Welcome to Litsy!

It‘s fun to see this infographic on Goodreads. I was 20 books short of 1 book per day (keeping in mind that picture books count in this tally). Resolution for 2018: read fewer books. 😜

“I just want to have a normal family! But I‘m always tossed into this tornado, this Wizard of Oz meets Godzilla at The Little House on the Prairie.” A lesbian protagonist + dysfunctional Japanese immigrant family + southern Alberta setting + supernatural beings + inventive prose = an emotionally rich novel that I loved. 🇨🇦 #LGBTQ #queerbooks #ownvoices

At the back of this novel, there‘s a full-page explanation about what a kappa is: in Japanese mythology, a water imp or river monster. Its favourite food is cucumber. I went down the Internet rabbit hole and found many images, including this cutie.

People say “childhood” and “adulthood” with such absolute conviction. Like they are two entirely separate rooms of the four-room bungalow of life.

“Do you need a ride?” Satomi stands up, jingling a Hello Kitty key chain. I shudder. Lunch might have been sister-cozy in a way I would never have imagined, but that still doesn‘t inspire me to be caught dead in an automatic Trans Am with CUTEGRL for a license plate.

Not everything is visible to the human eye, or the human heart. Our bodies are over 70% water. And the rest, memories.

I‘ve made a glass of Hong Kong-style milk tea and now I‘m feeling tropical as I sit down with my book and the birdsong at my friend‘s place in Brisbane. 😎
#muglove

No one knew what compelled our father to try and grow Japanese rice in Alberta. No one knew what we were doing in boxcars disguised as a motel. No one knew how long we had to stay there. No one knew.

(Image: https://www.thespruce.com/steamed-rice-recipe-2031331)

Dad‘s milk van gift was hardly glamorous but timely all the same. I‘d interviewed for the position and lied that I had my own vehicle. But good old Dad, he traded his complete collection of Elvis on eight-track cassettes for a fourth-hand vehicle with ‘Palm‘ flaking off its sides. An engine that should be declared an endangered species.

We sit in the clock-ticking silence and drink shitty coffee.

A kappa, a human, and a dog warm themselves by a fire in the chill of fallen evening. The world has ended, like worlds often do. But this catastrophe disconcerts the dog and he wants to blame someone.
“Welllll,” he whines, “the cats were sneaky. I wouldn‘t put it past them to have done this awful thing.”

If the Litsy app made it possible to zoom in on photos, you would be able to see the line of children‘s backpacks hanging in a row outside their classroom wall in the distance. If there was a sound capability, you could hear the young voices singing Christmas carols while I sit on the deck reading The Kappa Child. 😊

Barbed wire‘s always easier to crawl through when there‘s someone else to make the space wider with a helpful hand & foot. I leave pieces of my terrycloth housecoat on a stretch of tangled fence but what I don‘t realize is that I leave a huge trail of dispirit which meanders everywhere I walk. When the farmer tries to plant some winter wheat in the fall, nothing will grow & paranormal investigators will bring extra money into the sagging economy.

Just heard a great talk by Hiromi Goto at the Canadian Literature Centre at the University of Alberta. It was a braided essay about speculative fiction, entwined with a magical story. So good!