​Today I sat down to write this blog post, and almost immediately, my brain went quiet. I stared at the blinking cursor, willing an idea to float onto the screen. After five minutes of wishful thinking, I stepped away. Hours later, I tried again, only for the computer to taunt my lack of inspiration by staring blankly back at me. Finally, this evening, I settled onto the couch with the fan pointed at me and decided to dump every random thought floating through my brain into a document.
I regret to inform you that the ideas were few. However, one kept resurfacing. It was an idea that had been nagging at the back of my mind for several days, something I’ve talked about before with family and friends, though not necessarily here on my blog. It’s also something I hold near and dear, not only as an avid reader, but as a part-time extrovert.
Ironically, as I struggled to find the words, I was listening to someone read a short passage aloud. They spoke with a soft Scottish lilt, moving slowly through the words in an almost hushed cadence. The reading lasted only about five minutes, but the way they delivered it made the passage feel like more than words on a page. It made me think about the quiet, subtle power of storytelling.
Storytelling is an art that can easily be overlooked, but it can also be incredibly powerful. It’s never been limited to the words being spoken. Sometimes the truest part of a story is hidden in the pause before them, the tremble beneath them, or the soft swell of music behind them. Whatever the medium, a person’s ability to guide a reader, listener, or viewer through a story can be almost as magical as the story itself.
Earlier this week, I watched a cute miniseries called Seeking Persephone. Those of you who listen to my Billhilly Podcast, or who have spoken to me at any point this week, probably already know that. However, something about the show helped solidify this topic in my mind.
While listening to a commentary podcast featuring the cast, I learned more about several moments in which the camera focuses specifically on the male lead’s hands. When the actor portraying him was asked about that filming choice, he explained why he had chosen to lean into it and what those small movements revealed about the character.
Adam, the male lead, isn’t comfortable interacting with people, much less talking about his feelings. Though he can be harsh and even monstrous toward others, the cast and filmmakers felt it was important to show that his inability to talk about his emotions didn’t mean he lacked them. By focusing on his hands from time to time, they could reveal the turmoil he couldn’t put into words.
Sometimes, that turmoil is shown when he places a blanket over his wife and then hesitates, as though second-guessing whether he should do more to care for her. At another point, he wants to comfort her but can’t find the words, so he gently rubs her arm instead. Later, when he’s finally able to say how he feels, he softly caresses her hand, almost as though he’s using the one language that has always come more naturally to him to communicate the truth of his words.
We see that same attention to detail in other films. One of the most popular examples comes from the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Mr. Darcy helps Elizabeth into a carriage by offering her his hand, a small but unexpectedly intimate gesture. As he turns and walks away, the camera focuses on that hand as he flexes it slightly. The movement lasts only a moment, but it conveys so much about what the otherwise stoic character is thinking and feeling. Viewers have returned to that tiny gesture for years because it says what he cannot yet bring himself to say aloud.
Each medium has its own language for storytelling. Books allow us to step inside a character’s thoughts. In spoken storytelling, a change in pace, tone, or volume can alter the emotional temperature of a sentence. Film can linger on a hand hovering uncertainly and allow that one small movement to communicate more than an entire speech could. Each language has its place, and each does an incredible amount of work beyond the words themselves.
Maybe that’s why storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest traditions. Before we had television, podcasts, movies, or printed books, people learned the art of telling stories aloud. They preserved history, faith, family, warnings, humor, and identity by passing stories from one person to another. Our tools may have changed over the centuries, but the impulse to share hasn’t. We still gather around voices. We’ve simply replaced some of the firesides with headphones, screens, theaters, and microphones.
That same impulse is what led me to begin my Miss K’s Corner podcast during COVID. At a time when we were isolated, anxious, and separated from our ordinary routines, I reached for one of humanity’s oldest forms of connection. I sat down and read a story aloud. Since I couldn’t gather everyone into the same room, I decided to put my voice somewhere it could still reach them.
The podcast wasn’t only about the books themselves, though I began with The Chronicles of Narnia, and those stories will always hold a special place in my heart. It was also about offering companionship, continuity, and a quiet place for someone else’s mind to rest, especially for my students as they tried to navigate the enormity of that upheaval.
In the years since, I’ve allowed the podcast to take a back seat to other adventures in my life, but I’ve finally returned to it. This belief in storytelling, and in the connection it creates, has helped fuel that decision. The world may not be exactly as it was during COVID, thankfully, but my need for storytelling has never disappeared.
Every day, we’re surrounded by content designed to be consumed quickly, but stories often ask something different of us. They ask us to sit still long enough to notice the hands, hear the breath between sentences, and allow the atmosphere to gather instead of demanding that everything explain itself immediately.
I think that’s why storytelling still matters. It reminds us that not everything meaningful arrives loudly or quickly. Sometimes, understanding a person, a character, or even ourselves requires us to slow down, listen past the words, and notice what the story has been quietly showing us all along.

