Among the Stacks - The Podcast of Fantasy Author, Mark Feenstra Mark Feenstra

Hey, Everyone.
If you’re listening to this instead of reading, I guess you’ve figured out the first update already; I’m going to be trying to produce a lot more audio updates here on Among the Stacks. Some of these will be typed out ahead of time and recorded from a prepared script, while others will be free-form rambles that I’ll transcribe after the fact for those who’d prefer to read instead of listening. Honestly, I’m not much of an audio person myself, but I’ve recently developed a much better appreciation of just how valuable it is for people to be able to consume media in the format that best suits their personal preference.
One of the biggest hurdles with me recording audio when I attempted it last year, is that I’m very much a perfectionist who becomes frustrated when I can’t produce things that meet a certain technical standard. My apartment is LOUD. I live in a two-story walk-up on a major street, and no matter how low I set my microphone gain, what kind of noise-filtering tech I use, and what sort of post-processing noise gates I apply, the sounds of traffic and sirens still trickle through. For a casual newsletter audio update like this, that’s not a big deal, but it’s painfully frustrating when trying to record audio narration of one of my short stories. At one point last year, I went as far as trying to build a little recording studio in my tiny closet. I hung blankets and towels to buffer the sound, but still the honking of cars and rumbling of trucks made it into the recording.
So I’m letting go of perfect and going to allow myself to record some of these newsletters with all their inevitable messiness. And that means some serious rambling once in a while. Most of my audio posts will be as considered and as concise as possible, but those who know me best know I’m a rambler. And friends, sometimes I’m going to settle in and let myself ramble at you without any prepared script. Some of you are going to love it, and some of you are going to hate it. As a consolation to those who aren’t a fan of long-winded audio posts, I promise I’ll do my best to ensure no important information is buried inside an hour-long monologue.
State of the Newsletter
Embarrassingly, I drafted a newsletter in June of last year explaining that life and writing had become a little too overwhelming for me to juggle Among the Stacks, so I was pausing billing for paid subscribers for at least the rest of the year. I somehow convinced myself that I’d posted that update, when in reality I left it languishing in my drafts folder. The main reason I felt I had to step back from putting out newsletter updates is that I was really stuck on my Traveling Librarian revisions. I’ll talk about that more in a bit, but for now let me just say that it was a real struggle to consider posting updates when I was so stalled out on the one project on which I was already so far behind schedule. I originally thought I’d have that thing published in the fall of 2022, and there I was half a year later feeling no closer to publishing it.
I’m not entirely sure when I’m going to unpause billing again, but for those of you who’ve been so supportive of the newsletter in the past, I assure you that I won’t flip that switch until I’m ready to start producing regular updates again. Your paid subscriptions help me write and publish stories like The Traveling Librarian that I believe would be mangled beyond recognition in the gears of the traditional publishing engine, so it’s important that you know how grateful I’ve been for your financial support.
As far as future newsletter updates are concerned, I basically plan to ignore all the common best-practice advice and do everything wrong by posting without a real schedule or focus. I’m still going to share progress updates and I have two short stories in the pipe that I’ll be releasing in the coming months, but until The Traveling Librarian has a locked-in publication da

I’ve been thinking about sunburns a lot lately, and it’s only in part because the sun has gone from being an absent friend to that overbearing guest who doesn’t know when they’ve overstayed their welcome. By now, even most non-writers have heard the old saw, write what you know. Though I’m not going to dive into how misunderstood and misapplied that bit of advice often is, I do know a few things about sunburns, so naturally when my naïve traveling librarian set out on his first adventure, I felt it only natural to treat him to a little abuse, I mean, character development at the hands of the sun.
The specific sunburn I’ve been thinking about happened on the other side of the world in a little Georgian town (properly a townlet with a population of roughly 1,400 people) by the name of Stepantsminda, formerly and more popularly known as Kazbegi. Like most mountainous regions in Georgia, getting there is a bit of an adventure in and of itself. Public transportation is limited to run-down microbuses that leave when they’re full (we sat around for three hours for ours to fill up), and the roads are often little more than rough dirt tracks carved into mountainsides. When the glorified minivan isn’t on the verge of overheating as it grinds its way uphill, further delays come in the form of rockslides and herds of goats who couldn’t give a damn about our desire to get to our destination. Stepantsminda is only 157 kilometers (98 mi) from the capital of Tbilisi, but it might as well be fifty times that distance for how inefficient the journey was.
Other than the natural beauty of the region, the main attraction is the Gergeti Trinity Church, perched at 2,170 meters (7,120 feet) above sea level and 430 meters above the town. I’m sure it’s entirely possible to hire a car to drive up to the church, but we’d already discussed hiking up to the church and into the mountains beyond with some of the other travelers we’d met on the bus ride into town, so early the next morning we set off on our little trek.
The thing about the mountains is that you can be both very cold and very warm depending on how much you’re moving and how strong the wind is blowing. I’d decided to wear shorts, as had several others from our little band of adventurers, but as we approached the perennial snowfields in the upper reaches of Mount Kazbek, it became cold enough that I pulled an insulated jacket on over my wool sweater and wrapped a scarf around my face to protect from the whipping wind that chafed the exposed skin of our faces. Mount Kazbek’s summit sits at a lofty 5,054 meters (16,581 ft) above at sea level, though we decided to call it a day at the snow line just past the 3,000-meter (9,842 ft) mark. Another fun fact about the mountains is that UV exposure increases by 4% with every 1000 ft elevation gain. So we’re talking 28% higher risk of a sunburn at our starting point for the day up to nearly 40% higher by the time we stopped for lunch.
This is where I’d love to plead ignorance, but I’ve read enough mountaineering memoirs to know that the risk of sunburns is way higher in the mountains. Since this was back in 2012 and just one stop among many on our 7-week trip around Georgia, I don’t really remember the details of the dinner we’d had the night before, but Georgians have a strong drinking culture so there’s a very good chance I’d been indulging in local wine and spirits the previous evening. Whatever the case, I hiked my dumb ass a thousand meters up the side of a mountain with the sun blazing on the back of my legs for several hours.
Did you know the back of the knee is properly called the popliteal fossa? I didn’t until I just looked it up right now, and that knowledge has done absolutely nothing to blunt the memory of how excruciatingly painful it is to sunburn what most of us just call the kneepit. I realized I was burning when I felt fire in my kneepit with each descending step from our high point, bu

