While Reading and Walking

To my general shock, I appear to have turned in the final chapter of my manuscript’s first draft! I feel certain it was just yesterday that I was staring down five months of ambitious deadlines to get this book out by Fall 2027, and now, poof! It’s done. My to-read shelf is going to be thrilled—I’ve ignored it for a full five months, digging almost exclusively into American classics. Just edits to go from here! About My name is Leah Rachel von Essen (she/her/hers).

Some of you may know I’m a women’s sports fan and a Chicago Sky faithful. Recently there’s been a conservative rush on the WNBA that’s heavy with racism and transphobia. It’s exhausting and frusrating to watch such a joyful space be infiltrated by bad-faith actors and hateful nonsense. But at a recent game, fans wore pro-trans gear. I explained to some kids the issues at hand. A player stood up to a bully, and she knew she could because she had the team and her fans behind her.

My music and travel book shelves! Some of my absolute favorites. My travel section is mostly made up of books I purchased (particularly on the far left bottom shelf, which has a lot of guides, programs, and histories) or read on my travels. My CD collection lives happily alongside my music or music-related books, including works by Donna-Claire Chesman and Hanif Abdurraqib, and by Bruce Springsteen and Florence Welch.

I am furious I didn’t already know about Leslie Marmon Silko. is beautiful and poetic, a haunting story of a man named Tayo trying to stabilize after witnessing his brother’s death in Japan in World War II. Tayo, born to an indigenous mother and an unknown white father, and unofficially adopted by his aunt, has always felt out of place and unwanted. Now, struggling with nightmares and unpredictable rage, Tayo can’t help but wonder if the wrong brother died abroad.

In The Book of the Jaguar by Victor Ladis Schultz, Álbaro Ceynos is the lone survivor of a massacre after his military station, one where all the misfits and low-performing soldiers are sent to patrol and get bored, is attacked by an invisible jaguar. Now, he roams across this Mexico-inspired geography, delivering the bones of his former comrades to their families. Schultz’s book carries a rich beauty.

Bless Me, Ultima is a classic of Chicano literature. Rudolfo Anaya writes of a young boy, Antonio, growing up in 1940s New Mexico. His mother has always wanted him to be a priest, but he is pulled between Catholicism and the indigenous knowledge and beliefs of his grandmother, Ultima, a curandera, as well as between a steady farming life (of his mother’s people) and a more wild, adventurous outlook (of his father’s).

I haven’t been posting reviews much…turns out that writing a book in six months in addition to full-time and part-time jobs is stressful! Who knew?? I’m flying through American classics, writing, editing, and generally trying to stay above water. Nearing the end of the peak now! About My name is Leah Rachel von Essen (she/her/hers). I am a Chicago-based curvy, chronically ill book blogger, reviewer, and novelist writing about books, illness, travel, and mental health.

What a classic for horse girls everywhere! That said I was enraged for Maureen. Of course the boys get to do everything. Still, especially after reading a nonfiction book on Marguerite Henry, I really respect how much she rooted her works in true stories and real people. About My name is Leah Rachel von Essen (she/her/hers). I am a Chicago-based curvy, chronically ill book blogger, reviewer, and novelist writing about books, illness, travel, and mental health.

I spent most of the past week or so reading Joan Didion, including her novel Play It As It Lays and her two essay collections, Slouching Towards Bethlehem and . Her themes of disillusionment, the feeling of the world breaking down around her, have come to define much of the 1960s era of California and Hollywood.

This chronic illness diaries entry is a bit of a rant. But especially as summer continues to gather us all together, please keep this in the back of your mind. About My name is Leah Rachel von Essen (she/her/hers). I am a Chicago-based curvy, chronically ill book blogger, reviewer, and novelist writing about books, illness, travel, and mental health.