Last week, my best friend texted me about a show she’d watched and thought I’d like. Naturally, being the dutiful friend that I am, I found it and binge-watched the entire thing in one day.
As one does.
Almost immediately, we decided we needed to find and read the books the show was based on, which led to a week full of rants, outbursts, dramatic reactions, and randomly “yelled” texts that probably made perfect sense to absolutely no one else. I even ended up writing an entire compare-and-contrast review of the book versus the first season over on my Patreon, because apparently this is who I am now.
But somewhere between the show, the books, and the mildly unhinged commentary, I realized this little adventure had become about more than fictional hockey players and our ability to spiral over them. It became about friendship, trust, shared joy, and the strange little gift of letting someone else drag you into something wildly exciting without needing to be productive or profound first.
As I’ve fallen down this wonderful and weird rabbit hole online, I’ve had a realization. It takes a lot of trust to let someone else take the reins. Not just to recommend a show or a book, but to have you step into it without blinking.
Okay, if Teresa is reading this, she knows there was, in fact, a lot of blinking. But none of it came from doubting that she knew I’d like the storyline.
Hockey isn’t exactly my normal thing, but we’ve been friends long enough that she knows my tropes. She knows the themes I come back to, the kind of characters I get attached to, and the stylistic choices that usually pull me in. Because I trusted her understanding of me, I was willing to step into this world. In return, I got to add several fun, engaging stories to my reading list this year.
Oh, and I also got a few very entertaining memories of late-night and early-morning blurted texts. 😉
The process of reading these books with someone, complete with constant commentary, was something I hadn’t done in a very long time. It reminded me a little of high school lit circles, except with books I actually wanted to read, which feels like an important distinction.
A lot of the time now, I’m running from one tech task to the next, or from one classroom to another, and friendship tends to settle into the background of adult life. My work friends are there, of course, but they’re also busy doing their jobs, managing their own lives, and trying to keep up with whatever chaos has decided to introduce itself that day.
Adult friendship just looks different than it did when we were younger. Gone are the sleepovers, the long phone calls, and the kind of constant togetherness that made friendship feel like an everyday part of life. Now it often looks more like occasional texts between workloads, quick check-ins, shared memes, or messages sent when life really decides to kick someone while they’re already down.
But reading these books with Teresa reminded me of that old familiar feeling. The shared jokes. The predictions. The favorite characters. The “just wait until you get to this part” tension. The immediate need to tell someone exactly how you feel before the thought has even fully formed. It gave me back a small piece of that always-present hum of friendship, not in the same way it existed back then, but in a way that still felt comforting, familiar, and surprisingly joyful.
At the end of the day, I didn’t just watch a good show or read an addictive series with my best friend. I was reminded of why I love reading. Reading doesn’t require a formal invitation, a schedule, an emotional debrief, or a polished “public-facing” version of yourself. It’s just there. A thread of connection woven through normal days.
And maybe that’s what made this whole thing feel so good. It wasn’t productive. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something I had to organize, manage, or tun into anything impressive. It was simply a friend saying, “I think you’ll like this,” and me trusting her enough to follow.
Sometimes joy really is that simple.
A book. A show. A wildly enthusiastic friend.
And a few unhinged texts set an unreasonable hours.

