Hi! I’m Keris. I’m an author writing about writing and books and music and life, and the last song I listened to was I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney, because a friend posted that Perrie covered it and wondered if her fans would know it. I asked the 19yo and he said “God, Ma, that’s like asking if I know Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s iconic.” I asked the 15yo and he replied with a withering “Obviously.”
Lots to say this week, but let’s start with the most important thing…
This photo was taken - by the super talented EmilyPixels - two years ago today. It’s perfect and I love it so much. And I also love that I was there and now it’s on the cover of my own actual book.
While I’m on the subject of my own actual books, The One That Got Away is 99p for all of June. It’s not about Harry Styles, but he’s almost certainly mentioned in it.
According to Amazon’s AI review summary, “Customers find the story fabulous, relatable, and heartwarming. They describe the book as a quick, easy read with great characters. Readers also mention the dialogue makes them laugh out loud.” (One reader did, however, say “Feel like my brain needs a cleaning of the ‘f’ words” so, you know, keep that in mind.)
What else? The 15yo and I went to a tennis tournament and it rained all afternoon and there was no tennis.
But we had fun anyway. I do love that we can enjoy ourselves sitting under an umbrella eating a packed lunch and trying to identify songs over the PA. (“That is 100% Adele!” “No way. It doesn’t even sound like Adele!” “I’ll Shazam it.” He was right - it was Oh My God - and I was wrong. Morto.) (In my defence, it really doesn’t sound like Adele.)
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On Friday evening, the 19yo and I had a pinhole camera lesson on the prom and developed the photos in a pop-up darkroom on the beach. It was great.
Long-time listeners will know these shelters mean a lot to me.
I’ve mentioned my mum’s suitcase before, and as part of my Dead Frog Lane research-not-writing, I hauled it out of the cupboard and pulled out my mum’s Five Year Diary.
When we first found this suitcase, I transcribed the diary (as best I could; sometimes I struggled with her handwriting), but it turns out I missed a couple of pages. Between pages of addresses at the back, was a reading list:
Also there’s an entry for this very day:
18 June 1962 (Monday)
Gaumont with Harry to see Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Pete Lawford and Sammy Davis Jnr in Sergeants 3.
The 19yo was intrigued to find that my parents went to the cinema even more than he and I do. He was also quick to tell me that Sergeants 3 has 32% on Rotten Tomatoes.
I plan to post about the contents of the suitcase in more detail and I’ve set up a section under this newsletter. I’m not entirely sure how it works, so we’ll have to see how it goes. You should all get the posts automatically though and it should also be easy to opt out if you don’t want them. I’ll let you know when I’ve worked it out...
What else? I made plant-based pancakes earlier this week and they were easy and so good. Plus they were American-style, which I’ve never made before, so the minute they actually looked like pancakes, I yelled “Oh my god, look! Pancakes!” To which the 15yo replied “Duh.”
Recipe from The Official Veganuary Cookbook.
And now I need to get on with my edits. Gah.
What have you been watching, eating, cooking, listening to (avoiding)?
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love that picture of you even as i worry that you're way too close to an awful lot of birds