Over the last two weeks we spent almost two whole days packing, emptying and deep cleaning our home of the past thirteen years. As the house grew more and more empty, I was filled with an oscillating sense of detachment and bittersweet sadness. As I’ve written about before in my zine, Home Love, this was Ramiro and I’s first home together, though we’d lived in two apartments before. We lived, loved and lost there, and the house was a sanctuary for me in so many ways, including when my health declined, when I was grieving, when we had to isolate in the first two years of the pandemic. It was also a gathering place for family and friends, a place where we held Halloween activities, tamale making for Christmas and much more. It’s where we said goodbye to our sweet Petey and hello to our newer fur baby Tajin.
As I lay on the clean carpet of our bedroom, taking a break from cleaning once my lower back had begun to seize up, I stared out the window in the corner of the room that overlooked our backyard. The late afternoon sunlight shown through, and I thought about all the times I had awoken and taken time in the morning to stretch, greeting the sun coming in through that window, grateful for a new day. I was filled with a plaintiveness then, thinking about how I wouldn’t look through this window again, wondering if leaving this home which had held us for so long was the right thing to do.
Then, I began thinking about all of the views we would see from our RV window during this adventure of ours for the next two (or more) years. Where would the sun greet me in the morning? When I raised the window shade, would I see the long horizon of blue ocean water, or a mountain in the distance, or the tall growth of trees towering around us? What would I hear from outside coming in?
At the beginning of August, we were in Galveston, TX, enjoying some time at the beach, eating a lot of sea food and finding the rhythm of life on the road. The first day we got in we were hungry, exhausted and cranky from driving, but on Sunday morning I raised the shade on the kitchen table window and looked out to the impossibly blue sky overlooking the beach, the bustling cars, the condos being built. This was the reminder I needed, that though I was giving up on memory home, one heart home, though it will always be a part of our story, I was welcoming all the new possible views I will see, and all the new stories waiting for us. Now, we are spending the rest of the month in Louisiana, enjoying New Orleans and Baton Rouge, especially the swamp trails and nature conservation spots (shout out to the Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center and Trails!).
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What’s Happening with Leticia?
As I work on several projects in progress, I am also revising my poetry chapbook that will be out in November of this year (details TBA) and my next book horror collection, The Remedy is the Disease, out next May from Undertaker Books, my historical paranormal novel, a fantasy graphic novel script, and more!
I also had the realization recently after reading and writing a lot of ecohorror and dark fiction lately that I have enough short fiction for a new ecohorror, speculative collection! Not what I was expecting to start creating this year, but it was a cool surprise for myself. I have about five stories so far that I am developing.
Current obsessions and delights: Ecohorror, femgore (will write more about that in the next newsletter), fungi, waterways and ecosystems, histories of the towns we are visiting, getting used to cooking and baking in the RV and on the outdoor firepit with a grill our friend Laura gave us, eating as much shrimp and good seafood as I can.
I also offer editing and consulting services to help you with your own creative projects! I have over a decade of experience helping writers of all ages develop their creative voices and their work with a caring and supportive approach. I love helping people learn more about their creative processes to best tell their stories.
I am currently taking on clients ages 16 and up for my services, although if your child would like support honing and publishing their work, I am happy to work with younger clients upon request. Since I write across a variety of genres, I am able to work with folks who are writing poetry, creative nonfiction, short stories, novels and more, with a special place in my heart for horror, speculative fiction and fantasy. If you are working on a comic, that is fantastic. I would love to work with you! Or, please share with other writers you know who might be interested!
Giveaway!
I am offering free on-hour editing/writing mentorship consultations for the first few folks who donate $15 or more to The Sameer Project, a grassroots organization of Palestinian volunteers who are working tirelessly to provide meals, baby formula, water and medical supplies to families in Gaza despite the continued Israeli bombing and blockade. Comment or email me to let me know once you’ve donated and we can schedule a time to chat!
What I’m Reading and Watching: Going to the Water!
