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what i’m reading now
some good news + novels, short stories, and screenplays!
PRELUDE
Hi everybody! It’s been a minute so here’s a quick catch-up:
PUBLISHED!
If you haven’t heard my writing is featured in a magazine created by Produce Parties. You can read my piece on my Substack or you can order the physical copy on their website. It’s so rewarding to see my words in print and I hope you can check out the amazing work the community put into it!
SCREENINGS!
In other amazing news, I’m so thrilled to be a part of two amazing projects screening at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth in Seattle, WA this year: DEARBORN (as a director) and VISA (as a producer).
👽 DEARBORN – A young woman, expelled from college and forced to return home to her tight-knit Arab community, tries to restore her reputation. However, complications arise when she becomes entangled in an alien conspiracy. An NYU Advanced TV Production, selected for a $10,000 NYU Tisch grant and fiscally sponsored by the Arab Film and Media Institute.
🚨 VISA – A timely drama thriller exploring the hate-crime visa and the U.S. immigration system.
🎥 More screening info and tickets can be found on the festival’s website: http://nffty.org/nffty-2025
All around, it’s been really amazing to celebrate some creative wins as we head into spring! A lot of my time recently has been focused on recuperating, traveling, and catching up on some good ol’ fashioned reading. So without any further ado, here’s what I’m reading lately.
TABLE CHAT
Greek Lessons by Han Kang
I love Han Kang. Reading The Vegetarian in high school was honestly life changing and I was so happy when she was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2024.
I think the Korean language is naturally so poetic and beautiful - especially our expressions and the sounds and our manner of talking. Han Kang really exemplifies this perfectly. Every word is so thoughtful and beautifully written. Greek Lessons really examines a certain kind of intimacy that can’t just be easily replicated. I was especially driven to this novel because I love learning about languages and the study of the languages (the book concerns a mute woman and her Greek lesson teacher). I really poured over this novel with so much care and love, every sentence just felt so rich and deep.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
I’ve started running again and I picked up this book because I really enjoyed reading Kafka on the Shore a couple months ago. I liked learning more about the author and his personal experiences running, although I would say this book is subtly more about discipline and building an artistic process. It was the kind of thing that I really needed to read after graduating college. I especially enjoyed the connection to my birthtown Boston which is featured quite a bit in the book. Overall, I really enjoyed the personal anecdotes and fun stories around running that he shares. An easy, fun read that doesn’t really require heavy thinking!
Harry Potter (Books #1-3) by She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named
I’m re-reading the Harry Potter series! And I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would! This is all in an effort to start up a Harry Potter film marathon with my friends and I’m genuinely looking forward to it. Revisiting it as an adult, I definitely feel that the story and themes are much darker than I remember.
Othello by William Shakespeare
Speaking of re-reading things, this was my second time reading Othello in 9 years! It felt a lot easier to wrap around the text as I was really wanting to challenge myself to read something different. It was nice to have to really deeply analyze a text and try to understand the complexities of a verse instead of being able to just skim over things (which I feel we do constantly with social media, Tik Tok, etc.) I read this play before I took a really great Shakespeare-focused English class in high school, so I felt better equipped to take on this play again!
A few things I noticed this time around… 1) it is very sexual. Like very sexual. They do not shy away from talking about promiscuous activities. The play is very concerned with sex and power and talking about each other’s sex lives, etc. 2) There is a huge focus on rank and repution for almost every single character. They are talking about it constantly. 3) Iago’s two-faced nature is noticeable in the structure of his dialogue and the way it’s written. I’ve been able to see it so much clearly this time around unlike the last time I read it. 4) The “monster-fication” of jealousy. There are so many descriptions of jealousy as a beast or monstrous animal. 5) Othello’s blackness. I was actually so surprised how constantly the characters in the play associated “evil” with blackness and darkness. There’s additionally a sense of vilifying “otherness” and foreign intruders, using these terms and expressions to humiliate and attack another person’s character. Overall, it’s a very charged play about the exploration of jealousy and deception.
Short stories by Sally Rooney
If you haven’t heard, I’m trying to work my way through Rooney’s bibliography. I’m starting with her personal essays and short stories to work my way up to Normal People. I share some thoughts on how that’s going, starting with “Even if you beat me.” Recently, I read “Concord 34” and almost finished with “At the Clinic.” Overall, I’m really struck by how succinctly and clearly she’s able to write. I feel a genuine connection to the people and places that she’s writing about. It never feels over the top or fake.
DICKENS VS. ANDERSEN by Henry Oscar Thaler
One of my goals this year (on top of generally just reading more) was to read more screenplays. It’s been a hot minute since my film development internship where I was cranking through scripts. Luckily for me many of the un-produced scripts can be found here thanks to the annual Blacklist script competition!
I selected this script because I wanted to learn more about Hans Christian Anderson and see if the script was set in Copenhagen by any chance (it was not). But the script was really different from what I was initially expecting. I thought it would be a serious drama about the rivalry between the two authors, but ended up being a zany, quirky comedy about fanboy Anderson overstaying his welcome with the Dickens family home that takes a lot of historical (but fun) liberties. Honestly, a really fun read!
Butter by Asako Yuzuki
I was really excited to read this novel (I mean what a delicious cover…), but unfortunately this one of my hardest reads and honesty the story fell flat a little bit for me. I think my main problem was with the way the book was translated - while I do respect and commend the translator for taking on such a large task of having to not just translate the words, but a lot of the cultural ideas and practices in Japan, which is an Asian country I still felt a little bit disappointed. I think the book was a little bit difficult to read at times or a little bit awkward aside from that. I think the book had a tendency to drag on even though they were interesting ideas and larger concepts that were sometimes slightly forced.
Hope you have an amazing day!
Skylar xx