A college mentor who might have cast a spell on me:

Heather Ross Miller (1939-2025) was the cranky writing professor of your dreams. I knew I loved her when a propped window slammed shut on the first day of class Freshman year and she boomed out in full North Carolinian, “GOD HATH SPOKEN!”

She had strong opinions that were always at least 20% tongue-in-cheek, which meant she could mime ripping up someone’s poem in class, or scold you for reading D. H. Lawrence, or ask why you didn’t “write more good stories like that first one” without hurting people’s feelings. (At least, she didn’t hurt Gen-Xers hardened hearts. I have no idea how gentler generations fared.)

I took several workshops with her, and at some point, maybe senior year, she saw me in the hallway and pointed a finger at me and said “You will never run out of stories.” And then she just walked on. It’s hard to explain how she somehow made it sound like a compliment and an accusation and a curse and a promise at the same time. But I carry that with me in the best way, and I carry her gleeful humor about writing, the amusement with which she’d approach any of our sloppy drafts, or even our best ones.

When she passed away in July, this poem of hers circulated online among my college classmates, although I’m afraid I can’t find where it was originally published. But please read it.

A grad school mentor who unlocked my writing:

I seem to have been particularly blessed with charming, arch, southern-accented writing instructors. David Huddle encouraged my writing at the crucial pivot point when I might otherwise have stopped. I do not have an MFA, but right after college I got my MA in English Literature at Middlebury College (the Bread Loaf School of English, an amazing 5-summer program where I now teach fiction writing, and you should check it out if you want to spend your summers in heaven)… The curriculum there delightfully allows for writing and even theater classes as relevant coursework, so I was able to study writing with both David Huddle and Paul Muldoon.

I could tell a thousand stories about David but they’ll be inadequate and make me sad, so I’ll only say that I’ll be able to hear one specific variety of his laugh (a high-pitched but somehow masculine “hee-hee!”) forever. And that my favorite reading of his started with him blasting Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road.” And that he preferred to write everything in courier font. And that one summer, when I wasn’t even enrolled in his class anymore but he’d volunteered to read some of my new stories and meet about them over lunch (hero-level commitment), he asked why so many of my characters had quite limited viewpoints. (I had probably been reading too much Eudora Welty.) Then he said, “You know, you’re allowed to write characters who are as smart as you. Or even smarter.”

This is kind of obvious—so obvious that in future years he didn’t remember saying it and couldn’t imagine why it meant so much to me—but I needed to hear it. I’d been seeing my characters as people who needed to contain less than me, and I hadn’t seen that I could use them to work out things I didn’t yet know.

Because it’s quite long (physically long, you’ll see what I mean) I’m going to save my favorite poem of his for the very end of this post. The typography there isn’t perfect, so please understand that in the proper courier font, the two lines of each couplet are precisely the same length.

An idol:

While he was alive, Tom Stoppard (1937- 11/29/25) was my favorite living writer. His play Arcadia, in particular, has had a profound effect on all my writing since I first saw it twenty-some years ago (at the Bread Loaf School of English, actually, where there’s a professional ad hoc theater in residence all summer). I was lucky enough to see the first production of The Invention of Love in London in 1998, and I saw Leopoldstadt on Broadway a few years ago—and with those, too, I was not only moved (devastated, in the latter case), but I carried away intangible aesthetics that will continue to haunt my own work. Every year I rooted for him to get the Nobel, and it never happened.

A dynamo:

This one is raw and recent, but last Friday we very suddenly lost Brenda Langstraat Bui, the CEO of the Chicago Public Library Foundation, at 52. I had the joy of working with her on several projects and events and getting to know her also just as a friend and a brilliant, vivacious person. She was exceptional at her job not only because she made you feel like you were in a magical spotlight when you talked to her, and not only because she was so full of energy and enthusiasm, but also because she cared deeply about books and libraries and Chicago. Her family is asking for donations in her name to the Chicago Public Library Foundation, Working In The Schools (WITS) or the Indianola, Iowa Public Library

A bookstore:

Volumes Bookcafe was a beloved institution in Chicago for 10 years, and we are all devastated at its closure this week. In that time, they put around one million books into the world, and were home to countless launches, new friendships, and even proposals and weddings.

While several factors led to the closing, a big one was the imposition of a certain chain bookstore moving in down the block—a store that said it could break its own rule of not moving into neighborhoods with indie bookstores because Volumes was “more of a coffeeshop that also sells books” (a ridiculously false claim). Listen: Wherever you live, protect your independent bookstores. Go to events, buy books, buy puzzles or wrapping paper or whatever else they sell. Do it now, before it’s too late.

In January we had a really lovely farewell party, with a dozen of us reading tributes or making toasts or telling stories. Here’s me, looking inexplicably like I’m in a shampoo commercial, with sisters/owners Kimberly and Rebecca George looking on.

And here’s the very silly toast I made at the end. (I might have studied with some great poets but I’m, uh, not a poet, okay?)

To a million journeys started
in a place safe and gorgeous,
Here’s to the bookstore
And here’s to the Georges.

Here’s to told stories
From novels to barrooms
Here’s to Chicago
And here is to Volumes!

RIP Washington Post Books:

This one makes me more angry than sad. There’s the horror to begin with of a corrupt billionaire in the president’s pocket buying up one of our most important papers and now essentially shuttering most of it. And there’s the particular tragedy of losing Washington Post Books, which was, along with the New York Times, the most important and prominent place where new books were discussed in the US.

It was one of the thrills of my career to have my last novel reviewed and deeply understood by Ron Charles, and I’m heartened that he’s going to go on reviewing books in various capacities. His Substack, and a post about the layoffs, are right here; subscribing would be a lovely way to support him.

I’m also happier than ever to do work supporting Chicago Review of Books, an independent book review run by people who aren’t in anyone’s pocket. The CHIRB, which just turned 10, started out on its own and then came in under the umbrella nonprofit of StoryStudio, where I’m Artistic Director. It’s independently run, but we share a board and collaborate in fun ways. Along with Lit Hub, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, The Millions, and others, it’s doing the essential work of talking about books and ideas. And as at those places, the shoestring budget barely covers operating costs. Donating to any one of those organizations would be a really lovely way to balance out the universe a bit today.

(I’m also going to have a post soon on writing professional book reviews, which is something you’re more qualified to do than you probably think. Stay tuned for that.)

And finally, here’s that poem I promised you:

(It’s from his collection Grayscale, available from LSU Press)

April Saturday, 1960

by David Huddle

I mean, Berkley Osborne and I had
small interest in each other, and

it was happenstance the afternoon
we found ourselves in the ballroom

of Wytheville Country Club, nobody
else around except Judy and Bobby,

her cousin and my pal, so serious
a couple they lost interest in us

immediately, put on a slow record
and stepped out on the dancefloor

to do something that could hardly
be called a dance. An undulating

embrace was what it was. Berkley
and I—joking—started a mannerly

box step. We’d spoken hardly ten
sentences before—maybe I grinned

at her one day in the hall or she
at me in band practice or history

but we’d never touched fingertips
let alone tried to dance. So it’s

no wonder we began in awkwardness
and humor, poking fun at the kiss

Bobby and Judy showed no signs of
breaking off. It’s strange enough

two couples dancing in a ballroom
with all the invisible chaperones

tsk-tsking, the other dancers not
yet having arrived, full daylight

reflecting over the parquet floor,
a line of chairs for wall flowers

along three walls, tables whitely
waiting for punch bowls perfectly

centered among cups, small plates
for cookies, party napkins placed

exactly so. Music stands awaited
sax man, trumpeter and trombonist;

the discreet piano widely grinned,
and the drums and cymbals yearned

to be punished. Meanwhile Berkley
and I box-stepped our laps nicely

around the ballroom. “Oh my God!”
whispered Berkley; she gave a nod

toward Bobby and Judy, only their
pelvises moving, his hands on her

butt and hers on his. They stood
in place, clothes on, a very good

boy and girl except for movements
of their tongues, hips, and hands.

The record that kept on repeating
was the soulful “Unchained Melody”

which cast a spell over the whole
room—it was like a space capsule

floating endlessly toward unknown
galaxies of eternal mid-afternoon

light with Berkley and me in orbit
around a red-hot Bobby-Judy planet.

Well, the box-step grows tiresome
after you step out box number one

thousand and four. Berkley and I
shifted position, she gave a sigh

then snuggled in close. I noticed
her warmth and her nice fragrance,

also her astoundingly small waist,
and the way her chest fit against

my chest. I think that’s actually
what caused the glandular anomaly

that followed—we sort of scooted
our chests around as if we needed

to get comfortable, the sensation
being about as erotic as anything

I’ve ever felt. So Berkley and I
were acquaintances transmogrified

suddenly into your basic two part
hormonally effervescent lust-unit.

One minute we were innocently box-
stepping away our lives, the next

we were groins and nipples, pubic
hair, teeth and tongues, a public

display of live pornography—well,
I shouldn’t exaggerate. We still

had our clothes on, and we didn’t
collapse to the floor. The event

was so mental and over so quickly
that the annals of sexual history

don’t even mention it. All right,
maybe it was no more than a tight

embrace with a remarkably intense
kiss and maybe the body movements

of accomplished lovers like Bobby
and Judy. Maybe a favorite hobby

of theirs was leading mere casual
friends into situations of carnal

possibility—Berkley and I locked
into each other, parts of a clock

fitting perfectly, moving in time.
We were just kids really, sixteen

and seventeen, we hadn’t had much
experience, certainly not of such

intensity or strangeness. I think
Eros looked at Cupid, gave a wink,

and suddenly Berkley sighed, “O,”
which took me over the edge. “O,”

I said, too— We just stood there
breathing and shuddering together.

Embarrassment set in very quickly,
but it was of the bonding variety,

and of course we couldn’t go back
to the box step. We tried to chat

and stand where we were, our arms
still around each other, our aims

a bit vague and sentimental. How
kind words were to come to us now

that we had learned such a lesson
of recapitulating ontology, human

folly, and the utter indifference
of stars drifting through silence.

“I have to go to tuck my shirt in”
or “I should splash cold water on

my face” or “Shouldn’t we get out
of here?”—our exact words aren’t

the point. At a certain emotional
pitch, the tone of a voice is all

that matters, somebody just croon
to me please, and I’ll be ok soon.

Ten thousand days have flown away
since that small piece of a sunny

afternoon. Berkley’s had her life,
I’ve had mine, and who can say if

what happened made any difference
to either of us? Her remembrance

may bring her a twitch of a smile
but that’s all. Sometimes I feel

I’m a sliver of dust in the great
pattern of creation, I think fate

is a vast intelligence. But then
I recall blips of cosmic nonsense

like that afternoon with Berkley:
Galactic energy started crackling

along the stratospheric periphery
with Darwin and Freud spastically

heaving in their graves and a boy
and a girl in a Virginia town, by

the whimsy of chaos, the theology
of random chance, were flung body

against body. Bless their hearts,
they played their ludicrous parts,

saying “O,” and standing in place,
with astonishing kindness & grace.

Chicagoans might not be puzzled about my being 71 years behind on my movies, but for those who don’t know, the Music Box Theater does the best Christmas show double-headers (pictured above), complete with a live organist and boozy hot chocolate. Highly recommend.

Something that made me extremely happy:

There are many things that astound me about the life The Great Believers continues to have in the world, and I’ll probably write about some of them in ‘28 when we get to the book’s tenth birthday. But this one took me completely by surprise. The journalist Mary Norkol wrote an amazing piece in the Sun Times this summer about the 40th anniversary of Unit 371 at Illinois Masonic Hospital (the groundbreaking AIDS unit I wrote about in TGB), and Drs. David Moore and David Blatt, who founded it. Then last week, this came out:

It’s worth reading both of them (here’s the original story and here’s the recent essay). When you’re at your desk sweating out the worst versions of your own book and then spending five minutes wondering if your character should sit on a couch or a sofa, it’s very hard to imagine that a work of fiction (your imaginary friends and their adventures!) could have real impact on the real world.

From the essay: “I thought of all the storybook characters I knew so intimately, all the ones who held my heart in their hands, some holding it gently and keeping it safe, others squeezing so hard it hurt, others leaving this earth and taking a piece of my heart with them. I thought of the people in my life who had done the same. That’s what happened when I read the story of Yale Tishman and his friends — so I decided to find his real-life counterparts. Thank God I did.”

Meanwhile, on December 1st, I got to attend an anniversary commemoration of the unit thrown by Masonic, where I saw Drs. Moore and Blatt for the first time since I interviewed them for the book back in 2015. I can’t explain their work better than Norkol’s two articles, so I’ll just add that this quilt, which Masonic brought out for the celebration, was put together over the years by doctors, nurses and other staffers. Whoever was closest to a patient they lost would sew the square by hand. Dr. Blatt told me the nurses teased him that they wished his handwriting was as good as his sewing.

I taught an online seminar about writing while parenting, and you can watch it:

Speaking of how important it is that you finish that book you were writing and how you never know who needs to read it and how it might mean that you need to balance your messy life to fit writing in…

A couple of weeks ago I taught a two-hour online seminar for “5 Things I’ve Learned” about writing while parenting. We talked about practical considerations, priorities, and brain chemistry, among other things. If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to prioritize your writing, this could be a good place to start. This class aired live earlier this month, but you can purchase the recording here!

Here’s a screenshot of a slide I shared, talking about some of the groundwork we have to do to figure out where writing will fit in our lives, rather than just hoping we’ll magically find the right circumstances:

Help an essential translators’ organization survive!

Early in the year, I wrote about some of the many arts organizations who were robbed of vital funding by our current regime. I mentioned American Literary Translators Association (the only organization in the United States devoted exclusively to literary translators), but I want to tell you more about it as the year closes out and they fight for their survival:

• They offer fellowships and mentorships each year (in 2026: 13 mentorships to emerging translators, 8 of which are offered in South Asian languages).

• They hold an annual Awards Ceremony, celebrating excellence in by giving out 6 awards for translated literature—one crucial way that ALTA brings prestige and visibility to the often “invisible” art of literary translation.

