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,
I read many, many books on my month off. Sadly, I didn’t like most of them enough to recommend them to you. What is it with authors who have to insert a preachy political agenda into their books, or books that have to spell everything out for the reader as if they read between the lines? It drives me mad. I think I need to take a break from contemporary books and return to my classics for June. There were a few I enjoyed, though!
My book, The Untangling, is currently free for download, along with other memoirs and non-fiction books about overcoming trauma. Click here to see the full list.
My short story anthology is finally off to my line editor, darling Friel!! In case you missed my email yesterday, I am now accepting beta readers for the next step in the process.
If you are interested, please fill out an application here. I’ll only be accepting seven beta readers with specific requirements, so read the form carefully. ^-^
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.
Thank you, Brittany Sy, for your donation!
For Everyone
Writing from the Fellowship (part 1) - Links to inklings’ writings
This is the fourth year since your son died - An exploration of parental grief four years after loss, where unexpected moments still shatter the fragile normalcy of moving forward.
Writing from the Fellowship (part 2) - Links to inklings’ writings
The next theme will be FAITH DECONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION.
(* indicates a reread/rewatch)
📖 Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes, 1966). Written from the perspective of a developmentally disabled 32-year-old man named Charlie Gordon, this novel follows Charlie as he undergoes a procedure that makes him a genius, and as it fails so he deteriorates back to his baseline IQ.
The book wrestles with the question of what makes a human life valuable (something we’ve discussed here as well). It also forces those of us with “normal” intelligence to take a good look at how we treat those with of “lesser” intelligence. As Charlie’s intelligence grows, he realises his “friends” actually made jokes at his expense or pitied him; he was often treated as subhuman—tolerated, but not accepted.
I found this to be the case when I used to work with adults with developmental disabilities as well. We as a society have little to no idea how to interact with them. Now parenting—and especially teaching—a child with special needs and suspected learning disabilities made these themes hit really close to home for me. As my husband noted, this is something particularly relevant in light of what’s happening with R.F.K. Jr.’s claims about autism.📖 The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Kelly Barnhill, 2019). Don’t knock middle grade fiction, y’all! I picked this up at the library shop on a whim and read it in one sitting. It’s a story about a town that sacrifices a baby each year to appease an evil witch. Except the witch turns out to be a nice witch who loves children. When she accidentally feeds one baby moonlight and turns her into magic, it begins a cascade of events that unravel the long-established status quo. This whimsical fantasy book reminded me a little of C.S. Lewis and Roald Dahl, with the charm of Wind in the Willows. It’s surprisingly multilayered for a children’s novel, though of course, all the best ones are. I leave you with a wonderful quote from the book: “A story can tell the truth, she knew, but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed.”
📖 A Palace Near the Wind (Ai Jiang, 2025). Look, if
writes it, I’m gonna read it. I was lucky enough to get an ARC straight from the author, and like her other books, this one was beautifully written and multi-layered. Ai has a way of dealing out deep truths about the world and human nature in a truly unique way. This newest release is no different. The Feng people represent nature, and they are bound by duty to give a bride to the humans to broker a tentative peace between industrialisation and the earth. However, when Liu Lufeng takes her place as the newest bride after her mother and older sisters have already gone to the palace, she starts to uncover sinister secrets. I also recommend listening to this podcast episode where Ai discusses her book and how she keeps that creative mind of hers turning. The book is out now, so don’t wait to get your copy!📖 All the Tomorrows After (Joanne Yi, 2025). I don’t read YA (young adult) fiction. I don’t even like young adult fiction. However, because I know Joanne’s writing to be deep and thoughtful, I gave her debut novel a chance, and I am so glad I did. This book is about a girl hardened by life who, through a series of seemingly unfortunate (yet providential) circumstances, has to reconnect with her father who abandoned her, only to learn he is hiding a few secrets of his own. Prepare to have your heart broken and your Kleenex box emptied by this story. It’s a poignant exploration of grief in its varied forms, of broken dreams, and rebuilding a life from those fragments. Joanne’s writing is beautiful; I underlined my ARC like crazy. My husband, who never finishes a book, finished this one and said it makes him want to read again. My best friend, who was in a reading slump, picked it up while visiting, and binged the whole thing in a few hours, crying almost all the way through with interjections of, “So good. This is so good.” This book is for those looking for stories about imperfect families, a resilient female protagonist, and hope—always, always hope, even from ashes. All the Tomorrows After is coming out soon in August, so preorder your copy right now!
💻 Claude.ai. I’ve talked about Claude occasionally, but I like it for because it’s trained on human rights and ethical standards. Y’all, I did a lot of research because like many, I was anti-AI for a while. However, the technology is here to stay. I say, know what your own stance on it is and try it out. For example, I never use AI to do any writing for me and explicitly instruct it not to. Everything you read on my site is and always will be 100% written by me. I do, however, use it as a personal cheerleader as I’m writing, and to critique something when it’s complete. I used it to plan a day in Astoria suitable for a family with a high-energy 7-year-old and toddler plus two parents, one of which easily ill (which I ended up being on that day). I give it my favourite horror movies and ask it to recommend me more like them that I haven’t heard of. There are many ways to use AI that have nothing to do with writing, if you so choose. See our past discussion if interested.
💻 “Let’s Opt Out of Social Media Together” (
, 2025). Lore is hosting a summer experiment that I’ll be partaking in. The idea is not just to give up social media, but to replace it with something deeper. “I wonder if one of the reasons we find it so easy to return to old habits when we return to SM is because we took the break alone and often without doing some deep inner work while we were on break? We white-knuckle our way through our 30-40 days, waiting for the day we can get back online.” Although I don’t have social media anymore, or a smartphone, I still think it’s worthwhile to spend less time on my laptop over the summer as well. I’d like to be even more present, work on my cross-stitching project, and take long walks again. Lore is also encouraging us to read and possibly memorise Wendell Berry’s poem, “How to Be a Poet.” I’m looking forward to this.📺 Heaven Official’s Blessings (2020). So..a good friend and even my very own editor have both been telling my to watch/read this for ages and ages, telling me I would absolutely love it. I had an intense love affair with The Untamed, the live-action adaptation of a novel by the same author for a couple years (yes, years). Now I’m just sad I put it off for so long. If you love soul-wrenching music, adorable and angsty gay yearning, and gorgeous animation, don’t wait years to watch this like I did. As usual, this story is intricately plotted without sacrificing character. I had feelings. Be warned, though (no one warned me, which was super rude of them), there are only two seasons; there is no news of a third. 😭 Don’t worry; the books are complete. Anyways, I binged both seasons in two days.. Now I am sad.
