Guest Host F.E. Choe

Welcome to the Stone Soup Weekly Digest! This is where I share what I'm up to and some of my favorite things from around the internet. Subscribe to Stone Soup to get this in your inbox every week.

Hello from Memphis! I’m on a brief Southeast road trip to see loved ones and it’s amazingly cold – we got to -15℉ with windchill in St Louis. I have cooked and eaten some truly remarkable food, including ocean trout and glazed complexus. I am so glad to be alive. 

I’m also so glad to introduce this week’s Digest Guest Host! Meet F.E. Choe, a Canadian and Korean-American writer whose work has been published in adda, Augur Magazine, Clarkesworld, Fractured Lit, and The Moth Magazine. She is a 2023 graduate of the Clarion West and Viable Paradise workshops, and an Editor at 100 Word Story. She was named South Arts’ 2024 South Carolina Fellow for Literary Arts, and her work has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Born in Toronto, Canada, F.E. currently lives in the United States. Find her on Instagram @f.e.choe and more information, including a list of her recent work, at www.fechoe.com. 

Take us away, F.E.!

-gailey

Hello, new friends! 

I’m excited to pop into your inboxes this week. How are you doing? Did you remember to water your plants today? Are you looking forward to any fun plans for the weekend (and am I invited)?

In all seriousness though, you’ve made it to Friday. And with everything that has been going on in the world, I’m proud of you for getting through another week. Perhaps like many of you, I have been reading, hearing, and thinking a lot about the importance of community in times like these, and so I want to say, at the top of this digest, thank you. Thank you for inviting me in. My small, everyday, heartfelt wish for today is that you and the ones you hold dear are well. It’s a privilege to be here.

So because your time and attention are precious, perhaps now more than ever, let’s jump right into the apps, media, and internet gems/escape hatches that I have lined up for you.

New Year, New Reading App Recommendation

Someone recently tuned me into StoryGraph (also available as an app) “a fully-featured Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads,” and I decided to forgo my typically handwritten reading log for this digital tool this year. Honestly, I’m really enjoying it as I track my reading history and habits so far. I’ve run into a few minor snags here and there, and I haven’t taken full use of their reading recommendation feature, but it has been informative, fun, and oddly motivating? to see the graphics and stats update each time I log a new read. Color-coded charts that break down my individual genre, fiction vs. non-fiction, mood, and format (digital, print, audio, etc.) trends at-a-glance? Love it. This bookworm, who appreciates a finely-tuned spreadsheet as a thing of beauty, thanks you.

Murder Mystery Comedy with Delightful Genre Sensibilities

Do you ever come away from a show, movie, or book that you enjoyed so much that you want everybody you know to watch or read it too just for the pleasure of gushing, discussing, and sharing in the experience? I could not stop watching The Afterparty two seasons of which are currently available on Apple TV+. I came for the cast and comedy, anticipating only to be swept up in the pure, disarming joy of being entertained for an hour or two, but I stayed for the lessons in pacing and the clever placement of beats and effective twists. 

Have you happened to watch the series already (it premiered in 2022)? If you haven’t yet, I very much need you to so that we can talk about it please.

Music That’s Been Moving Me Lately

Though I don’t often write while listening to music, there have been a few cases where I’ve found that a particular song or album can somehow immediately and effectively place me into just the right pitch, headspace, or mood of a work in progress. It is almost as if the song and something about the piece (character, world, voice, etc.) resonate on the same frequency or wavelength, and I can follow that wavelength closer to the heart or underlying truth of the story I’m trying to tell. 

While I worked on “Better Me Is Fun At Parties,” one of the pieces in New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of Reinvention, mxmtoon’s cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” was on heavy rotation. 

And while I was putting the finishing touches on this article, I stumbled across the music video for mxmtoon’s Unspoken Words which manages to be both utterly charming and a little heart-aching at the same time. If earnest lyrics paired with bedroom pop, alternative and lo-fi strains, and hints of the ukulele is your thing, definitely check her out.

F.E. IS CURRENTLY READING: Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlie Jane Anders

I recently finished this collection of essays written by Anders throughout 2020, and I have to admit that reading it at the beginning of 2025 felt like finding a missive that was meant just for me to find at this very point in time. What can a writer do when it all seems to be falling apart? If you’re looking for some answers, wisdom, and big-hearted, generous encouragement, I’m reaching out and gently offering this lifeline to you too.

From Charlie Jane Anders, the award-winning author of novels such as All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night, this is one of the most practical guides to storytelling that you will ever read.

The world is on fire.

So tell your story.

Things are scary right now. We’re all being swept along by a tidal wave of history, and it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not helpless: we have minds, and imaginations, and the ability to visualize other worlds and valiant struggles. And writing can be an act of resistance that reminds us that other futures and other ways of living are possible.

Full of memoir, personal anecdote, and insight about how to flourish during the present emergency, Never Say You Can’t Survive is the perfect manual for creativity in unprecedented times.

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Local Library | Find an Indie Bookstore

F.E. RECOMMENDS A FEATURED NEW RELEASE: You Didn’t Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip by Kelsey McKinney

As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates and jaw-dropping stories she’d typically collect over drinks with friends—and from her hunger, the blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born. With listenership in the millions, Kelsey found herself thinking more critically about gossip as a form, and wanting to better understand the role it plays in our culture.

In You Didn't Hear This From Me, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin, and how can we better recognize when it's being weaponized? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life? And how do we define “gossip,” anyway? As much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of gossiping: how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear.

With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth—and how much the truth really matters in the first place.  

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Local Library | Find an Indie Bookstore

Thank you, F.E.! 

If you’re a paying subscriber, come say hello in the Supper Club and share the ways you’re connecting with and supporting your local community. Remember to drop your local mutual aid networks so we can put them in future issues of the Digest.

In the meantime, do what you can. Care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up.

—gailey