• And they put on an annual conference and mentorship program—this year without $25–30K in NEA support for the first time in many years.

ALTA needs help. They’re looking to reach their goal of raising $30,000 by December 31 (today!). You can donate at the link below:

https://alta.app.neoncrm.com/campaigns/2025-winter-fundraiser

My translators are co-authors, and their devaluation (from defunding moves like this, and from idiotic decisions of at least one publisher to move to robot translations) is so deeply depressing. Please help me support them.

My bizarre food hack of the year:

And now, a less serious interlude.

You’re gonna make a face, but hear me out: Pickled quail eggs. They’re amazing and you can get spicy ones if you want and you can put them on salad or stand in front of your fridge like a deranged oviraptor eating them with fork out of the jar. And they have more protein than chicken eggs.

This is the farthest thing from a sponsored post (although wouldn’t it be great if I were getting paid major cash from Big Quail?)…But I found the place that supplies the good ones to country markets that then slap their own label on it and this is it in the photo. I’m not linking because I have no idea how ethically these quail are farmed (if you have sources on that I’m all ears) but I can say they taste fantastic if you’re into that kind of thing and haven’t closed this post in disgust.

My organization got a big lovely grant!

As many of you know, I’m Artistic Director at StoryStudio Chicago, a 22-year-old nonprofit creative writing center where you can take classes in just about any genre, and you can take them online if you don’t live in Chicago or if you do live in Chicago and hate going out in the cold. We’re especially proud of the huge number of community partnerships we’ve gotten going, and it’s all getting kicked into high gear now because we got a $100,000 MacArthur grant.

This year we also finally built a shelf of published student and instructor work, and here it is when we’d just started to fill it. For instance, in that middle column of student work, you’ll notice books by alumni like Ling Ma (seriously!) and Christie Tate (!) and Julia Fine (!) and you’ll see lauded debuts by Rickey Fayne and Amanda Churchill facing out there, but we had yet to load up on alumna Gillian Flynn (not kidding!) and others.

If you’re interested in learning more or taking a class or even throwing us some year-end support, you can check us out here.

Come study with me in Andalusia!

After a really lovely first writing this fall retreat with Uptrek, an organization that coordinates incredible artist retreats in Europe, I’m hosting a second one next October (5-12) – this time in Andalusia, on the southern coast of Spain. If you’re already sold, below is the link to sign up—there are six spots left (of 15) so you may want to jump on it:

https://uptrek.com/retreat/start-something-new-start-anew-writing-retreat-author-rebecca-makkai-spain

Now, if you need more convincing… The theme this time is “Start Something New, or Start Anew” – in other words, we’ll find inspiration in the new, the strange, and the unexpected. You do NOT have to start a new project; this can just be about bringing fresh perspective to an older piece.

I’ll be giving craft talks, we’ll share meals together (prepared by a private chef), explore some nature near the estate (volcanic calderas, dramatic cliffs, and mysterious rock formations!), and take a trip to the nearby historic city of Almería. And we end the week with an open mic, giving you the option to share what you’ve written.

There’s a ton that’s included:

• Lodging

• Trips to nearby Almería, to the historic Alcazaba Fortress, and to nature sites.

• Transportation and guides for all planned activities

• Food! (Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners) The food on our French retreat was ahMAZing, and this is apparently just as great.

But some that isn’t:

• Your airfare/travel insurance

• Tips for the staff

• Stamps to write letters home telling everyone you’re staying forever in the south of Spain

It costs what you’d expect (not cheap), but you all know where else to find me if Spain is not in your budget next year.

Convinced? Here’s that link one more time:

https://uptrek.com/retreat/start-something-new-start-anew-writing-retreat-author-rebecca-makkai-spain

A Mystery:

I took this photo last night in a hospital gift shop. And I want you to notice the top middle, above the angry-looking ear pods. Under what exact circumstances does it make sense to do karaoke in a hotel room? And/or after what hospital procedure is a karaoke speaker an appropriate gift?

At first I thought of some happy occasion like a new baby, but good lord, no, you’re not doing karaoke on the maternity ward and waking everyone up. Then I thought maybe like a young group of friends gathering to celebrate their friend’s successful kidney transplant or transition surgery, but again… Or maybe a New Year’s party tonight for a guy in a full body cast who can still belt it out?

Please solve the mystery for me. There’s got to be a right answer.

Meanwhile, here’s a postcard from 1905. I like the sentiment, and also the zesty little horn.

But assuming you’ve already done your book shopping, here are a few other great gifts for readers and writers, from pillows and games to the writing retreat you really deserve to give yourself!

For… people who appreciate a really good pen but don’t need it made of gold

A couple of years ago someone asked me to sign a book and I didn’t have a pen, so I used her pen. Then I fell in love with the pen. And I came home and ordered a dozen black ones and a whole rainbow of colored ones. They are extremely smooth and you don’t have to press down at all. “TUL pens” sounds like they’d be Swedish or something, but I’m sorry to tell you that these are made by Office Depot. That’s why they’re affordable, though! Do not get these for your uncle who signs his bills with a $12,000 fountain pen. Get them for people who like to doodle in the margins.

For… someone with a lawn

I didn’t learn till recently that the Little Free Library movement was started by one particular person, Tod Bol, in 2009. (I guess I figured they’d been around forever and suddenly caught on?) He died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, but by then (I also didn’t realize) Little Free Library had become a global nonprofit. You can support their work by buying a kit or a finished library from their website.

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For… the reader who “doesn’t have time to read”

A subscription or credit bundle or individual audiobook at Libro.fm. It’s SO much better than Audible in every way and has all the same exact audiobooks, with only a few exceptions. The big difference is that your money goes to the independent bookstore of your choice. And you can see the staff picks from that store, or just about any other one. I also like that the app gives you a percentage for your progress (in addition to the remaining time), which Amazon doesn’t.

For… college students

I love these reading/study pillows on Etsy, and this is such a great year to support individual artists/makers rather than, you know, Target.

For… someone who knows what’s up

If you want to give someone a meaningful literary gift, please do not order a cute Emily Dickinson notepad from Amazon. There’s so much fantastic literary swag that you can order directly from the amazing small presses and literary nonprofits who could SERIOUSLY use your money, especially now.

Lit Hub is no longer allowed to sell their iconic Joan Didion tote bag, but you can get this amazing hat instead:

Or you can support the small press Melville House with THEIR iconic Bartleby tote bag:

Or buy your new nephew this amazing onesie from the Center for Fiction to tide him over till he makes the “5 under 5” list:

For… your family

You’ve probably seen this game advertised. I just want to tell you: It’s worth it. To play Ransom Notes you just grab a handful of word magnets, and then you try to give the best answer to the prompt. We’ve had this for several years now and it hasn’t grown old. It’s always funny, very simple, and good for kids and teenagers as well as adults. I had to take a few cards out to make it family-friendly, but only a few.

(Also: I linked to Barnes & Noble above, but remember that your local indie bookstore might carry games and puzzles, and this is one more way you can support them!)

For… me. Someone please buy it for me.

This “cuddle chair” from Neiman Marcus, which is clearly a reading chair for one person to sit in sideways . Look at it, it’s like a playpen for grownups! You can bring a pile of books and a bowl of popcorn in there. Or you could bring your laptop in there to write, and also, like, a sippy cup of wine.

Yes, it costs over $5,000, but

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For… yourself, or someone you really, really like

I’m going to be leading another international writing retreat next fall. I’m supposed to open registration in a limited way, so I’m posting the details below the paywall. (If you’re dying to know and aren’t a paid subscriber, you can maybe get there with some deep internet sleuthing, and/or I’ll be posting it publicly soon, as long as it isn’t full!)

Read on if you want to meet me abroad in October…

Read more

I remembered, with horror, the moment in a 300-level college course called Literature by Women when another student made the observation that none of the 19th or early 20th century women we’d been reading had children. The professor stammered something about Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and about things being different now. But were they, really?

When I logged onto that forum I had three published stories, which was enough to know that I could and should keep trying to make a go of it. (I hope I’d have known that without the publications, but they at least helped.) I also had a full-time teaching job that I’d need to return to in a few weeks. And somehow I expected myself to solve this puzzle in the first month of my baby’s life.

Some lovely people on that forum talked some sense into me (essentially: Wowww, chill out, you gave birth five minutes ago) and everything turned out fine. But there was this distinct moment when it all looked absolutely impossible—a moment that now, looking back, feels a lot like a sliding door. There’s another version of me out there that gave up and is hoping to return to writing in retirement.

When people ask how I balance parenting with a writing career, I have two answers. The first (especially if it’s asked by a condescending stranger and there’s a sexist subtext) is “Would you ask a man how he juggles being both a banker and a father?” and the second (especially if it’s asked by a fellow writer, one whose eyes are full of despair) is… well, it’s a two-hour long answer.

Since I can’t give that two-hour answer again and again, I want to invite you to my upcoming two-hour class for writers (and other artists), Five Things I’ve Learned about Writing While Parenting.

But in case you can’t make it, here’s some bonus content. Then I’ll tell you more about the class.

Things you shouldn’t do (please learn from my mistakes):

• Let your children use the backsides of your manuscript pages for coloring/crafts after they and their friends have learned to read, unless you write reallllly clean stuff.

• Beat yourself up for not being able to hold an entire novel in your head when there are babies or toddlers around.

• Apply for a grant while trying to help your kids figure out a cookie recipe, and also Moana is blaring in the background. You might get the grant, but the cookies won’t work.

Things you can do:

• Ask your kid for a random object to put into your work. I got “frog” as the answer once and it opened up a weird new ending for a short story.

• Geek out on the narrative structure of picture books as you read each one aloud 7,000 times.

• Learn from the simplicity and generosity of books for older children, and from where a child is confused or bored when you’re reading together.

• Revel in the newfound efficiency (of knowing how to get a whole lot of work done during a twenty-minute nap time) that will stay with you forever, even after your kids become mysterious ghosts who only pass through to steal all your pasta.

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Okay, so in the actual class we’ll talk much more about the bigger game plan.

We’ll talk about finding support networks, budgeting and prioritizing writing time, overcoming parental guilt, the ethics of writing about family, and tapping into the gifts that parenthood might lend your creative life. This class is an absolutely judgment-free zone, and I aim to provide you with ideas and options, without making you feel bad for not writing more, or less, or differently, or letting your child play Roblox while you work.

The concerns are practical, emotional, and moral. Some of them hit mothers harder than other parents (thanks, society!) but at the same time, we rarely talk about that balance and struggle for fathers (thanks again, society!). With the understanding that every family is different—someone might live in a commune where 23 adults are around to offer support, and someone else might be a single parent with a special-needs child—we’ll break down all the difficulties and joys (I promise there are joys!) of creating art while keeping small people safe and happy.

I’m not saying I’ve done it perfectly, but I’ve done it, and I can’t wait to talk to you about why you shouldn’t have to put your creative life on hold just because someone needs you to find their snow pants.

Please join us—you can get a ticket here! And use code SUBSTACK10 in the DISCOUNT CODE field and then to hit APPLY to get ten dollars off the ticket price.

(And YES, it will be recorded. The video will likely go up a few weeks after the live event, and you can purchase it to watch on demand.)

Five Things I’ve Learned is a great organization, and I’ve had fun working with them in the past.

Please enjoy this introductory video that I recorded WITH WET HAIR, LIKE A PRO:

And for the people about to write “Where is the link? I didn’t see the link?” It’s literally right up there, but here it is again:

https://myfivethings.com/class/rebecca-makkai-writing-while-parenting/

A longtime AIDS activist (I eventually got this out of people, but it wasn’t how they led off), she still ran a food bank providing groceries to Chicago residents living with HIV or AIDS. When I emailed her, she suggested I come meet her at the Edgewater storefront she called “GroceryLand.” We should meet on a Wednesday, she said, because that’s when they were closed. Why she’d want to meet there if they were closed, I didn’t understand yet. I said I’d bring some donations and asked what would be useful. Oatmeal, soup, and tuna, she told me.

Looking back, it’s kind of hilarious that I brought a notepad to our meeting, and anyone who knew Lori will understand why. This wasn’t so much a linear conversation as a barrage of memories and reenactments and wonderful tangents. I got so much out of that first conversation, and just about all I wrote down before I gave up was (I swear to God) “red and green macaw.”

But meanwhile, it became clear why she wanted to meet there. Many of the folks who used GroceryLand had AIDS-related dementia, which meant she wanted to be there so that she could remind them that she was closed. Spend a moment on that one: She wanted to be there on the day they were closed, so she could explain that they were closed. And indeed, four different men tried the door or knocked on the window. Each time, she got up, opened the door, talked to them, and gave them some food anyway. To one man, she had promised a large potted plant, and so she and I spent a few minutes getting it situated on his wheelchair between his feet and legs. He told us how the previous winter, he’d been leaving GroceryLand with bags of groceries and it was snowing; a neighboring store owner started shoveling a path for the wheelchair, all the way to the end of the block—an act of kindness that very indirectly made it into my novel.

She was loud enough and fiery enough that you might imagine she’d been born an activist, but when I asked her how it all started she said, “I used to drive buses.”

After studying film at Columbia College Chicago, she worked as a school bus driver (presumably the funnest driver in the world), and also drove Coach buses. In 2020 I interviewed her on the record for an oral history of the 1990 national ACT UP demonstration in Chicago, so I have her own words here: “I started driving for all the shows at the Aerie Crown in the early ‘80s. The headliners, they had their limos. The singers, the dancers, they all rode with me. And where did they want to go at the end of the show? To a club. They looked for a place to dance, meet other gay men.”

She became friends with many of them, and also knew they were getting sick. Some disappeared. This was very early in the AIDS years, but she started volunteering and attending demonstrations. She told the Sun Times in 2019 that the activists “had one thing in common: Everyone we knew was either dead, dying or struggling to help someone who was heading there. We were tired. We were scared. We were angry. And we needed to do something other than sew AIDS quilt panels.”

