The Windup | Issue 03
April 2025
Hello, I’m Tiffany, your resident town hermit. Welcome to my fellowship—a haven where you’re free to talk about taboo subjects you can’t anywhere else.
PLEASE NOTE: this letter may be truncated by your email provider. Open on a browser or in the app to read the whole thing.
Dear Inklings,
Y’all got my book, The Untangling, to #1 in three categories on Amazon for a couple days! Thank you to everyone who purchased a copy!
For those new here, these monthly digests include:
a round-up of everything I published
7 recommendations of books, articles, films/TV shows, or anything else I think you might also enjoy
for patrons, personal life and writing updates, exclusive announcements
The Untangling is a paid publication. I explain my reasoning for paywalling my work here. If you would like to sponsor this publication and gain the keys to our Fellowship, consider upgrading your subscription or supporting my work another way.
What patrons have said about these monthly digests:
I appreciate all these insights, recommendations, and glimpses into your life, Tiffany. Makes me want to sit down with you over tea and ask you more about so many things!
—
I love your monthly digests so much (although my ever growing TBR has mixed feelings on the subject). Thank you for sharing the things that spoke to you this month as well as the projects you are working on <3.
—
I like your monthly roundup the most!
— Connie W.
For Everyone
Town Square | What Makes a Friendship Last? - Join our town square discussion exploring what makes a friendship last. Share insights and connect with our community.
I didn’t even want to be friends with her - A tribute to friendship that transcends differences: my real-life Samwise who's carried me through life
For Patrons
Why I broke up with my best friend of 26 years - When best friends drift apart, there’s no ceremony for closure. An exploration of friendship’s end and the grief that follows.
Fiction
The Misadventures of Endora Pan
First Date Fiascos - Two awkward souls connect over boba tea, sharing vulnerabilities about past heartbreak and inexperience in dating.
The Taste of New Beginnings - After another embarrassing mishap, Endora must decide if she’s brave enough to take Dominic’s hand and leave her painful past behind for a chance at new love.
I’ve been focusing on specific themes for each month this year. April was about friendship.
As a reminder, I’m off for May. I’ll be sharing Inklings’ links to their writing every other week instead.
After the break, the next theme will be FAITH DECONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION.
(* indicates a reread/rewatch)
📖 Hazelthorn (C.G. Drews, 2025). Yes, I did just recommend Drews’s Don’t Let the Forest In last month. Yes, I’m recommending their upcoming book, too. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC (advanced reader copy) from the publisher. And, you can even put this recommendation higher than the previous one because wow. I died. And came back to life. And died again. Then came back to life again. This book was the stuff of my angsty dreams. It ripped my heart out with a spoon. I loved it so much I wanted to reread it as soon as I finished it. I preordered the special edition as soon as I finished it. And I can’t believe I have to wait until the end of October before I have it in my hands. 😭
📖 To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee, 1960).* This book was published 65 years ago, and it still retains its relevancy—I’d argue this year even more so than previous ones—when many have become prone to having knee-jerk reactions toward others, based on what I’d argue are superficial judgments. The best books have a timelessness to them, and To Kill a Mockingbird is one of them. As long as humans exist, we will always be tempted to judge others, to form factions and groups. It’s in our nature. It’s normal to gravitate toward those who are similar to us and perceive those who are different with distrust, even suspicion. We fear what we don’t understand, to use a cliche phrase. Yet how brilliant would it be to scrape past the surfaces of what we’re “supposed” to believe about other people, and see who they are, instead? Maybe we’d say with Scout, “[…] he was real nice…”, to which Atticus responded, “Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them,” (emphasis my own).
🗞️ Leigh boy’s message-in-a-bottle is found in St Lucia (George Pizani, Echo News, 2025). I think we all need some cheering up. This heartwarming article will do it. My son, Ren, and I used the motif of a message in a bottle in our short story collection, so this story of a boy sending a letter into the ocean caught my attention. Four-year-old Ford’s letter was picked up by Zaina in St. Lucia, who answered all the questions in his letter by email. The two are now hoping to become pen pals. It reminded me of the way we all send little messages out into the world with pieces of our hearts attached, hoping someone will receive them, accept them, and respond with thoughtfulness. Just the sweetest story of providential connections.
📺 Black Mirror Season 7 (Charlie Brooker, 2025). After a few disastrous seasons, season 7 came back with a bang. Black Mirror is an anthology series that examines our distorted relationship with technology, through an often disturbing lens. Many of the previous seasons have had hits and flops. This season had mostly hits. While dystopian, some aspects no longer feel so, but more like our present reality. Since it’s an anthology, there’s no need to watch in order. In fact, if you’re just getting started from the very beginning, definitely don’t start from season 1, episode 1. Or, just start from season 7. There’s an episode with commentary about the healthcare system and patient abuse, one about missed chances, one about forbidden love crossing boundaries using AI, and others. Skip “Plaything,” though. That is the one flop, in my opinion. Everything else was thought-provoking and well done.
🗞️ Feminism Has Become a Derelict House (
, 2025). I’ll be honest here: the word “feminism” rankles me sometimes. Or rather, the notion that I ought to be a feminist by virtue of the fact that I am a biological female. It’s this obsession with identity Laura often writes about, you know? This fixation on labels. I don’t like it, to use a toddler’s phrase. And yes, I realise this is a privilege of the generation I am a part of—the providential or coincidental result of having been born in this era, when I am not the one who had to struggle for basic rights because of the way I look or which body parts I do or don’t possess. I’ve written about something similar before—how immigrant parents fought for their children’s right to not know of or struggle for the luxuries they sacrificed for them to have. That’s the point of this article, though—that previous generations fought for my privilege to say with Laura, “I think that my gender is the least interesting thing about me.” In any case, Laura is always worth reading, so I recommend subscribing to her whole publication after reading this one.🗞️ The Failure of Frodo Baggins ( , 2025). An excellent breakdown of how Frodo failed in the quest to destroy the Ring, what would have happened without Gollum, and how undeserved mercy, even when those extending it didn’t understand why, saved the world. Beyond being a well thought out analysis, it’s a timely reminder of the importance of small acts, small mercies, that may not make sense in the moment, may not be seen by anyone else, but are what truly matter while the world is falling apart. Yes, the grand battles and heroic acts of the other characters were important. Yes, they helped the overall quest. However, it is the continual acts of mercy extended to a pitiful yet murderous and loathsome creature that ultimately leads to victory. Beautiful.
💻 Guide to DRM-Free Living: Literature (Defective By Design). This guide is amazing. It lists a whole bunch of DRM-free resources. If I haven’t mentioned before, I’m against DRM (Digital Rights Management). It’s the thing applied to e-books, which, in simplified terms, is what keeps readers from shifting books they “purchased” to different devices. Because of DRM, you don’t really own your e-books. I don’t add DRM to any of my e-books, based on trust (call me naive, I guess, but I believe in allowing my readers the freedom to read my books however way they like). Calibre is what I’ve been using for forever to organise my e-books. Read this, too. It explains what DRM is and why it doesn’t actually prevent piracy.
