HeyJaredLeenasBooks Newsletter
Writer’s life, news and photos, listen to my books, and read stories as I write them
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 4
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- Sep 9, 2026
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- Jul 10, 2026
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A fifteen-minute break for reading (opens the original)
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When I heard about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library project for the first time, it sure was a wow-experience. Since 1995 her project mailed free books to children, one a month, until they turned five. Decades of books sent to millions of children. Because she wanted to give the children the possibility to read books and feed their imagination, not because she wanted publicity to herself. Finland has been doing a project that would encourage children to read books as well. Recent research sugge
145 hours (opens the original)
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In case you’ve been wondering about my absence. Here is the reason:<div class="pencraft pc-disp
Five days without writing a single word (opens the original)
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Five days. Not a single word written.I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened. Somewhere along the way “taking a break from writing” stopped feeling like something I was allowed to do. There’s always the next chapter. The next edit. The next newsletter I haven’t sent. But last week we went to Punkaharju, in eastern Finland, and that was that. No writing.Punkaharju itself is strange and beautiful — a narrow ridge of land, barely wider than the road running along it, lake on both side
I apparently cannot write a story without magic (opens the original)
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Something is almost ready.I have been quiet on the newsletter front lately, and I owe you an explanation. The truth is that my brain needed a change of scenery. After the intensity of finishing and launching Magic Sword, I found myself drawn toward something different: quieter, more analytical, a little less chaotic than Nora’s world tends to be.So I started writing a cozy mystery.Not quite a fantasy this time. No gargoyles, no sentient stationery, no magical detectives. Just a good old-fashione
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