When she asked her bosses if she could use the buses to transport some patients from Chicago House (an AIDS hospice) to the movies once in a while, she was told no. She “borrowed a bus or two” and did it anyway.

She cofounded an organization called Open Hand that at first delivered meals to AIDS patients too ill to shop or cook. (A bus driver’s knowledge of the city came in handy here.) In its first year, Open Hand delivered 41,476 meals. Eventually the organization became part of the Heartland Alliance and Vital Bridges food pantry programs, although that’s a long story so let’s just call it GroceryLand. She eventually served 400 people a week. The place is full of cardboard cutouts of celebrities and other festive decorations. When we first talked, we sat on comfortable couches at the front of the store.

Along the way, Lori had become tremendously close with Danny Sotomayor, a young firebrand cartoonist and activist. I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone as dedicated to keeping someone’s legacy alive as Lori was to Danny’s.

She and Danny didn’t make it to the 1987 march on Washington, but they went the following year to see the AIDS quilt. Danny, who was already HIV positive and felt that he was living on borrowed time, was fired up by the activism on display there. “That day, a sleeping giant came out of him,” she told me in our 2020 interview. After they came home, he led the charge for several local AIDS organizations to join together and rebrand as ACT UP Chicago. She said, “It’s not like these were professional Underground Weathermen. These were people diagnosed, fighting for their lives. He knew he didn’t have a lot of time.”

Lori was useful in the fight. Not only was she willing to lie down in the streets, to get arrested, but she could play beard to an activist friend in order to gain entry to—for instance—a fundraiser for the second Mayor Daley. The protest banner (“THE GOVERNMENT HAS BLOOD ON ITS HANDS” with dramatic drips of red, or “DALEY TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT AIDS”) would stay neatly rolled in her oversized purse until the right moment.

She was there on the streets for that 1990 ACT UP demonstration. The objects of protest were the AMA and health insurance companies headquartered in downtown Chicago, and Cook County Hospital, which refused to allocated AIDS beds for female patients. At one point, Sotomayor and several others gained access to the County Building and went out a window onto a ledge above the street, holding a sign that read “WE DEMAND EQUAL HEALTHCARE NOW.” It was a triumphant moment, but one by one the men were pulled back through the window with unnecessary violence. She told me: “These were people on the third floor of a building downtown, and they weren’t kidding around. Everybody was close to the edge. Danny was shouting. He wanted the crowd to hear that he was willing to take it a step further, if someone at the County Building didn’t pull this Nazi cop in and understand you got people on a ledge. Yes, let it happen. I was wearing this long peasant skirt, and I remember holding it out and thinking, okay, maybe I can catch him in this.”

Danny died in February of 1992, and was survived by his partner, the playwright Scott McPherson. While activists had brought Mayor Daley a long way, Danny’s friends were outraged that after his death, Daley spoke about him as if they’d been close. Scott, not normally as political as Danny had been, decided he needed to show up at an event where Daley would be taking Danny’s name in vain. Scott was in the hospital at this point, and on oxygen. His doctor told him he could go for two hours, but that if he stayed out any longer, the oxygen would run out and he would die.

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Lori smuggled him into the event in a wheelchair, because (according to her) people will let you go anywhere if you’re pushing a wheelchair. He weighed about 90 pounds. Lori pushed him up to the front of the crowd and he started yelling at Daley in front of everyone. It was the only time anyone had ever heard him yell. They got him back to the hospital with minutes to spare, and his doctor was waiting out on the sidewalk for them with a fresh tank of oxygen. I won’t name that doctor here because not everything that happened that night was definitely kosher… but anyone who’s read The Great Believers will recognize an echo of that real-life scene, and that doctor’s kindness, near the end of the book.

Lori and I saw each other quite a few more times after that initial meeting, and she was always telling me who said to say hello, or I was passing on love from someone who said “Hug Lori for me!” She was a connector of so many people and worlds, but despite that, despite the fire-engine hair, despite the amazing outfits and fingernails, she wasn’t there to be the center of attention. When she was honored by the state for Pride month in 2020, she emailed me: “When they come to their senses I bet they take it back.”

Lori passed away on August 3rd, far too young at 74—but she’d be quick to remind us what a privilege 74 is.

My first meeting with Lori was on November 2, 2016. We all know what happened six days later. In those days, and in these ones, I could not be more blessed than to have the voices of incredible activists and survivors ringing in my ears.

Please remember:

There are still good people in the world. There are even great people in the world.

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If you want to read Lori’s Wall Street Journal obituary (she would find it wild that this exists), you can read it here.

If you want to see her friends’ and admirers’ memories of her, there’s a memorial Facebook page that’s kind of amazing.

If you want to hear Lori’s voice and others on the 1990 ACT UP demonstration, here’s the oral history I wrote.

If you want to do something in Lori’s honor and help the community she worked for so tirelessly, it would be very helpful to donate to GroceryLand. They’re asking for no cash donations, but instead for gifts that go entirely to client needs, as she wanted: Aldi or Jewel gift cards; nonperishable food items; household items, especially toiletries not covered by EBT.

GroceryLand is at 5543 N. Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640; their phone number is (773) 871-7610.

And this is officially from Team Lori:

Turn grief into fuel, Lori wants us to keep up the fight:  
Volunteer at your local pantry
Organize a drive for toilet paper and toiletries
Demand dignity and healthcare for all
Speak up when it’s uncomfortable
Love louder

If you are involved in the literary or arts world at all, you know organizations absolutely devastated by the sudden yanking of National Endowment for the Arts funding in the past six weeks. If you’ve ever worked for a small nonprofit, you know what a labor of love it is. And you know that something like $10,000 can make or break the entire organization.

(Hey, by the way, Elon Musk, who pays taxes at a lower rate than your grandmother, makes around $602 million a day. Fun!)

On May 2nd, hundreds of arts organizations began receiving emails notifying them that “the NEA is updating its grant-making policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.” Many NEA officials resigned in the subsequent days.

There are four main ways places are losing funding: 1) Withdrawal and termination of grants already promised, with money not yet delivered this year; 2) Termination of all future grants; some lucky organizations already received their money before May 2nd, but now know this is the last of it; 3) Given the February announcement that applicants could not operate diversity programs or “promote gender ideology” (meaning acknowledging that gender is not totally binary), many organizations could not or would not apply for new funding for 2026; 4) Less visibly and immediately, there are organizations and individuals relying on state funds that in turn get their money from the NEA.

Many of these organizations have already built projects around planned money, hired staffers using that money, announced fellowships that would use NEA funding, commissioned new work, scheduled a play for production, promised free arts classes for children, assumed they had the budget to stay in operation for another critical year. And there are emerging authors and artists and dancers, children in school systems with no arts education, people eking out a living in the arts, who will now lose all the resources they relied on.

I’ve been getting emails from individual literary magazines or organizations hoping for donations to make up for the sudden deficit. On Thursday I asked on social media what places have been affected (because of course this administration is not going to publish a list of all the organizations they’ve screwed over) and someone pointed me to this incredible (and sobering) spreadsheet where organizations are self-reporting on lost funds. As of this writing, there are 564 organizations on the spreadsheet, but we know there are many more. The numbers getting thrown around online suggest that $27,000,000 in arts funding has been cancelled, but this seems to refer only to what’s on the spreadsheet.

Today’s parade, horrifyingly reminiscent of the celebrations Hitler demanded for his own birthday, will conservatively cost $40,000,000 of taxpayer money, and that’s not accounting for any damage to DC streets when dozens of tanks, Strykers, and other military vehicles roll over them.

So let’s look for a second at what’s being lost, just a bit of the arts programming that could have been covered instead of the Birthday Ego Boom-Boom March.

WhyArts in Omaha, Nebraska was counting on $15,000 to support in-school arts residencies teaching dance to children living with and without disabilities. They note that “The funds were never made available to us after we completed the acceptance paperwork even though the award was publicly announced by the NEA in January.”

New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco was counting on $20,000 in support of the world premiere of Simple Mexican Pleasures by Eric Reyes Loo, and that money has vanished.

SkyART in Chicago received none of the $40,000 it needed to provide free arts and mental health programs for young people.

Kearny Street Workshop lost $20,000 “to support an exhibition series and residency program for artists of the Asian Pacific American diaspora,” which is so funny, since projects that “support the economic development of Asian American communities” is one of Trump’s stated “priorities” in funding. It’s almost like he didn’t mean it!

Similarly, you’d think that the $10,000 originally allocated for Living Voices Theater in Seattle to “develop, produce & tour HOME FRONT/WAR FRONT, a pair of multimedia educational theatre shows about women in the World War II aeronautics industry, focused on little-known stories of women pilots and the Black wartime experience” would be riiiight in line with Trump’s priority to “support the military and veterans.” But no! He didn’t mean THOSE people who risked their lives for our country! Let’s not be silly!

Many of the cancellations seem overtly motivated by racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, misogyny… but others—like the $25,000 yanked from Brooklyn’s Center for Performance Research “to support professional development residencies and technical assistance services for New York City's dance and performance communities” are less scrutable. Not that we need to do much scruting. The base motivation—like the motivation of all despots who’ve come first for culture and expression—is to silence and discourage any forms of dissent.

Some of the literary organizations being hit:

I focused above on other arts, and I really hope you’ll read the whole list, but given my likely readership I want to focus here on ten relatively small literary organizations I can personally vouch for that could really use our help. There are, of course, many more. Please post about others in the comments if there are ones you feel passionate about.

• Woodland Pattern, a unique bookstore and event space in Milwaukee that puts on poetry programming: $20,000

• Sarabande Books, a wonderful small press based in Louisville, KY that does important work and has launched the careers of several friends: $25,000

• ALTA (American Literary Translators Association; they’ve been running a vital conference for translators, emerging translators, publishers, and readers for 48 years): $30,000

• American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA: $25,000 meant for accessibility for Deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences through American Sign Language interpretation

• The Bennington Review (a journal that ran from 1966 to 1985 and was recently resurrected; it’s edited by some brilliant writers and has only had 13 issues in its current incarnation): $10,000

• One Story and One Teen Story: $10,000 (From one of their published teen authors:"Receiving this recognition from One Teen Story has given me the confidence to nurture this internal, private love that often goes by unexpressed in everyday life.”)

• Milkweed Editions, a wonderful and important small press in Minneapolis: $50,000

• Electric Literature: $12,500 (You can read their statement about the NEA cut here.)

• American Short Fiction (one of the best literary magazines in publication): $20,000

• AGNI Magazine (from which seven featured writers have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature): $25,000

Sending money to any of these places would be a great way to fight back. But so would buying books or journals or theater tickets.

It’s not as if there’s a trail of crumbs straight from the NEA cuts to this parade. But when your priority is to defund the things that give people a voice and to fund the things that scare people into silence, it’s hard not to see them as two sides of one coin.

And let’s be clear that all of these—ALL of the organizations on the list, all the children and emerging artists and audience members and readers and employees and communities affected—could have been funded nearly twice over with the money being wasted on one ridiculous military circle jerk.

Today, more than 1.800 cities in the US will hold “No Kings” events. The demonstration held alongside Boston’s Pride Parade is being called “No Kings but Yaaas Queen!” which is absolutely the energy we need this summer.

I’m in rural Vermont and will be teaching today, so I can’t march—but I’m going to wear a good resistance t-shirt and buy myself some books and journals. Whether or not you’re out in the streets today, I hope you can join me.

*not an actual bunker

Here’s how this post came together:

1. My birthday was more than two weeks ago, and ON my birthday a Facebook* memory popped up with photos my sister posted in some previous year. So I was like, Ooh, TODAY, I will make a Substack post and share these and do a subscription discount because that seems vaguely festive.

*yeah, I know

It cracks me up that in none of my baby or toddler pictures do I look like an actual baby or toddler. Maybe it’s because I was scrawny and the color of meringue, but I always either look deeply haunted or like a baby from one of those medieval paintings where babies uncannily have the proportions of adults.

Anyway, here I am on my first birthday, in 1979. You know, your first birthday, the day when you’re supposed to be chubby and jolly and covered in cake. I look like I have full memories of my past life and have been talking on my new phone to spirits of the dead.

2. So, my birthday slipped by and then I was thinking I’d still do this post, but it would be kind of weird to be like “It’s not my birthday anymore, it’s just a random day in late April, but here’s a discount code.”

3. Then I decided it didn’t matter and I hadn’t posted in a while and should put SOMETHING up, but

4. despite my very healthy habit of keeping about 80 browser tabs open at once, I lost the one that was open to those photos, and

5. since it was no longer the right day, they weren’t there in my FB Memories anymore.

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Meanwhile, here’s another photo, and again I want to emphasize that I was one year old. It’s maybe a couple months later. (See bang length.) Most likely the summer, when other people are not the same ghostly color as their ecru t-shirts. I feel like this one would be a decent pensive/ironic Author Photo Face if I were not a literal toddler.

6. Then I was going to wait till the math made some kind of sense. Originally my plan was to do a 20% discount because my birthday was on the 20th. This did not make as much sense when it was the 29th and I just turned 47. Too many prime numbers, not much to work with.

7. Now that math was involved, it became an Impossible Task.

8. Until!

9. Having completed my abysmal novel draft, I set about today to start my retroactive outline. It is deeply frustrating. You know what’s more fun than that?

10. Substack!

11. So, here you go: If you aren’t already a paid subscriber, you can use this for 20% off for the year. Link is good through May 13. https://rebeccamakkai.substack.com/d9b83f30

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Also, send me your questions!

It’s been a long time since I did a Writing Advice AMA, so I’m going to do one soon. Comment below if you’re a paid subscriber and you have a burning (or just itchy) writing/publishing question. I’m also good at romantic advice. And book recs. That’s about it.

Also up soon: More posts about point of view, diving into 2nd person (which you probably use more often than you think) and 3rd person (lord help us all).

I will leave you with this photo, which proves that by age 7 I had learned how to smile, albeit in a distant, eerie way, as if I’m remembering what my village looked like before it was destroyed in the floods.

