Hannah Harlow

In no particular order: reader, writer, book marketer, wife, mom (to two boys). I live on a horseless horse farm north of Boston. If you want to be alerted to the occasional news that I've published a new short story or essay or whatever, sign up below. I wish I could tell you how often that will be . . . I hope often! (But realistically, probably only a few times a year.) Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/cFSy5D

[hannahharlow]

What I Read in 2018

I read a lot of partials in 2018. Sometimes that’s for work, but mostly it’s because I decided a few years ago that life’s too short and there are too many books I want to read. Sometimes, too, I think you have to read books at the right time, and so maybe some of these books this year were just not timed right. Maybe I’ll love them later, or never. Maybe they’re just for other people. 

So here are the complete books I read in 2018, in the order I read them. The ratio of women to men was intentional. 

Outline by Rachel Cusk In Pieces by Kurt Ankeney Women & Power by Mary Beard The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg Eden by Andrea Kleine Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erica L. Sanchez In the Country I Love By Diane Guerrero A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle Born to Fish by Tim Gallagher and Greg Myerson The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths The Women of the Castle by Jessica Shattuck What We Owe by Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald Euphoria by Lily King The Risk of Us by Rachel Howard The Long Way Home by Louise Penny The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel The Book of Speculation by Erica Swyler Witness by Ariel Burger The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt The Library of Mount Char by Scott Hawkins The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas Circe by Madeline Miller When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri Hunger by Roxane Gay Last Woman Standing by Amy Gentry How to Be Loved by Eva Hagberg Fisher Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna  Clarke Severance by Ling Ma Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb The Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth The Idiot by Elif Batuman Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia In at the Deep End by Kate Davies The Farmer’s Son by John Connell The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander  Lifelines by Heidi Diehl Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward Letters from Max: A Book of Friendship by Sarah Ruhl & Max Ritvo

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Cleaver Magazine | PENCIL ME IN by Hannah Harlow

On a rainy morning in October my son erased me during craft time at the library. We made a wind chime out of old spoons and gray yarn and colored beads in green and purple and orange and a jar lid …

Many thanks to Cleaver Magazine for publishing this little story I wrote! 

[hannahharlow]

What I Read in 2017

The Crimson Skew by S.E. Grove The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johannsen Shelter in Place by Alexander Maksik After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry My Darling Detective by Howard Norman My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout The Book of Separation by Tova Mirvis The Leavers by Lisa Ko Our Short History by Lauren Grodstein Women by Chloe Caldwell Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders Papi by David Ortiz It's Not Yet Dark by Simon Fitzmaurice The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths The Chalk Pit by Elly Griffiths The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald Guesswork by Martha Cooley Our Lady of the Prairie by Thisbe Nissen The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney Artemis by Andy Weir Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions by Mario Giordano The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke-Harris American by Day by Derek Miller The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind by Barbara Lipska Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman Hang Time by Elgin Baylor Dragon's Green by Scarlett Thomas The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma

They were all good. 

[hannahharlow]

...It is always a matter, my darling, Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish What I wished you before, but harder. RIP Richard Wilbur

[hannahharlow]

Today The Best Small Fictions 2017, guest edited by Amy Hempel, makes its way into the world. My story “The Farmers’ Market,” originally published by SmokeLong Quarterly, is included—and I couldn’t be more thrilled. 

The book is available for purchase from Amazon or this small press distributor. If you’re on Goodreads, I encourage you to add the book to your shelf. Thanks!

[hannahharlow]

last day of school / I'm going away for a week working mom guilt on a plate

[hannahharlow]

How to Make Mermaid Toast, Instagram’s Most Magical Food Trend

How to make healthy, delicious mermaid toast.

I wrote a book about mermaids, but even for me, this might be a little much? How much time do you have on your hands?

[wordsnquotes]

Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

Kurt Vonnegut (via wordsnquotes)

[hannahharlow]

Jen Bervin, Silk Poems

[hannahharlow]

Just because a story uses material from the writer’s life, I don’t think you can say that it’s her life, or that the narrator is her. As soon as you select the material from your life, and arrange it and write it in a stylized manner, it’s no longer really identical to that life and that person.

Paris Review - Lydia Davis, Art of Fiction No. 227

So much yes. 

[hannahharlow]

Being Tardy — Ghost Parachute

The last time I was late, the look of disappointment on her face haunted me for days. When I pulled up to the curb, she was the only kid on the school steps, standing for some reason, the cello next to her almost the same height, but not quite.

I have a new story up at Ghost Parachute! 

[hannahharlow]

Braddock Avenue Books and series editor Tara L. Masih are proud to present the 2017 winners, finalists, and semifinalists for The Best Small Fictions 2017. This is a group effort, so thank you to our staff editors, Mel Bosworth and Michelle Elvy; our roving editors, Blake Kimzey, Alan King, and Kathryn Kulpa; our consulting editors, Kim Chinquee, Leesa Cross-Smith, Ioanna Mavrou, and Ben White; our advisory members, especially Mary Slechta and Clare MacQueen. But our biggest thanks must go to our guest judge Amy Hempel, for the hard work of narrowing down 105 finalists to 55 winners in a highly competitive year. Look for our launch in September 2017. And congratulations to all!

My story THE FARMERS’ MARKET will be in Best Small Fictions 2017 and I couldn’t be happier! Get it this September...

[hannahharlow]

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn’t even fold his umbrella. Véra licked his stamps for him.

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

[hannahharlow]

Four years to become a tribe that lets losses slide off our backs, enjoys the ride, celebrates ourselves and our individualities. We have to love playing the game. We have to love each other.

I wrote this! Please read and share and comment and I’ll be your friend for life. 

[hannahharlow]

Do you think anyone would notice if I moved in? (at The Clark)

[hannahharlow]

Things are happening.

[hannahharlow]

Off-season Melville-ing (at Herman Melville's Arrowhead)