I have several things I want to blog about, but life’s been giving me little time for reflection lately, and most of those potential posts require reflection. So, we’ll just do a very modest Sunday recs tonight.

A poem: Learning My Way Around by Neile Graham, from Goblin Fruit’s autumn 2011 issue. Birds, breadcrumbs, calls.

A story: Swan-Brother by Gabriel Murray. 1700s/1800s alt world with magic, a beautiful, sad story about brothers and swan-magic.

And then for this week’s favourite: Mermaid’s Hook by Liz Argall. Wow. This story is amazing: the POV, the realisation of what the setting actually is, the wonderful ending… I really love it all. The POV is especially excellently done: such a tight, never-faltering third person. I love the language and the atmosphere. Such a joy of a story!

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I’m trying to work on a story in Finnish right now, but it’s horribly sticky going. Times like this, I lose faith in myself as a writer, especially in Finnish.

So it’s good to have reminders to be forgiving to myself.