Here’s the inside scoop on each, hacks for applying, and heyyyyy you should come write with me in France this fall! (A quick link for that, if you don’t want to read this whole thing.)

Part two of my Point of View series will come at you next week—I did not forget!

Briefly, what is what?

An artists’ residency is a place you apply to, and you go there just to write, near other artists who are also at work.

A retreat is similar, but usually shorter, and usually you just sign up—and they might not be in a dedicated year-round spot. Sometimes there’s an instructor.

A conference could look like any other conference (name badges! tepid coffee! panels!) or it might be application-based for a few intense days of workshopping and more.

Residencies:

Technically, Cosimo de Medici started the very first one… But in their modern form, these places first came about in the 1920s. (Yaddo, in NY state, and MacDowell, in New Hampshire, are the OGs.)

In most cases, you apply with a work sample, a CV, an artist statement and/or work plan, and maybe some letters of recommendation. Some of the oldest and most prestigious fully fund your residency, and others charge a fee or have a sliding scale for payment.

For a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months, you’ll have a bedroom, and possibly a separate studio. At some places, group meals are served; at some, lunch is left outside your door; at some, you take turns cooking. You might be the only person there, or there might be dozens of artists working in all disciplines.

Only at a very few of these are you required to report on your work in any way, or to engage with the community. You are free to work, make friends, wander the grounds, and commune with the ghosts. (My fruit picture above was taken in the studio where both Sylvia Plath and Patricia Highsmith wrote. I was not tempted to waste time.)

They are often in beautiful locations, and a number are in converted mansions or castles.

This is a wildly incomplete list, intended more as a list of examples than of specific recommendations:

But here IS a specific recommendation. Ragdale is north of Chicago on acres of tall-grass prairie, in the former home of an Arts and Crafts architect. There are many reasons it’s my favorite residency, but one is that magic, inexplicable things always happen to me (and other people) there.

They have one application deadline for all of 2026, and it’s coming up on May 1st. I strongly encourage you to apply!

What you should know about applying to residences:

• You do not need to already be wildly successful. Some residencies even have grant money earmarked for “emerging artists,” so you actually stand a BETTER chance before your first book is out than after, when you’re up against the general pool.

• Each application is usually read by two file readers (artists in that field) who score you on various factors (work sample, artist statement, etc.). You’re then up against other artists who have applied for the same exact time period, with all kinds of considerations like studio needs, genre balance, etc. If you scored a 19 and enough other people scored a 20, you might not get that spot. But it does not mean that the entire institution has “rejected” you, just that one reader gave you a 10 and the other gave you a 9, and you happened to be up against, like, Salman Rushdie. Apply again.

• Submit your very best, most polished work—which is probably not the work-in-progress that you’ll be there to grapple with. If you’re an accomplished poet who’s hoping to spend your residency time starting a memoir, send your poems, not your memoir draft.

• Work hard on a clear artist statement or work plan, if one is required. Explain why you need this residency, and why now. Your chances are much better if you (honestly) say that you’re working under deadline to finish this specific novel and need time away from your lovely three-year-old, rather than “I think I’ll experiment with some new stuff, maybe.”

• You’re usually asked which windows you could come for. Check ANY of them that you could possibly swing, not just the most convenient. Your chances will go way up. And since so many artists are on an academic schedule, it’s significantly harder to get accepted for summer than, say, January.

• People often switch their residency slot after they’re accepted. Please don’t mess with the lovely residency coordinators on purpose, but don’t let the fact that you aren’t 100% positive of your schedule a year from now stop you from applying. It’s quite possible there’s wiggle room.

• If you are waitlisted, you might check back in (politely!) a month or two before the time you were hoping for. Very often there’s been a cancellation, and you might have saved the residency director a lot of emails trying to fill the spot.
  

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Retreats:

There’s some overlap, but generally (with exceptions), retreats are paid, not application-based, and don’t live year-round at a certain location. A specific weekend getaway in Vancouver for women writing about grief, with an instructor, is a retreat. So is you getting a Vrbo with three friends and working till cocktail hour each day.

These are photos of the weekend and weeklong retreats StoryStudio runs at Ragdale, between Ragdale’s normal residency sessions. We also sometimes do them at a hotel in Chicago.

Okay, here’s the France part!

I’m leading at a retreat this September (20-27) in France with Uptrek, an organization that does beautiful artist retreats in Europe. There are 6 spots left (of 15) and I have not posted about it yet on social media, but I’m about to, so if you’re interested this is a do-it-fast thing.

We’ll be staying at Chateau de Bardouly, an estate from the Napoleonic era in the heart of the Dordogne region, near mountains and rivers and famous cave paintings and various baguettes. The week’s theme is “Writing Fiction with Confidence, Joy, and Singularity”—in other words, we’ll be generating new work and shedding old habits and negativities. We’ll be there to learn, write, eat, connect with other writers, AND enjoy a short reprieve from whatever fresh hell is going on in the US.

It costs what you’d expect (not cheap), but you all know where else to find me if France is not in your budget this year. Here’s the link to register, if you’re interested, and feel free to email contact@uptrek.com with any questions.

Conferences:

These are generally not the places where you’re going to get writing done, although maybe you’ll sneak in a few minutes alone.

There are big conference-conferences (what I think of as “notebook” conferences, in that you’re mostly there to take notes at lectures and panels). The biggest one, AWP, is coming up next weekend in LA. It’s usually upwards of 10,000 people. If you (like me) are into chaos and seeing everyone you know at once, it’s heaven. If you aren’t, it’s probably not. There are also lovely small ones.

Then there are workshop conferences, the ones where you apply to work with a certain writer. You usually have some mixture of workshopping, craft talks, readings, and parties. In some cases, these are great places to learn about publishing as well, and to meet agents or editors. In some cases, that’s kept separate. The Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont was the first in the world, and it’s about to turn 100.

These can be pricey, although often there are fellowships. If you’re thinking of the kind with agents in the mix, and you can only swing this once in your life, do it when you have a finished manuscript. It’s not that you’ll necessarily meet your dream agent there, but you’ll learn a ton about publishing, you’ll sharpen your craft, and you’ll meet supportive friends.

These are often in gorgeous places. Many are in summer, but Key West is in January and you’ll find others sprinkled through the spring and fall.

Another incomplete list, although in this case I’m vouching for all of these as being fantastic—either personally or through students and friends. The Kenyon one is different in that it’s generative (designed for you to produce new work).

And here’s a specific one I can very much vouch for, because I helped put it together. StoryStudio’s August conference lineup just came out, and I don’t know why Substack won’t let me do a heart-eye emoji but please just imagine one. It’s a week of workshops and craft talks, and if you’re there in person you can stick around Chicago for our Festival that weekend. We have fellowships this year, too!

You should apply. And even better, you should do it BEFORE 11:59 pm on April 30th, to save our staff their annual heart attacks. (For two months: “Why hasn’t anyone applied? We only have seven applications!” Last ten possible minutes: “Oh, holy—okay, never mind.”)

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What I wish I knew ten years ago:

This is for people with young kids. Listen carefully. You’re not going to believe me, but I am 100% serious and correct: It is easier to do this stuff when your kids are young than when they’re teenagers.

I’m going to say it again, with different words: If your kids are under twelve years of age and you can possibly swing it, go now. Do it.

Here’s why. First: You need your brain back. You need to be able to write a sex scene without worrying your toddler will wake up from naptime. You need to juggle all the pieces of your book without also keeping track of soccer snacks. All that stuff will (maybe) get easier when your kids are old enough that they just come home from school and shut their doors and emerge at 10 pm to inhale some pasta.

Second: Young kids will forget that you were ever gone. Young kids are resilient and easily bribed with small gifts. Young kids usually have small problems. If your toddler has a crisis while you’re away, it’s likely along the lines of “I wanted the pink yogurt but Nana gave me the blue yogurt.” If your 16-year-old has a crisis while you’re away, the odds are much higher that it involves risky behavior, mental health, grades that matter, and/or some asshole lacrosse player named Aidan.

Of course this won’t work for everyone, and it’s contingent on a great support system and a flexible job, but I’m not necessarily talking about weeks away, or flying to another country. It might look like two nights at the Hampton Inn one town south.

Believe me. Show this to your partner, if they need convincing.

And if you ever say in front of me “I couldn’t possibly go away while they’re so little, I’ll wait till they’re older!” you will get this lecture again, but it will involve me grabbing your shoulders and talking too loudly.

Questions?

If you’re a paid subscriber, please feel free to ask questions below and I’ll do my best to answer!

Three things:

1. My class on point of view for Five Things I Learned is available now as a recording, click GET TICKET to purchase; you (and you only, and I guess anyone else reading this) can use the code SUBSTACK10 to get 10 dollars off. We had fun, and while I’ll be diving into most of these issues in depth as part of my POV series here, it can help a lot to hear someone just talk about the stuff.

   

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2. I got to partner with Eventbrite to make a curated list of literary and literary-adjacent happenings in Chicago over the next month—everything from readings to live lit events to Japanese paper-making to a bus tour. Below is the not-quite-TikTok I made to introduce it, and here’s the link to get the app with the list.

3. I’m going to be leading a retreat this fall in a place that is ridiculously beautiful and not in the US. I’m supposed to open registration in a limited way, and my tech-unsavvy attempt at this is is to post the details below the paywall. (If you’re dying to know and aren’t a paid subscriber, you can maybe get there with some deep internet sleuthing, and/or I’ll be posting it publicly soon if it isn’t full!)

   So, read on if you want to meet me abroad in September… Otherwise, more soon, and vive la résistance!

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Early in my career I decided that it was my duty to write at least twice as many blurbs as I received. I believe I’ve written about twenty times as many, and I’ve been happy to do it, but I’m making myself take at least two years off from blurbing anything at all.

This post is both my announcement of that fact (as in, if you’re a writer, I probably adore you, but please do not ask me for a blurb) and, as a parting gift to the world of blurbage, a best practices guide for those seeking blurbs. And it might also be a window into this weird part of the publishing world for those who don’t know about it.

Three things broke me:

First, I decided that this year I was going to protect my time and blurb next to nothing, making only the very rare exception for a great reason (a former student, a close friend, etc.) and yet I ended up with about twenty things to blurb this summer and fall alone. So it’s going to have to be a hard-line no blurbs policy for a while. If I make one exception, I’ll make two dozen exceptions.

Second, I got a blurb request for a friend through their publisher. This is someone I like and admire, someone who did something nice for me in the past, and I was willing to make one of those exceptions and prioritize it at an extremely busy time. Blurbing this book meant not working on my own, not doing other things I needed or wanted to do, for the twelve hours or so, spread over several days, that it took to read. When the book came out (and I need to emphasize here that this was the fault of the publisher, not the author), my blurb was not on the book. Not even inside the book. They had over-asked, and my blurb was relegated to Amazon. I’m not writhing with anger or anything, but it really made me question how I was allocating my time.

Finally: I realized that in the past year, I’ve been able to finish only two books in my project of reading my way around the world in 84 books. Two. I had meant to do at least one a month. My current book, The Conscript, is a slim Eritrean novella that I should have finished in two days, and instead I’ve been stalled for months on page 28 because every time I try to go back to it, I remember there’s something else I urgently have to read instead.

What are blurbs and how do they work?

Plenty has been written about the history of the blurb, so I won’t repeat it all here except to say that yes, it’s apparently true that the word originated in 1907 with this fictional character, Belinda Blurb, on the cover of Gelett Burgess’s Are You a Bromide? and I guess we’re all still in on the joke—or maybe we are the joke, hard to tell.

You can read about that elsewhere (I mean, I pretty much just told you the story), but here are seven quick thoughts/pieces of info on the modern day world of blurbing:

1. Earlier in my career I would never have believed how many blurb requests some authors get. As of this fall, I was getting about five to ten requests a week. And I’m sure there are people out there getting a lot more. I do think it’s important for writers to understand this when they set out to procure blurbs.

2. They do matter, and not just to readers. The reviewers who get early copies are going to notice the blurbs, as will the people booking guests on radio shows, booksellers deciding how many to order, etc. I’ve judged book prizes for which each judge was responsible for reading 150 books, and yes, compelling blurbs will probably push something to the top of the stack.

3. As an author, I pay attention to blurbs for only two reasons:
   1) To see what kind of book this is. A book blurbed by Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith is going to be very different from a book blurbed by Stephen King and Louise Penny, which will be different from one blurbed by Jodi Picoult and Jacquelyn Mitchard.
   2) To see if there’s any truly over-the-top praise from someone trusted, like “This is the most exciting new voice I’ve read in decades.”
   Otherwise, blurbs really only tell you who this author knows or studied with, or who their agent and editor know. Sometimes I’ll look at the blurbs on a debut and go, “Ahh, this person clearly got their MFA at Columbia, because everyone blurbing is on faculty there.” Which still tells me nothing about the quality of the book.

4. Blurbing is hard, and it takes a lot of time. In addition to the reading time (and some of us, including me, are slow readers) it’s hard to actually write the dang things. It’s difficult not to sound trite, and not to repeat yourself from the last ten you wrote.

5. Blurbs are happening sooner in the process. In the fourteen (!) years since my first book came out, it’s increasingly the practice to procure most of the blurbs for the ARC (advance reading copy), which does make sense (see #2, above)… but it’s also becoming more common for writers and agents to ask for blurbs before the book goes out on submission, as a way of promising potential editors that this book has some good support behind it. And it’s also becoming more common for authors to reach out before they’ve even found an agent, asking a friend or former professor to pre-pre-pre-blurb the thing. All of this is fine, and probably smart, but I’ve never loved the idea of signing off on something that’s going to change drastically before it appears in the world. What if I said it was hilarious and then it gets edited into a serious novel about pancreatic cancer? Now I look like a maniac.

6. Very few people get to outgrow blurbs these days, it seems. Once upon a time, blurbs were for first novels, or at least early novels. Authors who had already achieved pretty decent success could fill the back cover with “praise for [the author’s last book]” or even (terrifyingly) a giant photo of their face. It seems now like only a handful of mega-bestselling or Pulitzer-winning authors can get away with no blurbs. There are people-you-read-in-high-school out there blurb hunting.

