Ephemera

I'm writing a new series.

I am having enormous fun with it, partly because it came out of a very good role-playing game I ran for some excellent players, and partly because while I adore contemporary romance, it's also delightful to get back to my urban fantasy roots and play with magic again (this time, for grown-ups!).

I have been describing it to myself and anyone who will listen as "a fun magical world with romance and danger and community action!!" because I am not really the queen of the elevator pitch. Please let me assure you there are:

  1. a nerdy red-headed heroine who makes questionable choices
  2. several hot love interests
  3. a world full of political intrigue, magical mayhem, dark shadows and workplace drama over whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher
  4. many characters I already want to spin off into their own series.

I don't have a release date yet for book one, Magician First Class, because I'm going to wait on that until I've finished the first draft (gasp!), but I do have a cover by artist Melanie Reese!

The Sparks and Recreation series is set in New York City, a place I have visited several times in several seasons and loved every time. Since I'm a tourist, this is going to be more New-York-as-shot-in-Vancouver, but since I am a nerd, a couple of days ago I headed off to my favorite secondhand bookstore (number one on this list) to find some reference material.

While I was there I came across one of my own books in the wild. I love when this happens!

What I needed was maps and photo references and interesting little factoids. I was after travel guides and tourist shit and, after getting happily lost among the chaos, I asked the smart and friendly ladies who work there for help and was directed to the goldmine.

That big one is collected travel writing from Vogue, which I don't think will be directly useful, but is the kind of thing I pile into the back of my brain for later epiphanies.

There were two Eyewitness Guides for New York, and I chose that one specifically because it had papers tucked into it, and I fricking love ephemera. Birthday cards, post-it notes, boarding passes, ticket stubs, a gig playlist jotted on the back of a bar napkin--I love everything that has a purpose for a specific time, and is kept afterwards, usually by accident. It's tangible evidence of life lived.

It's also clutter. I'm not denying that it's clutter. I'm not sufficiently in love with ephemera to keep every to-do list.

But because I am also extremely nosy, I love stranger ephemera the most. I took the books home, and started snooping. (I should say at this point that while I had no qualms in personally nosing around the items someone had left in an old book, I will not be sharing images or details that could identify this person.)

And this was good snooping.

There was a handwritten itinerary for a month-long autumnal trip to North America that started in San Francisco, went through New York up to Montreal, then out to Hawai'i before landing back in Christchurch. I could trace the flights, hired cars and hotels.

There was a printout of New York State Fall Foliage driving ideas, folded in quarters. "Aha!" I said, picturing the scenic drive upstate. On the back was a handwritten, numbered list: 1. Barnes + Noble. 2. Shakespeare 3. Gugenheim [sic].

Holy crap, I thought, this person loves book and art museums. We would get along! (Shakespeare & Co is a bookstore, I think unconnected to the famous Parisian English-language Shakespeare and Company.)

I wasn't sure when this trip had taken place, other than "after 2005", that being when the guide was published. Then I scrutinised the last piece of paper, which I'd ignored until then because it was a printed receipt, and therefore less interesting.

It was a receipt - for accommodation in a New York hotel - and it listed the purchaser's full name and home address. "Aha!" I said, and hit up Google.

I found an obituary.

I can't be sure, but it seems likely that the person who wrote these lists died two years after the trip.

I didn't know them, of course. I cannot lay claim to grief. But I was suddenly aware of how we can touch each other's lives, all unknowing. How we can swim through time and never be certain of what flotsam bobs in our wake.

The noticeboard above my desk has accumulated a collection of things over the last two years. Some are practical, like the list of ISBN numbers, and the table listing which departments are on which floor of the Olympus Inc. building. Some are sentimental: the thank-you cards I got when I quit my teaching job at the end of 2022; a post-it note from my sister. Some are inspirational: a postcard of Medusa; an illustration of poppies; the poems "God Says Yes To Me" by Kaylin Haught and Tara Skurtu's "Morning Love Poem"; the card that says "if a potato can become vodka you can be anything you want to be".

Yesterday, I took everything down and pinned up a 2025 calendar and the next list of ISBN numbers. I stacked everything else into a Sorry You're Leaving card and slid it into the bookshelf where I keep poetry. Ephemera.

One day, I'll come across it again and smile at the reminder of this life lived.

That Healey Girl is the newsletter of Karen (or Kate) Healey, a romance and speculative fiction author who lives in Ōtautahi, New Zealand and shakes plots loose by wandering along the river. Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you think might like it!