Hello from a very hot UK, in the middle of our fifth heat wave of the year. Yesterday, a national alert came through on everyone’s mobile phones warning of wildfire risk and to not use disposable barbecues or set off fireworks. In these scary times, I’m grateful more than ever to lose myself in fiction—with the exception of this month’s nonfiction reading recommendation, which happens to feature some very cold weather. 📚 Recommendation for ravenous readers North to the Future: An Offline Adventure Through the Changing Wilds of Alaska by Ben Weissenbach (Grand Central Publishing, 2025) At the age of twenty, college student Ben Weissenbach went north to Arctic Alaska armed with little more than inspiration from his literary heroes and a growing interest in climate change. What met him there was a world utterly unlike the 21st century Los Angeles in which he grew up—a land of ice, rock, and grizzlies seen by few outside a small contingent of scientists with big personalities. There’s Roman Dial, the larger-than-life ecologist with whom Ben walks and rafts a thousand miles across Alaska’s Brooks Range. There’s Kenji Yoshikawa, the reindeer-herding permafrost expert who leaves Ben alone for eleven days to care for his off-grid homestead, where temperatures drop to -49 degrees Fahrenheit. And there’s Matt Nolan, the independent glaciologist who flies him to the largest glaciers in the American Arctic. As these scientists teach Ben to read Alaska’s warming landscape, he confronts the limits of digital life and the complexity of the world beyond his screens. He emerges from each adventure with a new perspective on our modern relationship to technology and a growing wonder for our fast-changing—ever-changing—natural world. Winner of the 2025 National Outdoor Book Award (NOBA)One of Smithsonian Magazine's Top Ten Books of 2025 Also mentioned: Looking for a Story: A Complete Guide to the Writings of John McPhee by Noel Rubinton 👣 My moseying My big update is that I have signed up for The Finished Novel Course with The Novelry. A couple of weeks in and I am absolutely loving it. It starts with The Big Idea, then The Big Write, then The Big Edit. It’s self-paced and I’ve been doing the recommended one lesson per day, which fosters a consistent writing practice. And there are coaching sessions, a ton of live and recorded classes, and a whole community which I haven’t even started interacting with yet. Though I already had my idea and outline for my novel, and had written about a quarter of it (20,000 words), The Big Idea is already strengthening it. Also, I’ve offloaded Instagram from my phone, only occasionally checking messages using my laptop browser. I’ll download it once a month to post there when The Spark is published. The amount of time and headspace this has freed up is remarkable. One other way I’ve freed up time and mental energy is by not checking my work emails on my phone. I’ve gotten a lot better at reviewing them on my work laptop during working hours, which allows me to process them more efficiently too. These three things—doing The Novelry course, not being on Instagram, and being more focused with my work emails—are already accelerating my progress with my second book. Whoop whoop! 🎙️ Interview with Genevieve Marenghi I met Genevieve Marenghi at the Alliance of Independent Authors stand at the London Book Fair in March 2026. With a BA in English and Philosophy, Genevieve worked for eleven years at the Weekend FT, where she helped create and launch How To Spend It magazine. She volunteered for years as a National Trust guide at Ham House. This became the setting for her debut art heist novel, No Oil Painting. Inspired by a recovered stolen Titian, No Oil Painting was listed for the inaugural Women’s Prize Trust and Curtis Brown Discoveries Award. It’s the first contemporary novel to be set at a National Trust property. Genevieve’s writing has also been listed for the Writers’ & Artists’ Short Story Competition and has featured several times on the award-winning Failing Writers podcast. In addition, she’s been interviewed on BBC London Radio and more recently, by bestselling author and Founder Director of the Women’s Prize, Kate Mosse, at the 2026 Women’s Prize Live event. Her writing uses dark humour to probe the difference between our perception of people and their true selves. The gulf between what is said and what is meant. Public transport is a writer’s goldmine and she shamelessly earwigs on juicy conversations. Women aged over fifty are essentially invisible and she views this as a kind of superpower. Unlike her protagonist Maureen, she hasn’t used this to commit art theft. Yet. Fueled mainly by chocolate, crisps and Prosecco, Genevieve values live music and laughing with friends. She has also developed an alarming fondness for museum shops and fridge magnets. Books mentioned: No Oil Painting by Genevieve Marenghi Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, translated by MS Ann Goldstein Swing Time by Zadie Smith Country Girl by Edna O’Brien The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel You can find Genevieve at genevievemarenghi.com, on Instagram @genevievemarenghi, Bluesky @stgenevieve, Facebook, and Threads. Please listen to the audio for the full interview, on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts. Share The Spark 📙 Where to find my writing Staring into the Sun 🇺🇸 US Buy paperback | ebook (published by Ten16 Press) 🇬🇧 UK Buy paperback | ebook (published by Ten16 Press) 🎧 Audiobook on all platforms (produced by Mercury Calling) “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 Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UK Find out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com. Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who. You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends! Music and mixing by Mercury Calling. Thanks for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Share The Spark This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com
