Things I loved in March and Looking Ahead
Monthly Digest | March 2024
Hello and welcome to Fellowship of Oddities. My name is Tiffany, and I write personal essays crafted to give you a unique perspective connecting obscure ideas to real life.
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Dear Inklings,
Thank you all for celebrating six months with me last week, and welcome to everyone who’s new to our Fellowship! Some basic things about me: I’m a born-and-raised Californian and live there with my husband, two young’uns, and cavapoo service dog. Our oldest child passed away in 2021. He is my reason for publishing and sharing my writing with the world.
This month, I had quite the reading slump, due to a combination of work being busier and some life stuff. With my brain being foggier than I like it to be, I consumed more visual media than in previous months. Fun fact: I love horror; more in the reviews section.
Below the paywall, I share a bit about our decision to pull our middle child out of public school, some boring money details, and my decadent dreams for re-releasing the anthology co-written with my son and early access to the Kickstarter pre-launch page. I’m low-key nervous about it.
Thank you,
and for becoming paid members this week! Your support keeps this publication going.
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Table of Contents
In Case You Missed It…
My top post for this month was about generative AI and how it can be useful as a tool like any other:
I cannot believe it’s been six months on Substack already. I share some of my thoughts in this post:
Paying Inklings got an extra personal essay in the form of a letter to my late son, Renley, in which I reflect on how grief stole my wonder for the world:
I also launched community threads. This is like a fireside chat where we can get together and discuss just about anything. I’d originally planned for these to happen every week, but I think that may be too much, so they will be every other week for now. I’ve been enjoying getting to know many of you better through this space. If you haven’t yet, do introduce yourself:
Reviews
(In which I review everything I consume in 1-2 sentences)
True Biz (Sara Novic). I’m encouraged by the growing representation of minorities; as a mother to a son with unilateral hearing loss, I was excited to pick up this book centred around the deaf community and culture. However, while I learned a lot, the story itself felt disjointed with wonky pacing.
Stardust (Neil Gaiman). Oh, what a wonderful, whimsical, magical little book this was—an adorable fantasy romance of the sort to make you giddy with nostalgia and delight. I don’t know if I liked it enough to reread it, but it was charming.
Starling House (Alix Harrow). In love with this ode to home and found family, a.k.a. all the tropes guaranteed to melt my heart. Add in a fiery female protagonist fighting to protect her little brother (😭) and an ungainly awkward dude who fights to protect her (😭), plus a haunted house with a legitimate presence of its own, and I’d call this a perfect guilty pleasure if I didn’t believe in pleasure being guilty. Thanks (but no thanks) to
for the recommendation!Nocturnes (Kazuo Ishiguro). Ishiguro’s books require more than one reading to fully appreciate he tries to convey, but while these five stories had the signature wistfulness present in all his writings and kept my attention to the end, none of them will linger.
May December (Todd Haynes, 2023). M and I felt icky after watching this, but I expect that was the point of a movie about a 36-year-old having an affair with a 12-year-old.
Damsel (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2024). I heard about this film through
’s guest post on ’s site; it was a fun watch with a strong, female protagonist. I have a soft spot for sibling stories, and if you throw in some dragons and useless men that die some satisfactorily violent deaths, I get very happy.Ju-On: White Ghost (Ryûta Miyake, 2009). I could only find the dual trailer for White Ghost/Black Ghost, but anyways. I love the Ju-On/Grudge movies, though I’ve never seen these lesser known ones; the horror genre is so broad, and sometimes one just needs some good, classic jump scares, you know?
The Woman in the Wall (Joe Murtagh, 2023). A psychological mini-series thriller turned into a deeply unsettling history lesson about Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, where “fallen women” were sent, their babies stolen and trafficked, with all possible trigger warnings you can imagine. I went in blind, and shouldn’t have continued watching it, given my personal history, but found it such an important story.
The Fall of the House of Usher (Mike Flanagan, 2023). (Rewatch) While it’s unlikely any horror series will ever top The Haunting of Hill House for me, this one probably snags second place. Look, I’ll watch whatever Mike Flanagan directs, but combine that with Edgar Allan Poe easter eggs and corrupt, rich people dying horrible, painful deaths, and you have an extremely happy Tiffany.
Life Lately
We kicked off March with my Godbrother’s quite-enjoyable wedding celebrating literally one of the cutest couples ever with many of our dearest loved ones (Congratulations again and hi Luke!).