   

7. The big, dirty secret: Authors haven’t always read all of (or even any of) a book they’ve blurbed. Sometimes it’s just that the blurber has gotten through 5/6 of the book, the blurb is due, and rather than jilt the writer, they go ahead and write something. (I have done this, I will admit.) But there are plenty of stories of people barely glancing at the book and writing one, or asking the book’s author to write the blurb, which they’ll then put their name to. There’s great risk to that; what if the last twenty pages of the book goes all in for fluoride conspiracy theories, or says something sexist, or just… sucks? Now your name is on that thing forever.

Okay, some practical stuff.

Here’s what a less-effective blurb request looks like:

Dear ____,

When I was thinking of people to blurb my book, I immediately thought of you. My debut novel, LOVE IN THE TIME OF ACID REFLUX, is coming out next year. I would love to send it to you.

Thanks in advance!

And here’s why it might not be effective:

1. I do not believe you’ve read any of my books, and I don’t have any idea why I’m the person you thought of. Maybe you’ve just heard my name?

2. You have told me nothing of what your book is about. You’re asking me to spend days reading a 300+ page book; you need to hook me on the premise and plot just like you’d hook any prospective reader.

3. You have not mentioned a publisher. I’m going to assume, therefore, that you don’t have one and you’re self-publishing. That’s fine if true, but if you’re coming out with Knopf you probably want to say so.

4. You have not provided any kind of timeline for when I would have to turn this blurb in.

Here’s a much better letter:

Dear ______,

I doubt you remember me, but I introduced myself to you after your panel on “Writing Home” at AWP last year. I loved what you had to say about setting, and after the conference I read and absolutely devoured [the author’s latest novel]—and it became a sort of touchstone for me as I completed edits on my own first book.

I know you’re inundated with blurb requests, but I can’t help taking a shot. HEAVENS TO BETSY is a literary novel with elements of horror, and I hope it might be up your alley. 94-year-old Betsy Sinclair is the last living resident of her nursing home after an apocalyptic solar flash leaves ninety-nine percent of Philadelphia destroyed. Alone with their bodies and her memories, she has all the time in the world to read through the diaries her fellow residents kept—and to learn that one of them knew a lot about the murder of Betsy’s husband in the 1970s.

The book will be published by Snickers Books, an imprint of Harcourt & Schuster, in September of next year. I am, naturally, terrified. If you happened to be up for blurbing, they’re telling me that the deadline for the ARC would be January 3rd and the deadline for the finished book would be June 11th. Would you let me know if you might be interested in receiving a copy, and—if so—where we could send one?

With great appreciation,
Nervous Author

Best Practices for Those Seeking Blurbs:

• Give people as much lead time as possible. Ideally six months. Definitely not three weeks.

• If you don’t know the author you’re asking very well, explain why you’re asking them in particular.

• Sell the person on your book. Unless you’re my friend or student, why on earth would I say yes to a request when all I know about the book is the title? I have infinite other things to read, things that look and sound compelling.

• Explain, in your email, when the book will be published, and by whom.

• Don’t over-ask. Communicate with your press about how many people they’re asking, as well. Three to six blurbs is plenty. Maybe you could get as many as eight people saying yes, assuming a couple will fall through. Don’t get twenty yeses. You’re taking those authors’ time away from other projects, and other blurbs.

• It’s okay (and often helpful) to get back in touch to remind people of the blurb deadline a week or two in advance. Something like “Hi, I just wanted to remind you that the deadline is approaching on 2/12 for my blurbs. Do you still think you’ll have a chance to get to it? I’m so grateful for your time!”

• Do not take it personally when an author can’t blurb, or when they don’t manage to answer your email. If you’re asking someone successful enough, their inbox is overflowing with blurb requests.

• Don’t take it too personally when someone promises to blurb and then doesn’t come through. It probably was not because they read your book and didn’t like it. It was more likely because they got ridiculously busy and overwhelmed.

• Thank the author. Effusively. Some people send little thank-you gifts. At the very least, make sure the author receives a finished hardcover when the time comes. Post the blurbs on social media; this thanks the author and helps your book.

• You should not feel embarrassed or awkward to be asking for blurbs. Everyone successful enough for you to approach has, necessarily, been through this from your side of things. When I was about twelve I was mortified to go into Kmart (uncool!) with my mother and asked to stay in the car, where I could hide. She was like, “You do understand that anyone who sees you in the Kmart is, themselves, in the Kmart, right…?” Same principle.

• Under no circumstances can you take a professor’s written comments on a story you workshopped, or something someone sent you casually in an email, and use it as a blurb. This has happened to friends. Don’t do it.

• Do not claim you got a glowing blurb from an author who recently died. Some guy did this a while back (I’ve been searching for the story with no luck, but please post below if you know the one I’m talking about!) and people didn’t catch on till he’d done it with like three books in a row. I almost admire the nerve of the guy, but wow.

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Best Practices for Editors/Publicists:

• Cold-sending an advance copy of a book to an author with a note that says “I hope you might have time to read this and let us know what you think!” could not be more cryptic. Are you asking for blurbs? A review? Are you just hoping for a friendly email from me, for some reason?

• Good lord, an author who has blurbed a book should not have to beg for a copy of the hardcover. And they’re unlikely to go to the bookstore to shell out $26 for a book they’ve already read. This is someone who already loves the book, whose words are on it, and they are quite likely to post the thing on Instagram once it’s in their hands. You know what I’m not going to post to Instagram? The stack of white paper you had bound at Kinkos to send me originally.

• You can squeeze one more blurb onto that cover, or onto the flaps, or in the front matter, if you’ve over-asked. If I can fit all my kids’ summer camp stuff into one car, you can definitely do this.

• It’s so, so lovely when you step in and blurb hunt on behalf of debut authors who don’t really know anyone yet. My editor and agent each got me one blurb for my debut (from people they knew but I didn’t), plus my agent magically found the home address of another author who had previously liked my work and had the book messengered to him. I got the fourth blurb myself! And it was terrifying.

Best Practices for Blurbers:

• I always go long on purpose, and then tell the author/editor that they’re free to edit as necessary.

• Try to get the name of the book into the blurb, so it can work as a standalone quote.

• Try to get a couple of useful adjectives in there, so the publisher can pull out just that adjective for the cover, if they want. Like, “Splendid!” - Toni Morrison.

• If it turns out that for logistical reasons you can’t fulfill your promise (vague or solid) to blurb, let the author know as soon as possible, and assure them it wasn’t because of the book.

• If you have to turn down someone you know or wish good things for, you could always offer that you’d love a finished copy down the road, for sharing on your social media or for general word-of-mouth. Don’t promise anything you can’t deliver, of course. (And askers, if you hear “I’d love an early copy for whatever,” it’s not great form to follow up months later asking why they haven’t posted about it. Word of mouth might mean they’ll read it a year later and tell everyone they love it, or it might mean they gift it. Just take the nice gesture.)

• If you’re blurbing and you find a factual error or the kind of slip-up that might not have been fixed in later copy edits, do not tell the author. Get in touch with the author’s agent or editor and let them know. If there’s nothing to be done, they don’t have to tell the already-panicking author. If it’s fixable, they’ll get it fixed.

• Don’t promise something that’s not in the book. If the book is mildly funny and you say it’s a laugh-riot, you’re setting readers up for disappointment—and it’s not the author’s fault.

• On rare occasions, when I already knew the author’s work but absolutely wouldn’t have time to read the book, I let them know this and volunteered to write a blurb that was more about them as a writer than about the book. This is risky unless you fully trust the author, but it can also help a writer in a pinch. Something like “_______ is a writer of uncommon intelligence and humor” works nicely. (Readers: If you’re on the lookout, you’ll spot blurbs like these. Ones that say nice things about the author and their writing, but not about this book.)

• If you’ve already gone to the trouble of blurbing the book, it really is great to post about it online when it’s published and support that author in other ways, too. You might be one of the few people in a position to do that.

One More Parting Gift to You:

For any authors struggling to write a blurb right now, you are welcome to steal any of the following.

For a book you liked:

This book wrenched my guts and broke my heart. A stunning meditation on [cheese] and what it means to [be a mouse] in turbulent times, it’s an assured and ambitious debut.

For a book you did not love and want to say only neutral things about:

This book, set against the vivid landscape of [eastern Nebraska], asks what it means to be human, and what it means to be free. Never before has the story of [the invention of pretzels] been told, but here it is in your hands.

For a book you didn’t read:

Any new book by [Stormi L’Amour] is a major occasion. What a masterful writer!

For a book you actively hated but for some reason are still blurbing:

The most disturbing story about [flour milling] in recent memory. Brave!

For an author you want to keep up all night wondering what the hell you meant:

This is hands down [Blankenship]’s best work!

I haven’t said much publicly about my next novel, and I’m not ready to say everything, but it’s based on real events and concerns, in part, the rise of home-grown American fascism. (This post is not an announcement of my book—I’ll talk about the actual topic down the road—but a chance to share some of the things I’ve learned as I research.)

A lot of friends have been shocked when I mention that in the 1930s there were dozens of Nazi summer camps for children, everywhere from Long Island to Wisconsin. Up until October, people used to be shocked when I told them there was a full Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939, replete with antisemitic and racist speeches. That was before Trump’s dog-whistle rally, eerily similar. The promise of the rally was to “restore America to the true Americans.”

Sorry, I did not specify which rally. The Nazi one.

These two things can both be true: You can recognize the knell of fascism and also feel like you’re up to the fight.

If you’re someone who is NOT okay with hearing some alarming things about fascism right now, please feel free to skip to Part 2, which is about a plan for action.

For everyone else, here’s…

Part 1:

Someone comes along when times are hard and points to a “foreign” element as the cause of all your woes, and calls for “mass deportation”; he cherry picks isolated, statistically insignificant incidents that make these people seem like a violent threat; he promises a return to a time when everything was great, but can’t tell you what year that was; he tells the men who’ve felt powerless that they are owed power simply by being men; he tries to control conception and contraception; he stirs people’s fears of everything but heterosexual coupledom—putting those who don’t conform to traditional gender roles among his first targets; he talks about moral virtue being linked to genetics; he directly threatens journalists who oppose him; he says he’d like the journalists shot; his followers take it upon themselves to ban books; he shouts about religion but sees it only as a tool; he expresses admiration for other totalitarian leaders; he talks about “the enemy from within,” and conditions his followers to see their neighbors as a communist force to be feared and therefore attacked…

And despite the fact that we’ve seen it before, we’ve seen literally all of it before, half the country falls for it.

Here’s what comes next (and I mean next year): He’ll at the very least declare a state of emergency in order to bypass what’s left of our system of checks and balances; he might, taking a cue from South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol, declare martial law; people you’d never imagine folding in the face of totalitarianism will fold like cheap construction paper; he’ll keep throwing constant rallies for himself; he’ll do everything he can to control the media, possibly with success (cf: Hungary’s Viktor Orbán).

But they’re not the same, because they aren’t completely identical in every way! That is true. Hitler was a vegetarian.

Stop it, I mean Hitler came in there shouting and threatening, and that’s how everyone should have known he was bad! No, Hitler wasn’t usually shouting. Those are just the videos we see. He posed for a lot of photos with sweet children, and people ate it up. Hitler and Goebbels both used humor very effectively. (I’m not saying I find anything they said funny, just that this was the intended and perceived effect.)

But Trump isn’t smart enough to mastermind anything! That is probably true. This man is even dumber than Hitler. What he is very good at, because he’s a narcissist, is keeping everyone around him in a never-ending competition to win his favor (much like Hitler). And in turn, he’s quite easily influenced by the most extreme thinkers around him, because he’s quickly bored and extremes are stimulating.

Come on, he’s not about to commit genocide. No, you’re right, he’s just promising to deport hundreds of thousands of people with no plan for where to put them besides detention camps. What could possibly go wrong?

The world is different now. Yes. The climate is at a more crucial tipping point than ever; large parts of the earth are at risk of becoming uninhabitable, sending the world into financial and political as well as environmental catastrophe; and we just elected someone who thinks climate change is a hoax.

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Part 2:

Something I’ve had to accept, in researching and writing this book, is that many of the people who fell for fascism in the 1930s were neither inherently evil nor idiots. They were deeply misinformed, and therefore manipulable.

One reason it’s so, so important for us to realize this: Otherwise, people who know themselves not to be evil, and not to be idiots, will assume they are too good and too smart to fall for the manipulations of narcissistic leaders. Many good and smart people saw through Hitler, but many good and smart people also fell for it all.

The internet helps us live in tiny information villages. It feeds people a far greater quantity of propaganda than was available in 1930s Europe. And as anyone who’s ever tried to get through to a conspiracy-believing uncle on Facebook can attest, it’s nearly impossible to convince someone that what they’ve been reading online isn’t true.

One reason people were so susceptible to propaganda in the 1930s was that it was based in unprecedented advances in both communications technologies (radio, film, cheaply produced printed material and posters) and advertising. Otherwise intelligent people were not equipped to filter out information as potentially manipulative. Similar things have happened in the past 20 years: Older generations used to taking TV news and official-looking printed matter as legitimate do not have the framework for understanding Fox News as propaganda. Younger people have a hard time resisting internet wormholes because we have not, as a species, figured out ways to resist the manipulations of overwhelming bias confirmation.

To campaign online, to debate online, to try to spread facts online, is to pit ourselves against a tide of so much misinformation that we don’t stand a chance.

Here’s what I propose: We need a campaign of facts and information that happens off the internet and starts now.

