurrently a solitary act of love. Reading can be this too, but I encourage you all to take this issue, or your next read, and enjoy it alongside a new friend, or a tree of whom may provide you shade from the warming sunshine.
Until next time.
