Some Happy News

(it rhymes with nook!)

Well, hellooooo there! I did not really intend to take a few months off from Substack, but I’ve been a bit busy, and here’s why!

I’ve been tossing the idea for this book around in my head for almost four years, turning it and twirling it and stretching it like taffy. I’m so excited that it will finally exist on paper, out in the world, hopefully next fall. (The full Publisher’s Weekly announcement is here).

The book is due in October, and I’ve made myself a handy little writing calendar and am having so much (nervous!) fun. I love this stage of a project, when you can fully immerse yourself in it and go down every rabbit hole to find the treasures that will (hopefully!) be cleaned, polished, and placed in a dazzling row in your prose.

As someone who has written a dissertation, I’m well aware that a project this big is not created in isolation, and I see no reason to wait until 2025 to start writing acknowledgements. I’m so grateful to the whole writing and reading community, to my bestie Shannon Evans for midwifing the world’s longest book gestation, and to my wonderful agent Keely Boeving.

This book is about what it means to pay attention, and how attention itself can open our eyes to the suffering of others and draw us into communion with one another. I’m so constantly aware of the devastation happening in Gaza and the holy wildfire of courageous people begging for an end to this violence. Simone Weil called suffering affliction, and she called us to keep it forever before our eyes.

Today when I went to the university library to get yet more Simone Weil books, I was stunned by the extraordinary beauty of the world, in obvious ways and more hidden ones. I splashed my way over to the art library past the quad where an encampment is being planned in solidarity with the suffering of Palestine. I’ll never really understand how such beauty and such pain can co-exist. But they do. Maybe the beauty can nourish us enough for our roots to reach deep and wide, all the way to every suffering person who needs our care. At least I hope so.

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A Few Hopeful Things:

—I haven’t been writing many shorter pieces while I’m in my deep dive on this project, but my friend David has a lovely piece on parables up at Jesuit Media Lab.

David was also in my Russian lit and Ignatian spirituality course, and we got to meet in person at the Ignatian Spirituality Center benefit dinner, honoring the parents of Kelly Hickman, who was also in the class! I love it when Ignatian worlds collide.

—Speaking of Ignatian worlds, the AMDG podcast just interviewed MARILYNNE ROBINSON, and I could not put it in my queue fast enough.

—Sorry for yelling, but THE WISTERIA. Glorious.

Reading, writing, hoping with you, in beauty and in pain,
Cameron