Here are some ways that could work:

• On the back of toilet stall doors in gas stations and truck stops and fast food restaurants across the country are fliers with one single, significant fact. No opinions, no political mantras, just facts. Things like “Immigrants commit far less crime per capita than native-born citizens,” or “Guns are now the leading cause of death of children in the US,” or “Sea levels are rising because of preventable climate change.” Next to the fact are three or four solid sources for the information. And below, it says Do your own research; find out more, followed by a QR code. The QR code takes them to a web page that explains the fact and links to the sources.
  What we’d need is a website compiling and putting up, say, three new facts every two months. Each page would have a printable version, and people who volunteered for the project would receive emails with printable versions of each flier. If you get just 100 people putting up 100 fliers each every couple of months, minus all the ones people deface or take down, times the number of people who see and read each flier, that’s… who knows, but a lot. Plus, people could of course just link to the pages on social media; the internet does count for something.

• We need large organizations to buy up TV and radio ads now, unrelated to any election, sharing facts backed up by sources.

• We need to talk to older Americans about checking sources on “news” they get online, in email forwards, on Fox, on podcasts. Teach them about Snopes, at least. (The one superpower of Gen X is our deep skepticism, and this might be the moment to deploy it for everyone’s good.) We need to talk to younger Americans about the algorithms that pull them into TikTok and YouTube whirlpools. We need to advocate for true media literacy to be taught in schools.

Sending out zillions of postcards two weeks before an election is not working. But the slow drip of education might do something.

I probably do not have the web skills or organizing experience to make something like a bathroom flier campaign a reality, but if you do, please get in touch. I’m good with a roll of Scotch tape, at least.

And meanwhile, I’m very happy to be writing the novel I’m writing. It’s fiction, but fiction is a pretty great way of getting the facts across, too.

1) Speak at this amazing political event in Chicago on Sunday, which you should attend:

Honestly, two days before the election you’re going to want to be somewhere supportive and galvanizing.

Hosted by restaurateur/activist Rohini Dey at her legendary Chicago restaurant Vermillion, this event will feature the above women standing on a literal soapbox (Will I fall off? Maybe!) and talking briefly about policy. Not “Hey, we should vote,” but specific info and calls to action that will be vital no matter what happens on 11/5. It’s also a fundraiser for the Harris campaign—money this late in the game being essential for legal battles likely ahead. Lots of gourmet food, all genders welcome. Tickets are here!

2) Quit X

This is hard to do partly for sentimental reasons, the same reasons it would be hard to throw away old scrapbooks. I often had a blast on there, and there are some really meaningful friendships that started from mutual follows or direct messages. Then again, in the analogue world we aren’t usually able to hold onto, and revisit, the origins of a friendship.

I also stayed on there to fact-shame right-wingers, but it’s not worth patronizing hell just to argue with the demons.

I haven’t posted original content beyond promo stuff in ages, but it’s still important to quit, and I urge everyone to join me on Threads, which is really fun. I’ll likely keep X through election night and then (before the terms of service change in horrible ways that make a hellish place more hellish), I’ll delete absolutely everything and (maybe?) just keep my handle up as a placeholder so no one takes it. Anyway: If you’re still there, please quit with me.

3) Teach a Short Story Class Online

I’ve posted about this before, so I’ll just keep it brief: Join, and I’ll teach you literally everything I know about writing and revising short stories and placing them in magazines and putting together collections. Four sessions starting 11/12; you can watch live or on recording.

4) Get Dressed Up

The CHIRBy (Chicago Review of Books) Awards have always been a low-key and invite-only thing in a bookstore, except for the one year we went big. That was a blast, and Chicago deserves the kind of dress-up-and-celebrate books event that NYC has so many of, so… we’re doing that again. Stories Matter Foundation (the nonprofit umbrella for StoryStudio Chicago and the CHIRB) is throwing an actual bash, and I’m hosting, and you should come if you’re local. We want the entire Chicago writing world to show up… Snacks, drinks, socializing, photos, and awards, downtown in the Fine Arts Building. Tickets are free, but a small donation is requested to allow the CHIRB to continue its amazing work.

And here are four things I already did:

1) I got to read a Jhumpa Lahiri story for the New Yorker Fiction Podcast!

I was able to choose any New Yorker story that hadn’t been done yet and was short enough, and I was kind of shocked to learn no one had ever picked Lahiri.

“The Third and Final Continent” was a tremendously emotional story for me to read—you can hear why in the interview after the reading—but I had a blast doing it.

2) I Wrote About Not Throwing Away Your Precious Vote

The 270 Reasons project asked 270 people (George Saunders, Khaled Hosseini, Percival Everett, Jeff Daniels…) to write briefly about why they’re voting for Harris. I love these essays (Dave Eggers’ essay is particularly useful for showing any decently-educated Republicans), and I was thrilled to write one. Mine is aimed specifically at the most liberal among us, those considering a protest vote. You can read it here.

3) I Interviewed Susan Choi and Now You Can Watch It

I recently interviewed the brilliant Susan Choi about her entire body of work, and now the video is up right here.

4) I Interviewed Margaret Atwood and…

Okay, here’s a mini photo essay:

Earlier this month, I got to interview Margaret Atwood for an event through WBEZ and the University Club of Chicago. She was hilarious and brilliant, of course.

Here we are skipping off into the sunset:

But!! Since the event was in the Art Institute of Chicago’s theater space, she got a private tour beforehand in the closed museum, which I got to tag along on. The photos are by David T. Kindler, who should be in charge of all author event photos forever.

At this point, I was fairly convinced I was dreaming.

We ended up in the Greek and Roman gallery, in front of the statue of Leda and the swan:

Whereupon, after a brief discussion of bird genitalia, Margaret Atwood started telling us at length about the Reykjavik Penis Museum (which, upon further investigation, seems to technically be called the Icelandic Phallological Museum.

Anyway, if you ever wondered what Margaret Atwood is like in real life, the answer is: More like Margaret Atwood than you could possibly imagine.

That’s all, but now that I’ve discovered it, I really need to leave you with this quote from the Icelandic Phallological Museum’s Wikipedia page: “In July 2011, the museum obtained its first human penis, one of many promised by would-be donors. Its detachment from the donor's body did not go according to plan…”

As well as this unhinged logo:

You’re welcome.

Please go vote now.

If you care to, please feel free to share in the comments anything they inspire…

In this batch is where we get my apparent obsession with Michael Dukakis, plus school science fairs, ukuleles, and janitors. Why? We’ll never know.

184. Write the first line of something. It must include a thunderstorm, the Miss USA pageant, a senatorial election, the word "partial," and the name Stephanie.

185. Write a story, poem, or essay addressed to Kermit the Frog. It does not need to be ABOUT Kermit the Frog, and in fact it's better if it isn't. It's just narrated to him.

186. Humans have never observed eels mating. Ever. Eel mating has never been witnessed. This is a true thing. Write about it.

     

187. Put a jigsaw puzzle in your story, one that's driving your characters nuts, but for Pete's sake don't make it symbolic.

188. Write about a fictional academic conference for a thing that you're obsessed with and know way too much about anyway.

189. The story starts with someone peeling bark off a birch tree, includes a Jell-O recipe gone awry, an angry asbestos instructor, and a fire sale, and it ends when June finally tells her husband what's in the coffee can. It's a story about vengeance.

190. Put a school science fair in your work-in-progress. Not a memory of one, an actual one. Maybe your character has to judge, or maybe it's going on down the hall from something else. Maybe their kid is doing an experiment with peas.

191. Let your characters have the most ridiculously elaborate dinner possible. Describe it way too much. You can always cut back later.

192. Write a full paragraph about your own wrists.

193. Write a story that's set on a yacht. Your point-of-view character is tremendously uncomfortable.

     

194. Write a physical description of the worst teacher you had in high school. But be kind.

195. How do people get your name wrong? How do you feel about it?

196. Your specific memories of National Geographic Magazine.

197. Your story needs more marshmallows.

198. Write the first line of something new. It must contain the word "salamander," a joke about Richard Nixon, a solar panel, and a bagel with cream cheese.

199. Take a scene you've set in a restaurant, kitchen, or coffeeshop, and instead put it in: 1) a museum of natural history 2) a Michaels 3) the bleachers at a high school graduation.

200. Put more weather in your story, but not rain. Give a character a sunburn or throw in a tornado watch or an air quality warning. Don't make it symbolic; make it change something.

201. The story starts when Danny, late to work, opens a liter of root beer from the fridge and it explodes all over the kitchen. There's no time to clean it up, so the roommates are going to come home to this.

202. Write about getting a milkshake with an historical figure.

203. Write a story, poem, or essay called "Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby"

204. A diamond bracelet in the parking lot. There's no one around it could belong to. So it's yours.

205. Three people are sitting around having a crying contest. They're trying to see who can make themselves cry first.

206. Make up a saint.

     

207. Swimmer's ear*
     A black bear
     A hangover
     Eugene Debs
     Fiddlehead ferns
     Miss Universe
     Botox
     Salami
     A foghorn

     The carbon monoxide detector goes off

     [*they clearly did not pray hard enough to St. Polycarp]

208. A notorious celebrity is finally, with a pandemic face mask, able to enjoy going out in public without being recognized.

209. A shoe is on fire.

210. That IS a banana in your pocket.

211. Virginia Woolf has to go to Ikea.

212. Divorced at 34, Eleanor decides to marry the wealthiest man she can and systematically give away all his money.

213. Put an ant farm in your story. (If you never had an ant farm, do know that the first 5 days are watching them dig tunnels and eat, and the last 20 days are watching them slowly bury their dead.) Anyway: Ant farm!

214. Halfway through the story, your character gets a terrible haircut.

215. Mike just texted his priest by mistake.

216. Here are some names for you.
     Nick Fever
     Lynn Grotsky
     Cassa Blain
     Kiki Strom
     Anders Chang
     Daphne Drumke
     Brooke Casey-Broom
     Jameka Brunt
     Slobodan Stankovic
     Chas Bruno
     Egan Cartwright
     JP Kristiansen
     Arunima Kaur

217. Minstrel cramps.

218. Think of a dead writer whose work you would like to inspire your own. Print or tear out a photo of the author. Sleep with it under your pillow, and invite them to haunt your dreams.

219. Samantha has fallen off her bike and badly bloodied her leg. She's a block from her ex's house (where he now lives with his new wife) but miles from any other help. So...

220. Put an ice cream truck in your story. Your adult characters hear it and decide they really want an ice cream novelty.

221. A haunted vending machine.

222. You're staying at the same hotel as a congressional representative you absolutely loathe.

223. Taste something in your house that is not edible. Write a sentence about what it tastes like.

224. Open a novel from your shelf. Copy down the last line, and make it the first line of a new story. (If you ever publish it, credit the source, etc. etc.)

225. Write a story called "Make It Stop."

226. Give your character an intense craving for a specific food that is currently unavailable to them. Describe it in excruciating detail.

227. Sadie is getting a Brazilian wax, and she ends up telling absolutely everything to her waxer because why not.

228. If you have to have your characters just sitting around eating while they talk, here are some non-boring things they could eat:
     - Crab legs
     - Fondue
     - Outrageously spicy saag paneer
     - Undercooked lasagna
     - Pot pie with a staple in it
     - Mochi

229. Write the first line/s of something new. It must contain a bottle of lotion, a Christmas cake, Jennifer's ex showing up on the news, someone from South Africa, and a feeling of tremendous joy.

230. Frédéric Chopin and Kate Chopin enjoy a bowl of oatmeal together.

231. The story starts with someone shopping for goody bag supplies for an eight-year-old's presidential themed birthday party.

232. Write an entire short story set in line for a ride at Disney World.

233. You've inherited a parrot that used to belong to your aunt, and the parrot starts spilling family secrets.

234. Kiki LaFontaine, the queen of the Shell station parking lot.

235. The funeral of your ex's aunt. You always liked her. She always liked you.

236. The Serbian tennis star has signed an endorsement deal for Janet's yoghurt company, but he's being a major pain in the ass about it.

     [Why did I choose to spell “yoghurt” this way? We’ll never know, but you have to spell it that way in the story.]

237. Make your characters pull an all-nighter. See what happens when they're deliriously tired.

238. A college sophomore named Alpine.

239. A famously disgraced senator is now a poli sci professor at the university near you. You see him every day at the coffee shop.

240. A five-year old named Phoenix. She hasn't taken off her Santa pajama top in a week even though it's September. She wants you to help her with her Legos.

241. Dave has a new can crusher. Everyone at this party wants to figure out what it can crush besides cans.

242. It's 1988, and the office of this video store needs new ant traps. That bottle of Mountain Dew has been in the window for a month now. Jason and Sarah have been flirting all summer, but they both go back to college soon.

243. You're having tea with Geraldine Ferraro at a coffee shop in heaven. She wants to know everything that's happened since she died in 2011. But you have no reason to tell her the truth.

     

244. Give your character a middle school science fair project to help out with, in the middle of everything else. Slicing worms or growing bean plants in the dark or painting a solar system.

245. Halfway through the exam, your gynecologist reminds you that the two of you went to high school together.

246. Whatever you're writing, put a very depressing salad in the next paragraph or stanza.

247. 20 years into the future, all the old leftover cruise ships are being used as floating liberal arts colleges.

248. They unfreeze Walt Disney.

249. Sean and Isla break up on the fourth day of their vacation. They have three days left at Sandals Montego Bay.

250. The story starts with a broken pair of headphones, includes a hedgehog and a stoned grandmother, and ends when Margot joins the PTA. Thematically, it's about both vengeance and dread. The epigraph is from MacBeth.

251. Everyone finds out via an intra-office email that the office will be used for a porn shoot. Two months later, Sean lets everyone know he's found the video online.

252. Set something at a plastic surgery recovery spa.

253. Write something titled "Okay, Breathe."

254. The story starts when Donna, who lives alone, walks out into her kitchen and finds a silver dollar circle of blood on the floor. She's not bleeding, and there's no one else there.

255. It's 1933 and Jo March is 90 years old. She's on a final tour of Europe, and finds herself in Germany, where Hitler has just been appointed Chancellor.

256. Tony asks his teenage niece to be in the local television commercial for his Honda dealership. Her parents make her say yes.

257. The Girl Scout sleepover in the annex room of the library. Jasmine and Emily are chaperoning, but they hate each other. It's pouring rain.