The sun had scarcely risen on a crisp autumn day, but the Château Bourrange kitchens were already hot enough to bring sweat to Valentin’s brow as he rushed to roll his pastry before the butter melted and ruined the dough. That was the way of these old châteaux; always too hot or too cold. The same massive hearth fires that were such a boon in the depths of winter made for sweltering conditions the rest of the year. Valentin had several times petitioned to have one of the stone larders repurposed for the bakers so they could more easily manage temperamental doughs and confections, but had been turned down with one ridiculous excuse after another. The truth of it was that the master cook couldn’t stand the idea of anyone being out from under his critical eye for even a moment. Maistre Thierry was a culinary genius—which was precisely the reason Valentin had first come to apprentice in this kitchen all those years ago—but the Maistre possessed a tyrannical streak that matched and often overshadowed the artful brilliance he brought to his work. Thierry insisted on inspecting each stage of every dish that was prepared in his kitchen. This was little more than an annoyance to which Valentin was well accustomed, but on a feast day like this, it wreaked havoc on the kitchen’s ability to get through the immense menu without a considerable amount of teeth gnashing and cursing behind their Maistre’s back.
“You’re overworking that pastry.”
“Yes, Maistre,” Valentin said without looking up. In fact, he was not overworking the pastry, but one did not contradict Maistre Thierry in his own kitchen.
“Have Noélie take over. I need you for something else.”
Valentin nodded curtly and went to fetch Noélie from where she was whisking eggs into a lemon curd. Wiping buttery hands on his apron, he crossed the kitchen to where Thierry was now hovering over young Herve while the boy made a mess of trussing a chicken with shaky hands.
“Relax, Herve,” Valentin said, laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder before their Maistre’s presence could rattle him any further. “Remember, careful is calm, and calm is quick. Start over and take your time.”
Herve unwrapped the mess of twine and began again, considering each next move before executing it with deliberate care. This was enough to satisfy Thierry, who motioned for Valentin to follow before marching over to his own workstation where he picked up a knife and steel. The sharp kish kish of blade sliding across steel punctuated his words when he said, “You coddle them too much, Valentin.”
“The boy has potential, but he lacks confidence. Trial by fire isn’t always the best approach.”
Thierry set into a side of lamb, breaking it down for a crown rack that would later grace the Duke’s table. “It worked with you.”
“And it has sent dozens more running for the hills after we invested a year or more into training them.” Valentin lowered his voice. His years of service had earned him some privilege of familiarity with the Maistre, but not so much that he could flaunt it in front of the other cooks. “They’re not all chickens to be roasted over the coals, Thierry. Take Noélie for example; the girl does wonders with cakes and confections, but she was a timid thing when she first came to us, was she not? She’s since proven her mettle, but it took gentle encouragement to build that fortitude.”
“Pah,” Maistre Thierry flicked a piece of gristle off his thumb. “Even the most delicate mousse must be firmly beaten.”
Valentin suppressed a sigh. They’d been having this same conversation in one form or another for nearly a decade. A pot of butter buried under a mountain of winter ice would soften before Thierry ever did. That didn’t mean Valentin would give up on advocating for his people, but it did hasten the onset of the dull ache in his temples that didn’t typically set in until after midday.
“You said you needed me for something else?” Val