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I Wanted to Be Profound
A Lesson in Balance started one hot summer with a very general idea: I wanted to try writing a dark academia story. At the time, I didn’t have the whole plot yet. I had the atmosphere first. A prestigious school. Fancy students. Academic expectations. A little mystery. A little danger. The usual dark academia ingredients were there, but the story itself was still loose. My first instinct was to look up philosophy quotes. Which, honestly, feels like a very normal starting poin
Marigold Uy
A Novel Scored by Classical Music
Mozart & Mayhem is the first book of 'The Capybara House Quartet', a duology about four Classics-obsessed brothers, who are trying very hard not to live in a sitcom... and failing spectacularly. Mikhail, exhausted Philosophy major and terrifyingly competent eldest, runs the rota with Aristotle in one hand and tea in the other. Riven and Terrence, the literature twins duel over whose story is better, while Halden, youngest and self-appointed court painter/music director, score
Marigold Uy
Salads May Well Remain: On Birthdays and Being Measured
When I was younger, birthdays seemed to be a second Christmas. With food, gifts, guests, and a day of fun and play. But as I grew older, birthdays became less of a celebration than an evaluation. And it's not that I am against birthdays. Salads are very much welcome. Yet somewhere between the greetings, food, and polite inquiries sharpened into social measurement, I feel less like a celebrant than a person pending review. I say this because birthdays sometimes require you to
Marigold Uy
On Rain, Piano, and Fake Candles
There are evenings which arrange themselves so neatly around one’s work that it becomes difficult not to suspect the weather has a mind of its own. I had been editing a collection of light academic, Austen-adjacent short stories: domestic, observant, faintly severe in its manners, and much concerned with tea, weather, illness, and characters who express affection through correction. One of the stories was set in a small English coastal town, and involved the particular betray
Marigold Uy
I Wanted to Be Profound
A Lesson in Balance started one hot summer with a very general idea: I wanted to try writing a dark academia story. At the time, I didn’t have the whole plot yet. I had the atmosphere first. A prestigious school. Fancy students. Academic expectations. A little mystery. A little danger. The usual dark academia ingredients were there, but the story itself was still loose. My first instinct was to look up philosophy quotes. Which, honestly, feels like a very normal starting poin
Marigold Uy
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