Sunday Letter: Oct 26, 2025

Dear Sunday Letter readers,

Better late than never! I started writing this Sunday Letter on October 10 from beautiful Lake Norfork when the trees were just beginning to show their fall color. Boaters were few—mostly those fishing in quiet coves. Gone were the pontoons filled with spirited summer vacationers, music blasting. No jet skis. No hot dog roasts on the island. No cliff jumpers. Sitting around a warm fire after sunset felt cozy! (Not so much in steamy August.)

Every season contains magic, and at the time of my recent visit, the lake was wonderfully peaceful and quiet. It was about the herons trolling for supper and the hawks gliding on the cool breeze. It was about the fog lifting from the cove at dawn.

My grandparents always went to the lake on Christmas Day. Maybe I’ll go back this winter. Seeing the lake during a snowfall would be stunning. The thing is—the love of a particular place is one you always return to, sometimes in person and sometimes in your mind. Do you have a place like that?

Anyway, I finally finished this Sunday Letter five minutes ago, two weeks after starting it, and after traveling all over the state twice. I’m glad you are here!

(This post contains affiliate links.)

Pie Crust Strips

What kind of magical magic is this? Just a few strips of dough scraps leftover from my latest batch of hand pies, sprinkled with sugar and baked—oh, it may look like nothing, but it’s something, alright. These dough scraps encompass a childhood memory that still feels vivid today. Fifty(plus) years later.

Aunt Virgie lived near Little River in a very small house with no running water and uneven walls papered with newsprint. It was the early 1970’s, and my sister, cousin, and I LOVED to visit her. Playing in the chicken coop. Using the outhouse (both fun and grody, and what kid doesn’t like that?). Pumping cold water into a bucket and hauling it into her cozy kitchen, taking turns drinking from the long-handled ladle. Everything about it was an adventure!

For a special treat, she baked strips of pie crust for us.

It wasn’t that she was in the process of making a pie. The baked crust was the point; it was probably all she had to offer us. And those flaky, sugary bits were everything.

And so right there in my own kitchen, all these years later, I was transported back to Aunt Virgie’s kitchen. A pie safe in the corner. That bucket of cool water. Sweet strips of pie crust hot from the oven. An afternoon well spent, then and now.

Banned Books Week

I’m a little late. Banned Books Week for 2025 was October 5 – 11, but it’s never too late to read a banned book. (Well, I guess if the books disappear altogether it will be too late.)

Goodreads has a list of 100 books that have at one point either been banned, censored, or requested for removal from libraries. Goodreads readers voted for their favorites among them.

Lo, I do love a list.

Of the top 15 on the Goodreads banned list, there was only one I’d not read. Brave New World by Aldeus Huxley. Since we happened to have a copy, I claimed it as my next read.

It was my daughter’s book; she read it in high school. And because she annotated it, it’s like I had a personal reviewer whispering into my ear, pointing out foreshadowing and themes, and making me chuckle at some of her reactions because I imagine her expressions too. Seeing her handwriting had me missing those busy years of having kids in school and being together under one roof each night.

In a way, being an empty nester is like living in a brave new world.

How long can you consider yourself an empty nester? Probably not this long. I suppose we move from the empty nester phase to the third act. (See what I did there?)

Anyway, I’m not sure how I missed reading Brave New World in high school or college, but I did, and over the past two weeks, I’ve been reading it. I finished it last night and will admit it is a mighty chilling, shocking, and upsetting story, which is probably why it has been living on the banned book list and why we should read it.

In a nutshell, Brave New World was written during the 1930s, in the shadow of the rise of fascism. It speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, and the hidden influence of elites. Science is used to change the way people think. God is now an “absence” because society provides everything religion once did—community, pleasure, and stability. Truth no longer matters as the society creates its own truth.

Yikes.

It’s eerie to me that a man born in 1894 imagined the future world of 2540 paralleling so many of the habits and problems of 2025. In my opinion, the whole story is a lesson in foreshadowing, and that’s alarming.

Have you read it? I’m curious.

A Bernice Moment

A few weeks ago, while presenting a program to the Baxter County Library, I had a Bernice moment. (As in, Bernice Runs Away.) No, I didn’t run away from home—this was a scheduled trip with my sister. But because Bernice ran away to the lake, she was on my mind. And if you read the book, you probably recall that she visited the library in Mountain Home, too.

Well, between my morning book talk about The Third Act of Theo Gruene and my afternoon Phenology talk, I had lunch at Bookworms Cafe, an adorable cafe inside the library. As I enjoyed my soup/sandwich combo—a half cup of tomato basil and half a Hemingway sandwich—I remembered Bernice ate at the Bookworms Cafe too. And she ordered the soup/sandwich combo (only she ordered the Sylvia Plath sandwich instead of half a Hemingway.)

Yes, I’m becoming more and more like Bernice every day, but what I’m really trying to say is if you live in Mountain Home, have lunch at Bookworms Cafe. It’s a gem!

And, it’s what Bernice would do.

Persimmons Predicting the Weather

Speaking of the Baxter County Library, a man who attended my book talk gave me a couple of persimmons. And naturally, I cut the seed open to glimpse our future weather forecast.

Hidden inside, clear as could be, a spoon. Best start prepping for lots of snow!

If the idea of persimmons predicting the weather is a new one for you, here are the “rules”.

• The persimmon must be ripe and locally grown.
• Cutting open the seed pod involves a sharp knife and slippery fruit innards, so proceed very carefully!
• If the kernel inside is shaped like a fork, you’ll have a mild winter.
• A knife shape means a cold, icy, biting winter is headed your way.
• A spoon-shaped kernel means you’ll be shoveling heavy snow.

Although there is no particular origin story for the persimmon weather predicting activity, some believe the tradition dates to early Ozark and Appalachian settlers who had access to persimmons and basic common cutlery.

Note: A ripe persimmon is rich and luscious! An unripe persimmon is as astringent as Easter egg dye. You’ll immediately know whether it’s ripe or not.

Things Momma Says:

I am officially a size ‘fat petite’.

***

After October events in Mountain Home, Harrisburg, Hot Springs, Fort Smith, Bentonville (twice), and Fayetteville, I’m a bit road weary. But the past few days at home have given me a chance to rest up and catch up before my trip to Austin next week. Thank you to everyone who came out to all these events, purchased books, chit-chatted with me, and even brought me persimmons! I saw old friends and met new ones.

YOU make being an author fun.

As always, stay safe and please be kind. The world we are living in doesn’t feel very new or brave right now.