December is always a blessing. The semester is coming to an end and the light at the end of the tunnel may or may not be an oncoming train. I decided to make it a light holiday season and only booked one signing for December. There’s always plenty to be done: digging out the office, baking and shopping for Christmas, finishing up the grading to file grades on time, writing. Yes, writing. I do that sometimes.
I had some pleasant surprises this month. On Thanksgiving Day, I received an alert that Smithsonian Magazine had published one of my photos, which I had entered in their photo contest so long ago I’d forgotten entirely about it. I’ll talk more about that downstream, but it was a great honor and came at a time where I was really questioning how much energy I should be putting into my photography side hustle. It was quite an affirmation. Also, Rebecca Solnit commented on my Facebook. Squee.
In the meantime, The Literary Underworld is offering a discount with the code CYBER25 and $9 shipping/free for purchases over $49. My own online store is offering a discount with the code HOLIDAZE25 and the same shipping deal, plus you can get a gift card to my store here. Almost all the photography is available in prints, but if you’re looking for something special or custom or framed, that can be arranged. Just contact me or my assistant Kate at kyates@donaldmedia.com and we’ll get you a price.
Publicity/Appearances
My last appearance of the year will be Books, Brews and Baubles in St. Charles, Mo. on Dec. 13. I’m delighted to return to this event run by the St. Chux Derby at the American Legion Post 312. There’s a VIP package available; check out the details here.
Also, I was quoted in one of Sean Taylor’s excellent roundtables on Bad Girls Good Guys and Two-Fisted Action (I know, it’s a long site name but it rocks). This one was on subtext, titled “Fiction Like White Elephants,” possibly inspired by my lamentations that my students really didn’t like Hemingway.
Next year is booking quickly! Last month I added a guest lecture at the Ethical Society of St. Louis in January, updating on the epidemic of book banning and literary censorship in the U.S. If you are interested in having me speak to your group on this or other issues in my areas of expertise, contact kyates@donaldmedia.com.
2026 calendar:
- “Barbarians at the Gate: Book Banning in the U.S.,” Ethical Society of St. Louis, Jan. 4
- Conflation, St. Louis, Mo. Feb. 20-22
- AWP, Baltimore, Md. March 4-7
- Midsouthcon, Memphis, Tenn. March 20-22 (tent.)
- SPJ Region 7 Conference, Milwaukee, Wis. April 10-11 (tent.)
- ConCarolinas, Charlotte, N.C. May 29-31
- Imaginarium, Louisville, Ky. July 17-19
- Dragoncon, Atlanta, Ga. Sept. 3-7 (tent.)
- Archon, Collinsville, Ill. Oct. 2-4
Journalism
With Contently spinning into oblivion with its bizarre new regulations, I have moved my online archive to Authory. I’m still getting the hang of it, but so far it seems to be mostly functional. Links will be updated when I get a few minutes to rub together.
• Illinois students, union faculty call for fair funding from state (Labor Tribune)
• Pritzker, IATSE join to celebrate training center opening (Labor Tribune)
• Central Labor Council raising funds for Dream Factory (Labor Tribune)
• Illinois educators rally in Springfield (Labor Tribune)
• University of Illinois unions call for mediation (Labor Tribune)
• Congressional Postal Service Caucus calls for reassessment of reform plans (Labor Tribune)
Note: Not all articles are available online, and some may be behind paywalls.
Fiction
Hush. The book is progressing. It’s a relatively glacial pace, but it’s progressing. There will be a number of coffeehouse sessions during the break where I fuel myself with too much caffeine and beat that bloody book into submission. It’s progress! As the late great Vic Milan used to say, “Five words. Anyone can write five words.”
Here’s where Blackfire Rising is currently shambling:
- Direct fromElizabeth Donald, signed
- Literary Underworld, signed
- Falstaff Books
- Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
If you’d like a book signed and aren’t going to be in my general vicinity soon, order directly from me or Literary Underworld and indicate in your order that you’d like it signed. And if you love this book, please feel free to return to its Goodreads page and/or the bookseller of your choice to do a review! We love reviews, because we writers are needy insecure creatures.
Patreon/Blogs
- Subtext Like White Elephants – Extended Edition (Patreon)
- The writer on Thanksgiving break (Patreon)
- Fiction Like White Elephants (Bad Girls Good Guys)
- Do you like your social allegory subtle? (Patreon) – a review of Nuremberg and The Running Man
- Attack of the podcasters (Patreon)
Check out the Patreon index here. It needs updating, but most of the entries are listed there by category.
Did you know that Patreon subscribers get a 10 percent discount from me and The Literary Underworld? For the latter, that applies to all books, not just mine! For a dollar a month, you really can’t beat it. Just be sure to remind us at the booth as we do not have the subscriber list memorized. If you’re not a subscriber, the base level is $1 a month! You should totally join.
Currently on the nightstand: Erasure by Percival Everett, on which the excellent film American Fiction was based. The nonfiction book is still Glitch with a side order of poetry picked up on my recent trip to Hannibal and Marceline, Mo. Recently finished includes The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead and a reread of Stephen King’s Dolores Claiborne. For work, I reread “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury in preparation for introducing my students to it. Riding around in the bag is Ursula K. LeGuin’s writing text; and a recent acquisition, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times by Azar Nafisi, which I still haven’t gotten to but will probably bring home for the holiday break. Also King Arthur’s Big Book of Bread, which is as much a textbook as it is a cookbook and was an anniversary present from my husband, who gets to eat the experiments.
Photography
The Smithsonian Magazine contest chose 15 photos from everywhere, but mostly New England, if I’m reading it correctly. Almost all the U.S. photos were from the east or the west coasts, plus one from Texas, two from other countries, and me, representing the Midwest. The photo was taken at Eckert’s Farm in Belleville, Ill. – their caption credits Edwardsville because that’s where I live, but close enough. Eckert’s is a lovely place with a little country-style restaurant serving fried chicken that makes my southern-born husband happy. It has terrific hard ciders made from their own apples that makes ME happy. And it’s a good place to get locally grown and raised meats, produce, cheeses, jams, etc. It’s part of our fall tradition to do a day at Eckert’s, and on this occasion (in 2017) we rode the wagons out into the fields to find our pumpkin for Halloween.
The contest doesn’t come with any prize beyond bragging rights, but for once I don’t care. I’ve sometimes wondered at the practicality of continuing my photography hustle given my inability to monetize it to any great degree, but this kind of affirmation encourages me to keep it going, if only for my lovely Patreon readers.
The photography website is sorely out of date – that’s one of the holiday break projects. Still, almost all of the images in the galleries are available for purchase, so if you see something you like that isn’t in the store, email kyates@donaldmedia.com and we’ll get you a quote. A few might not be available for purchase due to copyright issues.