Happiness Sprinkles + Book Club ZOOM Link
Cherry blossoms, candy-making, and noodle-eating in Japan!
Hello, Protagonists! In this post, you’ll find:
🤓 Reader’s Corner - what I’m reading this week
🥳 Happiness Sprinkles - things worth smiling about this month
🌸 Japan Photos!
🔦 Protagonist Spotlight - celebrating what you’ve been reading and writing
📚 Reminder! Our “Read Like a Writer” Book Club meeting is this Sunday, April 20th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT
» Book Club ZOOM Link at the bottom of this post
NOTE: This is a long post, so your email might cut if off—if so, just click the “read entire message” link when you reach the bottom of your email
🤓 Reader’s Corner: What I’m Reading This Week
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn - (novel, historical fiction) - I loved having Kate on our podcast, and her latest novel is just as smart and delightful as she is.
The Briar Club is about a “boarding house for ladies” in Washington, D.C. during the McCarthy era, and it’s a beautiful story of how women band together to help each other, even when they’re working through their own individual doubts and fears.
🥳 Happiness Sprinkles: Things Worth Smiling About in April
Here are a few delights that I enjoyed in the past month. I hope they bring a smile to you, too!
Japanese Paper Cutting - Kirie is the Japanese art of cutting intricate shapes from a single sheet of white paper and then contrasting it against a black background to reveal the design. Artist Masayo Fukuda hand-cut this incredible life-sized paper octopus from one sheet of paper!
Punctuation Marks Hanging Out - Fellow word nerds, you’re going to love this silly, short video. And if you haven’t seen the previous edition (“Fonts Hanging Out”), make sure you check that out, too.
The Truth About Victorian Corsets - I believed the movies and books that told us how women suffered in corsets, but then I watched this video and… WHAT? It’s not true??
I enjoyed this educational look at how Victorian women’s clothing actually worked (and now I’m going to be a little smug every time I watch a movie where a women is yanked into her corset, gasping and then fainting.)
🌸 Japan Photos!
Tom and I were fortunate enough to travel to Japan to celebrate our anniversary and to see the cherry blossoms!
To be honest, before we got there, I was a bit skeptical—I mean, we have flowering trees at home, too. So what was the big deal?
Well… thousands of sakura trees along the river banks, gently sprinkling their cherry blossom petals down onto the water and the rowboats below… That was the big deal.
All of Tokyo and Yokohama were blanketed in these delicate pink and white flowers. Cameras can’t do them justice, but that didn’t stop me from trying to capture their fleeting beauty.
Now, you all know that I have a huge sweet tooth. So of course, I had to have Japanese soufflé pancakes for breakfast one day. They were divine—so soft and fluffy and jiggly in just the right way.
Then I needed a taiyaki (fish-shaped waffle filled with chocolate custard, vanilla custard, red bean paste, or other delicious things).
And then I had to find 3D latte art, where the barista crafts a three-dimensional sculpture out of milk foam that’s several inches tall. I asked for Totoro (thank you to community member and author
for that tip).
On the theme of sweets, we took a class on amezaiku, the ancient art of Japanese candy-making. Here’s a photo of one such candy sculpture made by an expert artisan—yes, that’s just sugar and food coloring!
In our class, we made rabbits.
You’d better hang onto your hats, because when you see my glorious, professional-grade candy bunnies, they’re going to blow you away:
I feel like “amezaiku artist” is not a viable back-up career for me if the novelist thing gets old.
Okay then, onto something I could handle—we visited the Cup Noodles Museum!
There, we got to make our own custom-flavor Cup Noodles— we decorated the cups, then chose which soup bases we wanted, plus four toppings.
When you’re done, they give you an inflatable bubble pouch to protect your precious, bespoke Cup Noodles so they don’t get crushed.
Finally—and more elegantly—Tom and I rang in our anniversary at Ukai Toriyama, a stunning restaurant on Mt. Takao that felt like walking into a Miyazaki film.
It was beautifully peaceful there, and the seven-course meal in our own private tatami room was pure magic.
I also shot a video that spied on someone else’s tatami room (sorry, folks!), but the point was to show you the gorgeous landscaping and koi ponds.
Sayonara, Japan! Until we meet again... 🌸 🌸 🌸
🔦 Protagonist Spotlight
Every month, I feature a few of our community members to celebrate books, essays, or other projects that you have written:
🎉Amy Brown is fully embracing her “still-blooming life: post-divorce, post-caregiver for my mom with dementia, and soon to turn 65 (next month) in beautiful Barcelona. Here's a recent piece on how here in Barcelona, I have found a sense of belonging already, ‘When your destination is your destiny’.”
» Woohoo! We are all cheering you on, Amy!
👏🏼 Kristin Fellows: “I am now launching my third ‘mosaic memoir’ via Substack – Lions, Peacocks & Lemon Trees. I’ve been researching and working on it a ridiculously long time and I’m now ready to share it and get reactions & feedback as I look for a publisher. The prologue brought me a founding subscriber within an hour or so! An angel from the UK, a complete stranger to me, who said he just liked these few paragraphs and wanted me to finish the book! One of the sweetest and most surprising things to happen to me on Substack.”
» Wow, Kristin, I love this story of kindness. Thank you for brightening our day by sharing!
Want to share something that you’ve recently written?
Just reply to this email or drop a comment below with a 1-2 sentence description. I can’t wait to hear from you!
📚 “Read Like a Writer” Book Club
THIS SUNDAY - ZOOM Link below
“Read Like a Writer” Book Club is for our community members who want to dive even deeper into how great books work. Come nerd out with us! 🤓
Feel free to come even if you haven’t read the book. (Just be prepared for spoilers.)
Book:
One Two Three by Laurie Frankel
Time:
Sunday, April 20th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT
During the book discussion, we’ll chat about:
The different voice and perspective of each sister
Character development vis-a-vis the other characters in a story
What do we learn about the other triplets from each sister’s POV?
How does each sister see their mother differently, and the other characters in the story?
Worldbuilding
Creation of a polluted town that is real enough it could exist in our world today
Use of characters (the family who owns the chemical plant) to portray not only complex people, but also to contribute to the “worldbuilding”
During the “behind the scenes of writing” portion, we will talk about:
How does an author make a full-time living as a writer? (The financial mechanics)
Enneagrams Types
Our favorite characters in books, movies, and TV shows (and guess their enneagrams)
I think this is going to be a wonderful conversation!
To prevent Zoom-bombing from not-nice people, the Zoom link is below the paywall.
This also allows us to keep our members’ book discussions private from the general internet; it’s nice to have a cozy, totally private space for just us!
If you’d like to join us in the Book Club, you can upgrade to a paid membership here:
or:
Get a complimentary paid subscription when your friends subscribe:
1 referral = one-month paid subscription, comped
2 referrals = three-month paid subscription, comped
3 referrals = one-year paid subscription, comped
Note for Introverts:
If you’re comfortable being on camera, I’d love to see your smiling faces!
But if you prefer to have your camera off or to change your display name on Zoom, that’s totally ok! (before you sign in to the meeting, go to Zoom and change your display name in Settings/Profile/Display Name).
ZOOM LINK BELOW:
💛