For the full interview with bookseller Amber Harrison of FOLDE Dorset, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.

📚 Recommendations for ravenous readers

Here are the recommended reads for September.

Sky Daddy by Kate Folk (2025)Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges her true passion, taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant, because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could.Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes. Nor can she reveal her belief that it’s her destiny to “marry” one of her suitors, uniting with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.

The Interpreter’s Daughter by Teresa Lim (2022)In the last years of her life, Teresa Lim's mother, Violet Chang, had copies of a cherished family photograph made for those in the portrait who were still alive. The photo is mounted on cream card with the name of the studio stamped at the bottom in Chinese characters. The place and date on the back: Hong Kong, 1935.Teresa would often look at this photograph, enticed by the fierceness and beauty of her great-aunt Fanny looking back at her. But Fanny never seemed to feature in the family stories that were always being told and retold. Why? she wondered.This photograph set Teresa on a journey to uncover her family's remarkable history. Through detective work, serendipity, and the kindness of strangers, she was guided to the fascinating, ordinary, yet extraordinary life of her great-aunt and her world of sworn spinsters, ghost husbands and the working-class feminists of nineteenth century south China. But to recover her great-aunt's past, we first must get to know Fanny's family, the times and circumstances in which they lived, and the momentous yet forgotten conflicts that would lead to war in Singapore and, ultimately, a long-buried family tragedy.

Good Luck Life: The Essential Guide to Chinese American Celebrations and Culture by Rosemary Gong (2005)Good Luck Life is the first book to explain the meanings of Chinese rituals and to offer advice on when and how to plan for Chinese holidays and special occasions such as Chinese weddings, the Red Egg and Ginger party to welcome a new baby, significant birthdays, and the inevitable funeral. Packed with practical information, Good Luck Life contains an abundance of facts, legends, foods, old-village recipes, and quick planning guides for Chinese New Year, Clear Brightness, Dragon Boat, Mid-Autumn, and many other festivals.

Written with warmth and wit, Good Luck Life is beautifully designed as an easily accessible cultural guide that includes an explanation of the Lunar Calendar, tips on Chinese table etiquette for dining with confidence, and dos and don'ts from wise Auntie Lao, who recounts ancient Chinese beliefs and superstitions. This is your map for celebrating a good luck life.

For further inspiration, this month’s reading theme from Backstory Bookshop is Prize Nominations.

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✏️ Resources for wonderful writers

Still a little way off: there will be a Mayfair Book Fair for “readers of all ages and interests” in London in March 2026. I hope to have a table there.

Not quite a craft book, but something to motivate you to focus on your writing is Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

The Fabula Deck is a fun way to structure your writing. You can use the 40 cards however you want, to analyze, organize, and build your stories.

👣 My moseying

This past week, I spoke with my publisher, Michael T. Braun, at Ten16 Press. Now that I have my manuscript edits back for Staring into the Sun, next steps are for Ten16 to do the interior layout and the cover design. My dear friend and former design business partner, Luca de Salvia, will be designing the handwritten script typography for the cover.

Together with another dear friend, Kate Hammer, I will start recording the audio book for independent publication. Mercury Calling Audio will produce it.

I thought I’d go back to working on my novel work-in-progress but have decided to focus on Staring into the Sun for now.

📊 Tracked on Chill Subs

Short story collection submissions to small presses & awards⏱️ 1 pending🚫 14 rejected↩️ 3 withdrawn🥉 1 semi-finalist🎉 1 publication offer!🟰 20 total

Novel prize submissions of my work in progress🚫 4 rejected🟰 4 total

🎙️ Author interview with Amber Harrison

I met Amber Harrison in 2020 through work and since the end of that year, we have been colleagues at consultancy Grain Sustainability.

Amber is co-founder, together with Karen Brazier, of FOLDE Dorset, an award-winning nature writing focused bookshop that opened in April 2021, in the hilltop town of Shaftesbury, Dorset.

FOLDE also celebrates traditional art and crafts, working with local makers to create a sense of place through their work. As well as the shop, they run a spring and autumn author events programme and recently launched their book club.

The business has always been run with a strong environmental and social intent, and in April 2024 became B Corp certified.

Books mentioned:

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Amber can be found in the shop and FOLDE is online at foldedorset.com as well as Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and Facebook.

Tune in to the The Spark podcast for the full interview.

📙 Where to find my writing

Staring into the Sun on Substack, weekly through the end of 2025.

"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK

“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of