Gifts, Gratitude, and Reciprocity
Victoria Rydberg-Nania is co-owner of Feet Wet Writing, the publisher behind Jeff Nania’s Northern Lakes Mystery series, provides a guest blog as we reflect on 2024.
Sometimes when I receive a new book it goes on the TBR pile, unsure of when I will get to it. Sometimes the book is so inviting I begin immediately—as in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s new book The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. I was captivated by the epigraph “All flourishing is mutual.” Kimmerer explores the idea of a “gift economy” using the example of a serviceberry, transforming the sun’s energy into small red berries. The berries are freely given to birds who dine on them and fly around, spreading the plant’s seeds. The serviceberry provides a gift of food to the birds, and the birds give back a chance of survival to the serviceberry, helping the plant move to new locations.
As I spent the morning reading, Kimmerer challenged me to consider what roles reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude play in my life. I began reflecting on what role a gift economy might play in the world of writing and independent publishing.
Jeff recently received an email from a reader who wrote, “Your stories touch me, and stay with me.” Mike may not have known it, but his message was a gift. On days when the story doesn’t work or revisions feel endless, words like these transform into pages for the next book.
Authors spend months, sometimes years, crafting stories that readers devour in a few hours or days. Reader reviews, email messages, and comments on social media posts then provide fuel for the author to keep writing. Publishers provide booksellers a discount so they can keep the lights on; booksellers, in turn, recommend our books to customers, giving a gift to the reader, the publisher, and the author. Librarians bring books into their collections that provide mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors into new worlds, creating communities that love reading. Readers recommend books to others and the cycle of reciprocity continues. Everyone benefits.
When authors, through groups like Blackbird Writers, collaborate or when publishers, like members of the Midwest Independent Publishers Association, learn from one another, everyone—the author, the publisher, the reader, the bookseller—benefits.
All flourishing is mutual.
“We live in the tension of what is and what is possible.” Kimmerer’s words resonate during this end-of-the-year time of transactions, reflections, and resolutions. Checking off boxes on a never ending “to do” list feels satisfying, but transactional. A morning when I sit still long enough to read a book, a gift. Too often hustle and bustle becomes what is, and we lose sight of what is possible.
Yesterday I carefully wrapped an autographed bundle of books someone ordered for a loved one. The receiver may open the gift and then receive another—perhaps a flood of memories from childhood summers spent in the Northwoods or, like me, a morning of escape after a busy week.
As I turned the final pages, Kimmerer offered an invitation to become part of the gift economy on behalf of people and planet: “Whatever your currency of reciprocity—be it money, time, energy, political action, art, science, education, planting, community action, restoration, acts of care, large and small—all are needed in these urgent times.”
Gifts are all around us, providing opportunities for reciprocity. From leaving a book in the Little Free Library down the street, to donating to the winter coat drive, to plowing the neighbor’s driveway, each of us has an opportunity to take part in the gift economy every day. While we cannot escape the transactional economy, when we lean into what is possible we can find ways to make the gift economy a greater part of our lives.
As I write this, sitting by the fire on the porch with Jeff, our feet side-by-side on a shared footstool, reflecting on the gifts of the year past and looking forward to the year ahead, we are appreciating the gifts we’ve received because of the interconnectedness of our lives with yours.