Everyone has an opinion about something. If you don’t believe me… hop over to Facebook or TikTok and you’ll see that firsthand while picking up a little trauma along the way.
As someone who loves reading and cinema, I have my fair share of opinions on both. And due to a DELIGHTFUL migraine, I’m keeping things shorter and more playful this week. So today, I’m sharing a few of my “unpopular” book and movie opinions.
Disclaimer… no feelings were hurt in the making of this blog post.

 HATE the book 1984.
I understand that it’s wildly relevant to the world we live in, but oh my gosh. I hated reading it in high school. I am permanently traumatized by the ancient prostitute the main character goes to visit. And the worst part? I reference this book almost every year in my welcome-back-to-school staff introduction, calling myself “Big Brother.” The irony is not lost on me.

​Romantasy is overhyped… AND unfairly dismissed. Let me explain.
I LOVE romantasy. It’s dominating publishing sales and is one of the fastest-growing fiction categories right now. I’ve read some incredibly immersive series: Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Fourth Wing, Quicksilver… the list goes on.
But from the “serious literature” crowd, I often get the sense that romantasy is dismissed as nothing more than fairy smut. And don’t get me wrong… yes. There is a lot of that.
Then you have cleaner, beautifully written series like Snow Like Ashes, An Ember in the Ashes, The Kiss of Deception, Once Upon a Broken Heart. Because of the mass flooding of fairy smut into the genre, these genuinely well-written romantasies get overlooked. That doesn’t make them any less great.
This is also what I mean by overhyped. When a genre explodes, not everything in it is excellent. Looking back at some of my initial reviews, for example Quicksilver, I didn’t love the writing style, the character arcs, or the development. It felt like the love child of several other popular series. Just because something is trending doesn’t automatically make it strong.

Which leads me to my next “unpopular opinion”…
Spicy content is overused.
Spice has become so common that it almost feels obligatory. And that’s where I struggle. When an author isn’t sure how to move a scene forward or add dimension to a relationship, spice starts to feel like filler instead of substance. I love Feyre and Rhysand, but there were times when I felt certain scenes pulled away from their development instead of strengthening it. A good story shouldn’t need that kind of patchwork.

​And this one gets me…
SHADOW DADDIES ARE COPY-PASTE.
I loved Rhysand, the original shadow daddy. Then I found Xaden, whom I also love, but who felt familiar. Then Kingfisher. Everywhere I turn in romantasy, there’s another brooding, morally gray, shadow-wielding male lead who feels like someone cloned Rhysand and tweaked a detail or two.
I think this ties into something bigger. Morally gray characters are wildly popular right now. Heroes who are upright, steady, and morally sound don’t get the same cultural love. That feels societal to me. But it’s okay to have a morally upright character. I wish we saw more of them.

​I’ll start gently.
I HATE Pretty Woman.
I don’t find it romantic. I think it romanticizes a very toxic relationship. I love Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, but I much prefer them in Runaway Bride. In Pretty Woman, he doesn’t really grow so much as he adjusts just enough to keep her from walking away. That doesn’t feel like transformation to me. I would rather watch its predecessor, My Fair Lady, every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

​Another overrated movie? Titanic.
When I saw it as a kid, I was fascinated, but mostly by the historical event itself. As I got older and learned more about the actual tragedy, I realized the movie feels more sensationalized than necessary.
And as a completely separate and unnecessary side note… learning about Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating life did not exactly help the rewatch experience.
And I don’t care what you say. “Draw me like one of your French girls” was completely unnecessary. They just needed another wow factor.
Side side note. I do love Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s friendship over the decades. That part is elite.

​I know a number of people who love The Office, specifically the American version. Before I say this, I want to reestablish that I love you.
But I hate The Office.
I didn’t watch it when it originally aired. As an adult, I tried. I really tried. I just can’t get into it. I love dry humor, but I didn’t find most of the jokes funny. I think I struggle most with the shaky, hand-cam filming style. The documentary-style interviews have been done brilliantly elsewhere. But I think because I didn’t connect with the characters, the format didn’t add anything for me.

​At the end of the day, these opinions live in two fields that are deeply personal and subjective. Even the ones I feel strongly about aren’t hills I’m willing to die on.
But in a world constantly shouting about heavier “unpopular opinions,” I think it’s refreshing to disagree about books and movies instead.
Sometimes the lighter debates make for the best conversations.