When did we last chat? March? I feel like I’ve lived about five lives since then. Some stuff I can’t share yet (stay tuned for June!), but I’m BACK, baby. And happy to see you.
Quick bit of housekeeping: I’ve started teaching creative writing here and there. It’s pretty awesome. I want to do more! My next class is in person, called Fiction for Beginners, and it starts May 9. Please share with your fiction-curious friends.
And if you’re like - hey! My school/library/community group/minyan needs an author to give a talk about, say, how to build a writing career when you don’t live in NYC and have no money, degree, or connections… or about the rewards and responsibilities of writing humor, you know where to find me. I do love to talk.
Now, on to the things I've liked that you might also like:
Paris. Not to be controversial, but it’s a pretty cool place. I took my mom there as a birthday present (yes, I am #1 best daughter) last week. She had never been out of the US before, and it was so very cool to see the city through her eyes. We consumed countless cheese-forward dishes and took many selfies.
Because I’ve been in the throes of writing a novel, I’ve been having a really hard time reading anything. Does this happen to anyone else? Like I literally can’t get through books I would normally devour. What the hell is wrong with me. Anyway, during this time I’ve been rereading Deborah Levy’s three-part “Living Autobiography” - Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living, and the most recent and my favorite of the trilogy, Real Estate. Her voice is simultaneously so precise and so fluid, calming and insightful and funny and honest. And she does something I struggle with - unpack small, insignificant moments to make them meaningful. How does she do it??
Remember when I tried to make Chicago’s TRUE pizza, tavern style, a couple months ago? Well, I’ve finally nailed it. Not because of any talent on my own part, but because of Chicago’s very own Crust Fund Pizza guy, who, during the pandemic, has made pizzas and sold them on Instagram, delivering them to hungry Chicagoans in his alley. They sell out almost immediately, and I’ve missed it every time. However, I DID acquire his cookbook and made his recipe. Friends, it was outstanding. So outstanding, in fact, that fully 15,000 people watched an Instagram reel of us pulling a pizza out of the oven. That’s probably not a lot of hits to you celebs out there, but it is to me, an Insta pleb.
And while we’re consuming things, have you tried Tip Top Cocktails? They’re so adorable! Teeny tiny cans of booze! And they’re actually pretty good for those nights you’re too lazy to mix your own 3-ingredient Manhattan.
I know we’re all obsessed with AI right now - it’s changing everything! It changes nothing! It replaces us! It’s barely literate! Anxiety arguments are boring and predictable. And we’re bound to cock up AI because that’s what humans do. But in the meanwhile, chatgpt can be really helpful as, like, a bespoke Google. Very helpful for meal planning. Extremely useful for writing the rough drafts of cover letters and something I just learned about called a “teaching philosophy.” Obviously it all needs to be rewritten, but just having that structure in place saves so much time. But you have my word, this newsletter will always be 100% human and 0% robot.
Finally, this month’s lewd animal fact:
Did you know, only 3% of bird species have a penis? We’ve talked about ducks, of course, and the big boys like ostriches and emus and geese have them. But, like, that’s about it… the majestic eagle? Newp. Penguins? Uh-uh. ROOSTERS? That’s right - THE symbol of the penis, the literal cock, does not have a cock.
Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll subscribe and share, and if you’ve read my book, When Franny Stands Up, I’d love if you would leave a review on Amazon. Even if you hated it! It’s the numbers that matter, not your opinion. Though I’m sure your opinion is very nice.