Since we visited Galveston, some of the swamps surrounding New Orleans and are going to be visiting a lot of coastal areas on the first leg of this trip, it felt right to feature some work across genres about waterways. Every spring and summer, I feel a deep bodily urge to be submerged in water, whether I am dipping my toes in a local creek or submerging myself in the waves of the Gulf Coast. Waterways across regions can be such beautiful, peaceful and healing places, and yet they can also be destructive, wreaking havoc on communities during storms and floods. We are visiting New Orleans now on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. We just had cataclysmic flooding in Central Texas that took the lives of so many, including the children and admin at Camp Mystic. Climate change is making our relationships to water more tenuous.
In a deep, murky lake or a rushing river, the water’s lifegiving beauty and death making potential go hand in hand to create some of engaging but frightening works, including the stories of mermaids and other creatures that lurk in the deep. Here are some of the books I have read or am reading now that encompass the for me!
- Reading the Waves: A Memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch
- This memoir of interconnected essays is the second book I have read by Yuknavitch, whose work I have always been drawn to. In it, she grapples with how we tell the stories of our lives, when we tell them, and whether that telling helps us make meaning of the most heartbreaking, the most traumatic, and the most beautiful moments in our lives. Yuknavitch compares storytelling like this to entering a story stream, and water is present throughout the book. My favorite essays were “Daughter,” and “Molecule.” I think it is well worth a read.
- Merciless Waters by Rae Knowles
- This is an indie sapphic underwater horror novella I am excited to read at last! Jaq and Lily and the women on the ship Scylla have no past, only the present and each other. But when they rescue a man adrift at sea, Lily wants him to be her new lover, and heartbroken Jaq plots revenge. With this new man aboard, the women on the Scylla begin to remember how they came to be aboard the ship, filled with a thirst for retribution. I love a sapphic love story and revenge tale!
- Chlorine by Jade Song
- I read this at the beach last year and it was exactly the weird, femgore book I had hoped for. In this coming of age body horror novel, Ren Yu is a competitive swimmer yearning for the approval and love of her demanding swim coach and her parents. But the urge to be in the water all the time, to shed her human confines and become a mermaid, a creature of folklore who are fearsome and free, consumes her thoughts. This is a brutal but beautiful book about the pressures put on teen girl’s bodies, the expectations that they must meet and what someone will do to themselves to be free.
- Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (Libby)
- This one is on my TBR! Seven years ago the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with the crew. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a tragedy. Now, a new crew has been assembled to uncover the truth of what happened to the Atargatis, and young scientist Victoria Stewart seeks to discover the fate of her sister she lost.
- Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes That Dot Our Planet by Geo Rutherford
- If you follow Geo on Tiktok, then you are accustomed to hearing her familiar opening to each of her videos, “Um yes hello, it’s Spooky Lake Month (October).” In each video, and in her book, she explores a lake or body of water with a spooky history due to how it is formed and the human lives it has claimed. Ramiro got me a beautiful physical copy of the book and I am listening along to the audiobook on Hoopla as I read, enjoying her narration and the beautiful illustrations!
- The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
- Another brutal but poetic body horror mermaid novella! I re-read The Salt Grows Heavy for a book club last month and remembered why it sticks with me so much. In this reimagining of the Little Mermaid, the mermaid marries the king and has two daughters who devour the kingdom and burn it to the ground. Now, traveling with a mysterious plague doctor who helped her escape, they travel the snowy taiga until they encounter a village of children reborn again and again and the three “saints” who control them. The mermaid and her plague doctor must join together if they hope to survive. This is not for the squeamish, as it is extremely gory, but also poetic in only the ways Khaw can be, and explore bodily autonomy and finding love after the brutality that others have inflicted on you.
- We Don’t Swim Here by Vincent Tirado
- Also on my TBR, but I really like Vincent Tirado’s other work and some of their short stories in anthologies I’ve read. In this YA novel, Bronwyn is only supposed to be in rural Hillwoods for a year. Her grandmother is in hospice, and her father needs to get her affairs in order. But Bronwyn is miserable. Her grandmother is dying, everyone in the community is standoffish, and she can’t even go swimming. All she hears are warnings about going in the water, despite a gorgeous lake. And a pool at the abandoned rec center. And another in the high school basement. But there’s a reason to stay out of the water, and a sinister history behind Hillwoods that could claim her too!
