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Jul 1
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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

I was just discussing The Yellow Wallpaper with my 16 year old yesterday. We were reading The Cask of Amantillado and she reminded me of the time I read them The Yellow Wallpaper just before bedtime (what was I thinking?) when we were visiting my parents. Poor daughter was very freaked out. And later that night was woken by some computer equipment of my mom’s in the room she was sleeping in emitting a loud noise at 2am.

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Jul 2Edited
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Melissa Wiley's avatar

I loooove teaching The Most Dangerous Game. We've got Cask of Amontillado on deck for today!

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Melissa Wiley's avatar

So scary!!! Something similar happened to me when I was 11 or 12—I found a volume of Poe in my aunt's house & stayed up late reading it. The Tell-tale Heart after bedtime in the dark in a strange bed....*do not recommend*. It made a Poe fan of me, though. ;)

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Melissa Wiley's avatar

Rilla read The Yellow Wallpaper recently and said it's the best short story she's ever read. We'll be doing a close reading with Huck soon. I remember how floored I was by it in college.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

I spent a year in college reading classic Gothic lit from the late 18th and early 19th century and just published a story that my college mentor calls Gothic: https://syncopationliteraryjournal.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/l.-raphael-cadenza-proof.pdf That's 1 thing. #2 is finishing all 1300 pages of Shogun in hardcover (the book weighs almost 5 lbs!). #3 is re-watching the Danish political thriller series Borgen again.

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Melissa Wiley's avatar

Gosh, 1300 pages is an ACCOMPLISHMENT. That's about the size of War & Peace, which I'm spending a full year reading (in company with @Footnotes and Tangents).

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Mary Lee Hahn's avatar

1. Simultaneously raising 12 black swallowtail caterpillars to chrysalises. (July will be butterfly month.)

2. THE LIGHT EATERS by Zoe Schlanger

3. Learning more about/practicing reverse applique in the style of molas at Tatter in Brooklyn.

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Melissa Wiley's avatar

Oooh how wonderful to take a class at Tatter! I'm envious! Hope you'll share pics!

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Kortney Garrison's avatar

I can't get over the seasonal ink changes! What a beautiful idea!

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Melissa Wiley's avatar

I started it because I was always wanting my notebook-span to line up neatly with the seasons, and that never quite happens. So a different main marginalia color each month gives me a quick visual sense of the passage of time.

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