258. The Delia's catalogue, circa 1996.

259. A list of all the worst things a teacher ever said to you.

260. Jane Austen is cheating at whist

     

261. After a freak electric storm, all the fish and sea creatures at the aquarium downtown break out of their tanks and start swimming in the air through the city. They're everywhere.

262. A horse camp for girls that teaches abstinence.

263. In 1577, Martin Frobisher gave up on finding the Northwest Passage because he'd found gold. (!) He brought Queen Elizabeth 200 tons of gold ore. (!) It was actually iron pyrite. England used it for road metaling. Frobisher's financing collapsed.

     

264. The teenage employees of this ice cream shop are allowed to try to invent new flavors.

265. Give one of your characters a signature color she insists on wearing even when it isn't totally appropriate.

266. You've been seated at this wedding reception between exes. They're getting very drunk and both talking to you like the other one isn't there. You have a UTI, and so you aren't drinking, but the salmon dip is amazing.

267. This one dude brings his ukulele EVERYWHERE.

268. Put someone deeply sketchy into your story. Not a villain, just a really sketchy person. A guy who sleeps on people's couches and steals their peanut butter.

269. A college boy is dying of cancer. 3 different girls sleep with him, out of pity, and he tells them he doesn’t need a condom because he’s infertile. They all get pregnant, and all have babies due right around the same time, after his death.

270. Take one character from your work-in-progress and reveal that as a child, they starred in a Frosted Flakes commercial.

271. Write a very sad short story from the point of view of your favorite childhood cartoon character.

272. The absolute worst kid on your 6th grade soccer team has grown up to become a presidential advisor.

273. Your child ends up at college with the child of a politician you loathe. They're in the same history class.

274. The local high school film club has asked to shoot in your backyard by that weird old tree.

275. On March 12th, Michelle's daughter brought home the 2nd grade hamster to care for over spring break. School has been remote ever since, and Dusty the Third is still in the house.

276. The story starts with Denise opening the wrong car door. It includes a Richard Nixon impersonation, a rotten lemon, and a woman who plays the piano with her eyes closed. It ends when Ralph revisits his old high school and confronts the janitor.

277. The 8th grade class trip to the state capital. The kids are going to read their essays to the Lieutenant Governor.

278. Write about all the Halloween costumes you remember wearing as a kid, and what they said about you/your family/your obsessions/the weather.

279. Give a character a really big fuzzy sweater to wear. One they can hide inside when they're uncomfortable.

280. Put a pandemic sourdough starter in your story.

281. Set a story entirely on Zoom. You know you want to.

282. All five of Jeremy's parents show up to the parent-teacher conference.

283. When a starfish's arm is cut off, it can grow a new arm. But also, the arm can grow a new starfish.

284. Ellen has locked her keys in her car, which is parked right in the drop-off circle of the ER.

285. Think hard about the jobs your characters have, especially any vague jobs where people just vaguely go to an office. Give a character a more interesting job.
     Like:
     dog trainer
     curator of a house museum
     aquarium installer
     stain tester
     middle school band teacher
     donor liaison for a zoo
     theater costume shop assistant
     librarian in a sheet music library
     salad maker at a deli salad counter
     HR rep for an Italian restaurant chain
     owner of three gas stations
     beer tour guide
     location scout
     somelier
     violin repair person
     insurance rep in a plastic surgeon's office
     or, not an insurance rep, but like the person who does the insurance paperwork. that person.
     makeup artist
     secretary to the CEO of a major chain of coffee shops
     one of the last remaining travel agents
     publicity director for a beauty pageant
     calendar designer
     fraternity house mother
     order fulfiller for a costume company
     pediatric dental hygienist
     podiatrist
     director of the Iowa tourism board
     electronics instruction translator
     country club party planner
     vending machine maintenance
     French tutor

286. Roberta has a bumper crop of giant zucchini in her garden, and no one wants them, so she’s going to make zucchini bread for literally everyone in town. She’ll have to deliver it all door to door.

287. What smells do you associate with your high school?

288. What foods do you associate with your grandparents?

     [I absolutely disavow this one. This one is extremely predictable and boring, straight out of some sad “things to write about” book that’s on sale for $2.99. Write instead about that book, and its author, who is a failed Olympic handball player.]

289. Joanie moves back to her hometown and gets a job as a prison guard. A girl she went to school with is incarcerated there.

290. Bea and Calvin are in the airport bar, arguing over whether the guy standing in the corridor on his phone is or is not Michael Dukakis.

     

291. Whatever you're writing, put the 1919 Black Sox scandal in the next paragraph or stanza.

292. The smell of TV Guide.

293. Jerry went on Wheel of Fortune in 1986 and he still has that Dalmatian statue by the fireplace. He never mentions it till the end of dinner party when everyone's pretty drunk. His wife is so sick of it.

294. Partway through your story, make a pen explode all over someone's hands.

295. The house at the end of the block is handing out Kit Kats to the kids but heavily spiked hot cider to the adults. Lindsey is ladling it out dressed as a sexy flight attendant.

296. A brother and sister show up at your house claiming they grew up there in the '60s. You agree to let them look around. Big mistake.

297. Locate 3 agents of potential chaos in your story. One should be a person (e.g., unreliable friend, liar, witch), one an atmospheric element (lightning storm, wind), and one situational (election, a sickness, roach infestation). Let them at it.

298. You wake up dead, and here is all the food you've ever eaten, laid out in chronological order in an endless banquet hall.

299. The Diary Exchange Program.

300. It's the night of the 1988 presidential election (Bush v. Dukakis), and Tara is watching the returns come in at the nursing home where she works, along with the elderly residents. They are almost unanimously Bush supporters. She's for Dukakis.

     

301. Close your internet tabs and open a Word doc. Close your eyes and take ten deep breaths. Write whatever the hell you feel like. If you think you can do it, write with your eyes closed. Keep writing for five minutes, no matter what.

302. A Russian student arrives at Harvard in the fall of 1932. He can't speak much English but he becomes popular by introducing everyone to Russian coffee.

303. Write about your memories of the 2000 election and recount.* Not necessarily the election itself, but the sensorial and environmental details.
     *If you were a baby, then write about what it feels like not to have a bad back yet.

304. Meg and the other potential contestants on this reality show have been put up in a cheap hotel. There's another round of interviews and psych evals left. The producers have taken their phones away. They aren't supposed to interact.

305. You thought that was a dead bird on the sidewalk, but it was a milkweed pod.

306. Pick a color to infuse into your work-in-progress. Never name the color; just put at least five things into the piece that we'll assume are that color.

307. Write the first sentence of a story about revenge. It must include the name Vlad, a purple Sharpie, a description of a great-aunt's face, and a question mark.

308. Hang upside down off a bed, or do a headstand if you can. When you have a sentence to write, sit normally and write it. Then invert again until you have another sentence. It might be crap, but you can always say you wrote it upside down.

309. Write a story that starts when Blair and Rodney walk into Target, and ends when they walk out of Target.

310. This is from the Wikipedia page for the French actor François Berléand. The footnote only takes you to the ISBN for his memoir. No other explanation. What could this possibly be about?

     

311. Give your character a very specific collection, one they're super knowledgeable about. Moths or pint glasses or antique lightbulbs or whatever. Use their quest for a rare addition as the impetus for going across town to an unfamiliar neighborhood.

312. This picture:

313. The neighborhood Bunko club is FALLING. APART.

314. Cameron is at a work dinner when he gets a text from his younger brother, Brian: “Do fish have blood? Like, actual red blood?”

315. You pull up to the Starbucks window, and the guy who hands you your mocha is crying.

314. The story starts with a debate over pie crust. It includes paparazzi, a list of enemies, a male French Canadian model, and Albert Schweizer. It ends when the neighbor knocks on the door. Ultimately, it's a story about longing and disaster.

315. You answer the phone, and it's the director of a major zoo. You have no idea why she's calling.

316. Put a pinball machine in your story. Make it a noisy one.

317. The Botanic Garden Gala. No one is dressed for the weather, so they're drinking too much champagne to keep warm. There's drama by the koi ponds.

318. A washed-up country singer gets asked by a toy company to cut an album of songs from the point of view of a fad doll. The money's too good to say no.

319. The story starts when Glenna is stopped on her way to work by a local NBC reporter, for a person-in-the-street interview. He's asking about the scandal with the local mall Santa. What she says starts a chain reaction.

320. Write something about constitutional law and ukuleles.

321. You're cleaning out your late uncle's house, and you find the VHS cassette of his video dating interview from 1987.

322. Dorothy was a contestant in the Miss America pageant in 1949. In December of 2020, she's finally ready to tell you about it.

323. You're staying at the same hotel where there's a doll collector convention. One of them is the mother of a kid you went to school with. The breakfast buffet has a make-your-own Belgian waffle iron.

324. The vice-prophet doesn’t have nearly as many responsibilities and privileges as the actual prophet, but he’s a lot better looking.

325. Georgia feels guilty about sleeping with her cousin's boyfriend, and so every time she does, she donates money to the animal shelter her cousin likes.

326. The pastor of a megachurch frequents the same coffeeshop as you. People come up to him for his autograph and his advice. One day, he asks what you're reading. You are reading American Pastoral, by Phillip Roth.

327. Mike and Miguel decide to go to a showing of a mansion they can't afford and have no intention of buying.

328. Tricia picks up the Starbucks cup her husband came home with and sees the label. It's her husband's usual drink, but the name on the order is "Ingrid" and it's time-stamped right when he said he was working out.

329. The story starts when Monica opens the dishwasher door as soon as the cycle is done, but she's wearing her glasses so they completely fog up. The story includes a visit from the Mormons and a map of Denver. It's about survivor's guilt.

330. The Amelia Earhart Association is having their sixtieth annual convention. All the food service workers in town are comparing notes.

331. There's a Hollywood actor no one has wanted to work with for the past fifteen years. He finally gets cast on a daytime soap opera. He's playing a villain. No one trusts him.

332. You're teaching Comp 101, and your roster is full of minor Greek gods. Hermes keeps asking to go to the bathroom. Your reading list is flexible. The room has no windows.

333. Anna gets beautiful castoff clothes from the woman whose children she nannies for, but feels odd wearing the clothes in front of her boss. One day she wears a handed-down sweater, and her boss looks at her strangely and asks where she got it.

334. The story starts with the college president crossing campus at sunrise and seeing some truly offensive graffiti. The paint is still wet, and she realizes she can just wash it off. She decides to do this instead of reporting it. But someone sees her.

335. Give an adult character in your story a famous parent. Not someone real, just someone wildly famous within the world of your story. Some people know, and some people don't.

336. Lori marries a rich douche who buys her breast implants. She doesn't quite register that they'll have to be replaced every 10 years. 10 years later, she's divorced and poor and happy and... has to pay thousands for more surgery.

337. The young men of Sigma Chi realize they haven't seen their house mother, Pearl, in over a week. The knock on her apartment door and hear nothing. They start to worry.

338. Give one of your characters the most amazing, buttery bowl of pasta to eat. They deserve it.

339. Give a character one of the following as a prop to play with during a tense scene:
     - bubble wrap
     - an orange peel
     - a tin of Altoids
     - a pad of Post-Its
     - a dry ink pad
     - a plastic spork
     - a New Yorker blow-in card
     - a takeout menu from a closed restaurant

340. "Adult Swim" night at the aquarium

341. There's a pine tree you can sit under and talk to Kurt Vonnegut's ghost, if you're into that kind of thing.

342. “The Turn Of The Shrew”

343. “The Taming Of The Screw”

344. What story would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail?

345. Janice and Ellen are on an educational cruise sponsored by the university both of their late husbands attended. There's a lunchtime stop on a small Greek island, and they both get a little drunk.

346. There are six people left in the college dorm, and they decide to celebrate Christmas together. For two of them, it's the first time they've done this.

347. The morning after Christmas, Barret is taking bubble wrap and cardboard boxes to the dumpster in the alley. He meets his neighbor there, and the neighbor asks him a wildly inconvenient favor.

348. The woman in charge of the parent costume committee for the middle school musical has some major axes to grind.

349. You receive, in 2020, an invitation to the 1923 wedding of Cornelia Vanderbilt. A fairy godmother helps you get ready.

350. Twelve years after she graduated high school, Ingrid gets a call from the principal's assistant. It's about an item in the lost and found.

     [Is this the same Ingrid who’s sleeping with Starbucks cup guy? Quite possibly. It might also be why that one barista was crying.]

351. Have your character write in to an advice columnist about their crisis. The columnist gives truly horrendous advice.

Okay, so a confession. I was very bad at keeping count, and also sometimes I forgot the hashtag, and sometimes I misspelled the hashtag, so some of these prompts are lost in the bowels of Twitter forever. (Also: It was the fall of 2020. There WERE A FEW DISTRACTIONS.)

But in May of 2021 I posted a first line every day, so I’m going to supplement now with thirteen of those.

352. "The new principal at the high school was, according to her social media accounts, a practicing witch."

353. “The road crew had been digging for a week when Ralph hit something soft.”

354. “Margaret had borrowed her sister's old engagement ring so she could try on wedding dresses.”

355. “My 11th grade Spanish teacher called me one morning from prison.”

356. “Sadie's grandmother, who was not really her grandmother, died in the middle of a candlelight vigil for the missing girl.”

357. "George and Melissa met on the freeway, and so they got married on the freeway."

358. “On Esther's third day at the museum, a donor dropped by with a Post-It note.”

359. "Drop the stapler."

360. “There were three Sophies in 1st period English, and one of them was the Sophie whose father was running for mayor.”

361. “Natalie played the lottery every week for six years, three months, and eleven days.”

362. “The janitor had been living in the school basement for three years.”

363. “Henrick claimed he could read palms.”

364. “Jordan had been commissioned to compose the soundtrack for a documentary about an art heist.”

     And here was the actual last one from 2020:

365. If you knew you only had enough time on earth to write one more story, what would you write?

Not that you need MORE of these, but the first lines were some of my favorite prompts, and so as a thank-you to paid subscribers (hey, thank you!!) I’m posting the rest of them below the paywall.