- Blood in the Water by Tiffany D. Jackson (Hoopla)
- I just started this audiobook on Hoopla and am already hooked! That makes sense, since I have really enjoyed the last two books I read by Tiffany D. Jackson. In Blood in the Water, Brooklynite Kaylani is spending the summer with her father’s wealthy friends at their house on Martha’s Vineyard. She’s out of her element in the wealthy community and missing her dad, who is incarcerated but encouraging her to enjoy herself. As she gets to know the area and the interesting Black history of the town, Kaylani thinks that maybe she can make something of this summer, but when a popular teen boy is found mysteriously dead, Kaylani dives into investigator mode. Did he drown? Was it a shark attack, or even worse, could it have been a murder? The deeper she digs, the more Kaylani’s own life might be in danger.
- Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
- Another longtime TBR one I plan to get to finally. When Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe, Miri is just relieved to have her wife back. But is becomes clear that Leah has come back wrong. Whatever it was they were studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, and Miri doesn’t know how to get her wife back.
- They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran (Libby)
- This has been one of my most anticipated reads, and I’m so excited I can get to it now! It also feels relevant since it takes place in Louisiana. A red algae bloom has taken over Mercy, Louisiana, ever since a hurricane devastated the town. But Noon’s life was upended long before that, and now her mother believes that their dead family have been reincarnated as sea creatures. Soon, she joins with the hunter daughter of Mercy’s sinister leader to track down and kill the creature drowning residents. Now, there is a new storm approaching, and Noon must confront her own past and what she is now becoming.
I also wanted to shout out two books I started reading set in Galveston, The Medicine Woman of Galveston by Amanda Skenandore and The Night Birds by Christopher Golden, which have both been interesting so far.
In addition to my reading, there are all kinds of great Summerween films and shows to watch! It’s the 50th anniversary of Jaws, and there are a ton of other Sharksploitation films to watch (still love Deep Blue Sea, a problematic favorite). We recently watched Dangerous Animals, which is a shark movie and a serial killer thriller all rolled into one!
We also watched Last Breath, a film based on the true story of a team of saturation divers on a mission to repair undersea gas lines in the treacherous North Sea. During their dive, their vessel’s Dynamic Positioning System (DPS) experiences a malfunction and the ship drifts away from the work site, and Lemons, the youngest crew member, is left stranded on the manifold, running out of air. It is a harrowing film, one that will have you rethink your next scuba diving excursion.
Writing Prompts
What is a waterway, lake, beach, river or swimming hole you used to visit frequently or that you have fond memories of? Think back to your visits there, considering what it felt like to swim in those waters, sunbathe on the beach, or any other details that come to your mind. Write about that sensory experience.
But make it horror: Now, consider what lurks beneath the surface of the water where you used to or still like to swim?
Call to Action: Opportunities for Solidarity and Care
It feels like every day, waking up to news of yet more unending cruelty and state violence, both in the US and around the world, makes it impossible to self-regulate, to make nourishing food, to be creative. And every day that we do something kind for ourselves and others is a day that affirm that fascism, violence, dehumanization, death making will not win.
What I am personally struggling with right now is that I am not physically with my community in Texas, organizing and supporting as I have in the past. I can support in some ways from afar, but because this trip necessitates that I am a visitor in most communities where we are. This is most potent to me when I visit a city or town, moving with caution because I don’t always know how we will be perceived or whether we will always be safe. So how do we stay connected to one another towards collective liberation?
I am spending some time with anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, abolitionist texts like Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, Abolish Rent by Leonardo Vilchis and Tracy Rosenthal, Copaganda: How the Police and Media Manipulate Our News by Alex Karakatsanis among several others, studying them and thinking about how to apply this knowledge to my life and work. Many of these are available on Hoopla or from Haymarket Books.
Want to buddy read with me? Friend me on Storygraph and we can start a buddy read together!
Take care, each and every day ❤️
Leticia
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