Dear Friends,
All day I ask myself questions that have no answers (shrug), or the answers are a paradox, offering me about as much certainty as a passing cloud. What is this weird habit of mine, asking myself questions that myself can’t answer? (Very bad sentence structure there, btw.) Why do almost all of us want certainty anyway?
Ranier Maria Rilke would tell me to live into the answers. Well, that’s great advice in a poem, but where do we find this in the everyday life? Here’s what he says, “Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Live everything. Cool. But again, how and why?
Assuming I’m not the only one walking around with these oblique questions (big assumption), I’m here sharing my favorite reads, listens and watches of the summer because I believe (and not with certainty) that stories provide answers to some of our largest and most pressing questions about being human.
Sure, you can go ahead and divide stories/music/movies and more into genre or categories or even into literary versus commercial. You have at it, but honestly, I don’t care. I just want to find myself carried away by creative acts that burst open my heart and return me to longing; creativity that carries me to some core truth of being human in a very messy world. As C. S. Lewis writes in Til We Have Faces, “The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing... to find the place where all the beauty came from.”
With that, check out some of my summer story-chasing favorites from the shores of Nantucket to the North Carolina mountains and on to the river in South Carolina.
What’s Inspiring Me Now
Books
The River by Peter Heller. I read this novel for “research” as my newest work is set in the wilderness. About four pages in I forgot to do any research and ran along that river until I reached the end, breathless and in awe.
Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd. To me, Sue Monk Kidd is the matriarch of my creative life, right up there with Julia Cameron and The Artist’s Way. Every page of this new book is bent, underlined and marked in the margins. I can’t get enough of it.
Shows
The Pitt on Hulu. Before I decided to sit down to attempt to write a novel, I was a pediatric nurse. I loved being a nurse; it was one of the greatest honors of my life to be part of people’s lives in this way. I have never seen the horror and beauty of being in the medical profession depicted as well as it is done in The Pitt. This show will wring you out, take my word on that, but holy moly it’s so damn good.
Billy Joel Documentary/AND SO IT GOES on HBO Plus. I already wrote allllll about this in an essay you can read RIGHT HERE.
Music
Emily Ann Roberts. I do love a tear jerker country music song. And my dearest college girlfriend, Beth Anderson Fidler, sends me all the uprising stars and I am obsessed with this young woman’s music. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll prove you right with ONE SONG.
Substack
Maggie Smith Poet. I keep her book, Dear Writer on my bedside table and pick it up when I feel depleted of both words and inspiration! Sometimes I find myself talking out loud to her instagram posts. I bet you will too, like when she teaches you about a “beauty emergency – to stop and pay attention right at that moment because it’s fleeting.”
Events & News
I have some events coming up — including teaching with my dear friend Ariel Lawhon in Hawaii, the Aspen Literary Festival, the Broadleaf Writers Conference, and an in convo event with William Kent Krueger — and I hope you can join me! See my full schedule of event on my website HERE.
I was thrilled to see The Secret Book of Flora Lea included on BookBub’s “Ultimate List of the Best Book Club Books.” I’m in incredible company! View the full list HERE.
As always, you can keep up with all my news and happenings on my website HERE.
Friends & Fiction
This week on The Friends & Fiction Show, Kristin & Kristy welcome NYT-bestselling author Sarah McCoy to discuss her spellbinding new novel, Whatever Happened To Lori Lovely?, which is based on the true story of a beautiful young movie star of Hollywood’s Golden Age who gives up her bright career to become a nun. Watch the video broadcast of this interview as it airs on Wed 9/3 at 7pm ET on the F&F Facebook group page & YouTube channel. Catch the audio version on our podcast Fri 9/5.
Then next week we will be LIVE with Elin Hilderbrand and her daughter Shelby Cunningham to discuss their juicy new co-written novel The Academy. Tune in to watch that live episode on Wed 9/10 at 7pm ET on the F&F Facebook group page & YouTube channel. Catch the audio version on our podcast Fri 9/12.
That’s about enough out of me today!
With Love, Always,
Patti
ABOUT PATTI CALLAHAN HENRY
New York Times Bestselling Author and Podcast Host
Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Globe and Mail bestselling author of seventeen novels and a podcast host. Patti is the co-host and co-creator of the popular weekly web show, podcast, and online community, Friends & Fiction.
She lives in Mountain Brook, Alabama with her husband. Her newest novel, The Story She Left Behind was released on March 18th, 2025.
Be sure to follow Patti on social media and visit her website for the latest updates and announcements!
Patti, in my experience, not all answers pop up in neat, easy to find cubby holes. The problem also lies in our inability to ask the right questions. Many answers exist beyond the obvious and accepted. I wish I’d known this when I was much younger.
It makes me wonder if Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely? was based on Delores Hart. She left a successful movie career to become a nun. I think I would like to read about Lori Lovely and always your next novel.
WDE!