Welcome to another Friday Boost. I love going on a quest for these pieces. If you know of good ones I’ve missed, let me know at ramonagriggwriter@gmail.com. I’ll check them out!

Did you know famous writers can own bookstores, too? Gayla Gray has found some, as well as some magical independents.

SoNovelicious, Books & Reading & More Books

Author Owned Bookstores

Hi readers, As readers, I think we see owning a bookstore as a fantasy job, similar to working or volunteering in a library seems like a fantasy job. The fantasy becomes a reality when you read articles about the slim margins they operate on. It’s hard to expand on the inventory as the purpose of a bookstore is to sell books. The store can add bookish gi…

a year ago · 6 likes · 3 comments · Gayla Gray

I discovered Nishant Jain (@SneakyArt) at the Substack Writers Unite DM page on Twitter. (There’s another name for it, I’m sure but I don’t know what it is.) He’s a writer/artist/podcaster who shows how he does it on clever, fun videos. A triple threat! I loved it and knew you would, too.

The SneakyArt Post

100 - Friends on a Sunny Day

Watch now (1 min) | 👋🏼 Hello, readers! We grabbed a sunny day to walk around Vancouver, check out some furniture stores, grab brunch, and explore beautiful Granville Island. The island was packed with Vancouverites who had come to grab essential vitamins just like us. We walked around the Market until we were quite tired, and made sure the phone congratulated us for 10,00…

a year ago · 5 likes · 2 comments · Nishant Jain

Fog Chaser is a musician and composer based in the Northwest. His ‘Meditations’ are perfect for writing sessions, or just listening for sheer pleasure. A poem by Langston Hughes, and more.

Fog Chaser

Meditation | 006

Watch now (3 min) | Thank you for being here for the sixth installment of this newsletter. Thanks for reading Fog Chaser! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. I just got back from a very special creative residency at Smith Creek Village, a collection of cabins tucked away in an old-growth, temperate rainforest in Silver Falls State Park in Oregon…

a year ago · 16 likes · 29 comments · Fog Chaser

I’m sensing a theme of enchantment as we go along here, so let’s go all the way! Archita Mittra writes deliciously about Fae Folk and fairy godmothers and Jim Henson’s ‘Labyrinth’. Recipes, too.

KitchenWitch

Goblin Fruit, Sub Rates, and Real Talk

Hello, wonderful witches! The newsletter is coming at ya a few days earlier this month to celebrate the full moon in Leo. And as a Leo who loves full moons, it’s my time to shine! (Or glow, for a more moony word.) I’m not planning too much, but you can be sure I’ll be lighting a candle and taking some time to sit in a moonbeam. Remember—even if you don’t…

a year ago · Jennifer Billock

In this piece Summer Brennan writes about posing nude during her college days. If I had preconceived notions about what it would be like, Summer shatters them. In her own way, she makes it magical.

A Writer's Notebook

7. Posing Nude

Note: I have a lot to do today, an appointment in the archives of the Musée d’Orsay and an essay to write for a magazine, plus a bunch of things I need to take care of in the arena of family logistics, but I wanted to give you something substantial. The essay-shaped thing I’m sharing …

a year ago · 6 likes · 2 comments · Summer Brennan

Janeen McCrae is in search of the elusive masterpiece. She tells us in the most delicious words how she may have found it.

The Stream

Masterpiece

This rapidly aging index finger noodles out, long and slender, imagining itself to be a pianist-quality finger—you know, delicate, graceful, posh—rather than what it is. A hack finger. It is a hack finger on a hack hand that chops and whacks at things with vicious intensity and rare success…

a year ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Janeen McCrae

I hope you liked this week’s selections. Let me know in the comments below so I can get a feel for what you want to see here at the Friday Boost, but, more important, let the writers know in their own spaces that you’ve read them. It means so much when we know our words are getting through.

Writer Everlasting

Friday Boost: Magic Afoot