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Cool Zone Media.

Book club, book club, book club, book club,

Solstice Book Club.

That's what people always call us.

It's Solstice Book Club.

Hello, and welcome to Cool Zone Media Book Club, the only podcast where you call this. It's a solstice book club. Hello, and welcome to

Cool Zone Media Book Club, the only podcast where you don't have to do the reading because I do it for you.

I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this week and next week, I have a story that I wrote.

Happy Solstice, everyone, to honor the dark, to celebrate the return of the light, and to indulge

yourselves in the legacy of storytelling and gift giving. I'm going to share first of two parts

of one of my own stories. Next week, you'll get the second half. And this story means a lot to me.

This story is called Everything That Isn't Winter, which is a, okay, look, it takes place in Beltane,

but it's called Everything That Isn't Winter, and it's about how one relates to the season of winter.

And I don't know, this one means a lot to me because I wrote it at the end of the Clarion West Workshop for short story writing, and it was kind of my

like, I have learned so much about craft. And I've been writing at a somewhat professional level

for a little while before that, but this story was still like on a craft level, really important to me.

And also, it was one of my first big short story sales

at sold to tour.com in, I think, 2015, and really kind of helped set my career up. So,

this is a different kind of Christmas story, but what are we here, if non-traditional?

It's still got found family, it's got self-actualization, and enough winter to justify the choice.

And I hope you all enjoy it.

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