Happy Birthday, Survival by Book

here's to an entire year of reading for dear life

Hello, friends, how are you?

I was scooting around the interwebs this week looking for something fun to commemorate the one year anniversary of Survival By Book, and I think I found just the right thing—a sonnet by the novelist and poet, Brad Leithauser.

First Birthday

You have your one word, which fills you to brimming.
It’s what’s first to be done on waking.
Often the last at day-dimming:
Lunge out an arm fiercely,
As though your heart were breaking,
Stab a finger at some stray illumination—
Lamp, mirror, distant dinner candle—
And make your piercing identification,

“‘ight! ‘ight! ‘ight!"
Littlest digit, you’ve got the world by the handle.
Things must open for you, you take on height,
Your sole sound in time reveal itself
As might, too, and flight. And fright.
Some will be gone. But you will come right.

So, obviously, I have more than one word at my disposal—arguably far too many words!

That said, this poem really struck a chord. Starting Survival by Book did feel a bit like taking a toddler-sized step out into a great unknown world. There were more than a few weekends when “lunge out an arm fiercely” felt like very apt descriptor for what I wrote and sent to you. It does sometimes feel like I’m stabbing “a finger at some stray illumination” most of the time. And that’s the point, right? To always be reaching for the light? I know it’s almost always what I’m trying to do.

I believe that most of us are doing exactly this as best we can—feeling our way toward the good, the true, and the beautiful, sometimes with our hearts breaking, other times with an inexplicable joy. It’s what I always hope to be doing, even when the world sometimes seems to be telling me otherwise.

Survival by Book is my way to get “the world by the handle,” that is, to shed even just a little bit of light on some topical event or timeless trope or nostalgic escape, even if just for a moment on a Sunday afternoon.

And, honestly, I could not have done it without you. Your emailed responses, your texts of insight and encouragement, your social media shares, the fact that you are willing to carry SBB tote bags and wear SBB t-shirts, and write in SBB journals—every single ounce of support you’ve given me has gone right straight into my heart—what a phenomenal privilege it’s been to be encouraged by each and every one of you. You keep me going. You really do.

I’m happy to announce that I’m committing to another year of this now toddler-aged, literary-memoir enterprise, with the full intent to make it “come right.”

In the coming year I will be writing the same long-form, genre-neutral, page-positive, semi-weekly newsletters at least twice a month, and I will keep sending excerpts from my work in process to you, my paid subscribers, at least once a month, if not more. The extra privacy of doing that behind the paywall is important to me—and you guys being willing to read is just icing on the (birthday) cake.

 THANK YOU for being with me on this journey!

Here’s to Survival by Book, Season Two.

~Courtney