Read more

I’m so glad I did. Especially once lockdown started, I had a community of writers participating either by posting things in response, or just writing on their own. Several published stories came out of it (cue my proud-mama weeping) and it was also just a lot of fun.

I did the same thing again in 2022, with 365 more. I’m going to post them all here, in four batches—so they’re finally all in one place, and so you can have a whole lot of weird writing prompts, if you want them.

I’m allergic to vague prompts (“Write about a time you were sad!” “What frightens you?”) and much more interested in extremely specific ones that get us writing about things we haven’t already said a hundred times. Also, my brain could generate fifteen of these an hour (thanks, ADHD!) and it was nice to have somewhere to put some of them.

One unsettling thing about assembling all of these* is that I start to see unexpected repetitions, things I didn’t know I was obsessed with: genies, bad teachers and people you went to school with, science fairs, politicians, and for some reason (you’ll see in subsequent posts) specifically Michael Dukakis. I think it’s because is name is fun to say.

(*shoutout here to my former assistant, Keaton, who salvaged these all from Twitter and put them in a literal spreadsheet)

Anyway, here’s the first quarter of them, with some responses that made me happy interspersed.

1. The creepiest teacher from your high school: You wind up on a plane next to him. He doesn’t recognize you. He’s allergic to the peanuts.

2. Put a fish tank in one of your preexisting story drafts. The fish have some kind of fungus.

3. There’s one typewriter repairman left in the state of Maryland.

4. Go to a museum near you (or go virtually to a museum far away). Walk around a room, and stop at the most disturbing thing you see. Make yourself stare at it for ten full minutes. Then write.

5. A garden party. A frog. A cracked pitcher of lemonade. Agnes is drunk. The UPS guy joins the party. His name is Jarvis. He’s up to something.

6. Take the boring adult conversation scene you already wrote, and put a kids’ sleepover in the basement, one they have to deal with every few minutes. If your characters don’t have kids, they’re babysitting.

7. Your uncle’s trick for slicing tomatoes.

8. Who is the richest person you know in real life? You wind up alone in this person’s bathroom, and no one will miss you for ten minutes. What do you do?

9. The Museum of Morality

10. Pick a character you’re already writing about. Give your character the stomach flu. No, it doesn’t mean they’re pregnant. It’s just the goddamn stomach flu.

11. Put a Magic 8 Ball in your story.

12. You live in the city, in a small duplex with a tiny backyard of dirt. A wealthy neighbor calls and says he wants to hire a gardener to make your yard a flower garden, because he can see it from his window and wants to look at something nice.

13. This is the hotel room where a famous comedian from your childhood overdosed and died.

14. Write the opening line of a novel. (You don’t have to write the novel.) The opening line has to contain an avocado and a fire hose and the letter Q.

    

15. Make a list of every Sarah (or Sara or Sari or Zara) you’ve known in person. Describe them all in detail.

16. You’re in the international first class lounge at the airport by mistake.

17. How hard could it be to superglue a butter dish together again?

18. Meghan is your bartender. It’s Meghan’s last night.

19. The sociology professor hasn’t shown up to class for a full week now.

20. The chickens of Moscow

21. People who work in the drive-thru window at Starbucks get an inordinate number of bee stings.

22. Find your high school yearbook and open it at random. Slam a finger down, and write about the kid you’re pointing to.

23. The mother of the bride is drunk.

24. Take a central location in the thing you’re writing, and light it on fire.

25. What is your relationship to umbrellas?

26. Setting: Tae Kwon Do belt testing for small children.

27. There’s a language in which the words for “yes” and “no” are easily mistaken for each other, especially when whispered.

28. Dog church. It’s a church where you bring your dogs!

29. You thought you could just drop your kid off at this birthday party and leave, but apparently all the parents are staying and drinking wine while their kids watch the bubble guy perform.

30. The vending machine in the basement of the rec center.

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31. There are thirty tiny polar bears living in the refrigerator.

32. Your niece wants to play horses with you.

33. The story starts with a lost retainer in a college cafeteria. It ends with someone crying about curtains.

34. Spend a paragraph describing a particularly ugly potato.

35. Find a boring scene you’ve written, and give a character a yoyo.

36. You get matched with someone on a dating app, and meet up. S/he does not remember that s/he was in your 8th grade class and incredibly mean to you, but you do.

37. Charmer’s Almanac

38. Put your character in a bad situation, and then make it worse. And then make it worse again. And then make it worse again. And then: Gladys shows up.

39. The doctor gives you a prescription, and when you go to pick it up it’s a genii in a bottle. The pharmacist asks if you have any questions.

40. Alex is visiting you from Florida, and has never seen snow before.

41. Open Shakespeare, or a religious text, or something Greek or Roman or mythological, at random. Copy down the first line or fragment that catches your eye. That’s your title.

42. No matter your gender, catalogue some of the ways in which you are sexist.

43. The story starts with someone making their own yogurt.

44. The worst shoes you ever owned.

45. Two people try very hard to have an affair, but find themselves physically incapable of consummating it.

46. You’ve gotten someone else’s paycheck in the mail.

47. Your character’s friend is involved in an essential oils pyramid scheme.

48. Take the story you’ve attempted, the one that isn’t working, and make it a Christmas story. Your characters don’t have to celebrate Christmas; it just has to be December 25th.

49. Your own face starts appearing on Missing posters in your neighborhood.

50. Whatever thing you’re working on, put a Monopoly game in there within the next three paragraphs.

51. It’s Jorge’s last day at the Butterball Turkey hotline, and he has nothing to lose.

52. Tornadoes can fully pluck chickens but leave them alive.
    [This is true.]

53. Every person you meet today within the context of their job (barista, Lyft driver, dental receptionist), ask them what’s the strangest thing that’s happened to them at work. Pick one to write about.

54. The story starts with someone window-shopping for cowboy boots, and ends with the funeral of a high school history teacher.

55. Write a story from the viewpoint of Vanna White.

56. You take a mail-in DNA test, and a week later the FBI calls.

57. What item of clothing have you owned the longest?

58. When you get to heaven, it turns out there’s a lot of exercise equipment involved.

59. Take a boring character in a thing you’re already writing, and reveal that they were a child oboe prodigy.

60. Setting: the 8th birthday party of a guy born on Leap Day 32 years ago. It’s 8-year-old themed.

61. The chiropractor has been murdered in his office. You were his last appointment of the day.

62. Strep foot. It’s a thing.

63. Click “random” on Wikipedia, click the most interesting hyperlink from that page, then the most interesting hyperlink from THAT page. Go eight levels in; the page you landed on is your subject.

64. Feuding ice cream parlors.

65. Describe eating a scented candle.

66. The grown siblings still play the arcane Frisbee game they invented as kids, every time they’re all together.

67. Self defense class for college freshmen. It’s taught by Walter the security guard.

68. It turns out that all this time, owls were a hoax.
    [I believe that at the time I wrote this one, the whole “Birds Aren’t Real” satirical conspiracy theory wasn’t really a big thing]

69. The mysterious cookies in the teachers’ lounge.

70. A celebrity starts a salad dressing brand. Not that celebrity. Another one.

71. What is wrong with your back?

72. Your elementary school bathroom. Describe it in detail.

73. The church youth group retreat is in the same hotel as a witch conference.

74. What color is the letter E?

75. That is not your granola.

76. St. Patrick’s less famous brother, Cormac the Mild

77. What ever happened to your prom date? (bonus prompt if you didn't go to prom: what'd you do instead?)

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78. A wallet left on the sidewalk as a psychological experiment.

79. The story starts with three children finding a high school history textbook in the woods.

80. Saturdays are for inventory.

81. Write the first sentence of a story. It must contain a broken umbrella, a British monarch, and the letter X.

82. What is your relationship to stretch marks?

83. The jar of kimchi in the back of the fridge. You don’t know how old it is.

84. Go back to the last short piece you finished writing (but that you’re not happy with yet) and force yourself to add one more paragraph or stanza to the end. If things had to keep going, where would they go?

85. You drive past your old house, and the new owner is taking out the lilac bushes.

86. Set a story at a mountain resort that hasn’t changed in a hundred years.

87. Your character puts on last spring’s light coat for the first time in eleven months, and finds a love note someone slipped in there last year.

88. Take a scene you’ve already written and put it in a hotel room. The couple in the room next door is having way too much fun.

89. What did the Spanish teacher get fired for?

90. Go back to a recent draft and add five different smells. At least one of them must be wretched.

91. That nice young couple from the cruise.

92. Whatever you’re writing, find a way to get your character to a religious service. Especially if it’s one they’re uncomfortable with.

93. The thing you know a weird amount about because you did a report on it in grade school.

94. This picture:

95. What were the wild spaces of your youth? (Not the lovely park, necessarily, but the weird mint patch behind your grandmother's house, the sewage ditch where you threw rocks, the dirt pile...)

96. What is the first political election you remember in detail? What are the physical details of your memories? (The TV you watched on, what was for dinner, etc.)

97. There's a turtle on the pitcher's mound. It's definitely Carson's fault.

98. Click through Facebook (friends of friends) until you find a first-and-last name combo that sounds like a great character. Post the name here, if you want; we probably don't know them.

99. You know those letters they sometimes make you write your future self from camp, and then they mail them ten or twenty years later? It's time for your main character to get one of those.

100. What your story really needs right now is a Carmelite nun.

101. Give your main character an obsession with a dead movie star. Ideally one you yourself are obsessed with.

102. Write about the worst (in a benign way) sex that your character ever had.

103. A character in your work-in-progress looks disturbingly (to everyone else) like Henry VIII.

104. What do you know how to cook better than most people? Put it in your story. It's actually kind of wildly fun to watch characters cook, plus I'm hungry.

105. April, 1995.

106. Bart Shingledecker, Jr.

107. Write the first line of a story about the mafia (or about a group of friends playing mafia). It must contain a pair of sewing scissors, a yellow purse, and the letter Z.

108. The wax museum of serial killers.

109. Your worst birthday

110. Give your character a houseplant. One with issues. Make it important. Make it weird.

111. The most famous person who went to your high school comes back for a visit.

112. Write story or a poem that's an angry letter to the worst teacher you ever had.

113. Margot was not invited to this party and yet here she is, and she brought her very small dog.

114. Your friend and his new girlfriend don't realize their Venmo transactions are set to public, and you're learning way too much about their sex life.

115. Write about the fact that Sirhan Sirhan is still alive, watching the altered timeline he created play out.

116. Your top five memories of shopping malls.

117. Whatever you're writing, put a skunk in there. I don't care if it's a novel set in space or a sonnet about you grandmother. Put a skunk in, I dare you.

118. Build a shrine to your work-in-progress. Photos, objects, related books, candles, stuff you find on walks. Add some things you like but that have nothing to do with with story yet. Eventually, they will.

119. Write a paragraph about your childhood dentist. Not the office, but your actual dentist.

120. The LEGO store at the mall, three days before Christmas.

121. There's a chipmunk in the bathroom.

122. Write a paragraph about your first part in a school play or talent show. (I was a merchant, and I was supposed to be hawking pastries, so the moms on the prop crew gave me a tray of unfrozen Eggos.)

123. The story starts with a character giving a dog a bath, includes a discussion of the Siege of Antwerp, and ends with an election party gone wrong.

124. Thirteen Ways of Looking at Yoko Ono

125. Go into a scene in you work-in-progress that's falling flat. Find an excuse to get one (only one) character drunk. What are they going to blurt out? And what's the fallout?

126. Write a paragraph about the feeling of getting pool water up your nose.

127. Write a story, poem, or essay called "Al Capone Gets 11 Years"

128. A single mother in Detroit finds a genii in a jar of peanut butter.

129. You are drinking your morning coffee and watching the news cover an outdoor press conference live. As you're watching, the president dies. How does he die, and what do you do next?

130. There aren't enough short stories/essays/poems that center around a single karaoke night. Please write one.

131. Write a story, poem, or essay called “Controlled Burn.”

132. Write a horror story set at a highway rest area. OR Write an ode to a highway rest area.

133. The story starts with a chance celebrity encounter, includes sidewalk chalk, and ends with a pie-eating contest.

134. The most popular kid in 5th grade.

135. Write the first line of a story or novel. It must contain a frog, the letters J and K, the pledge of allegiance, and a pasta-based simile.

136. Write a thank-you note to someone who was mean to you in high school.

137. The Christmas tree is still up.

138. Find the eeriest stock photo you can. Either write a poem about it, or work it into a piece of prose in progress.

139. “Mr. Ungrateful”

140. The story starts with a neighbor’s dog showing up, includes a strawberry pie, and ends at the middle school basketball championship.

141. Write an obituary for a lamp.

142. The story starts with a skunked bottle of wine, includes a battery crisis, and ends with Malcolm setting something on fire.

143. "Swallowed a Fly"

144. "Left-Hand Man"

145. "The Lookout Girl"

146. "Your Cousin and Your Cousin's Cousin"

147. "Alice the Maid and Sam the Butcher"

148. Write at least 100 words about the first news story that filled you with rage.

149. Make a list of twenty-five things that you're angry about.

150. The story starts in a doctor's office waiting room, where your character makes a life-changing discovery in a year-old issue of People Magazine. It includes strawberry ice cream, and it ends on a delayed flight home from Moscow.

151. The story starts with an overdue library book, includes someone mansplaining quail eggs, and ends with an international incident. It's called "Envelope, Envelope."

152. Put a 12-year-old neighbor in your story.

153. Put the smell of burned popcorn in your story.

154. Put a FitBit in your story.

     

155. Put the Greek mythological torturer Procrustes in your story.

156. Write a noir detective mystery, but the client is Winnie the Pooh. Like, the detective is sitting there in his office, and in walks Winnie the Pooh with a gruesome murder for him to solve.

157. Invent an absolutely obnoxious kids' television show and put it in the background of your story or novel. Make up song lyrics for it, too.

158. Find the absolute oldest thing in your bathroom. It's probably in your medicine cabinet, but it might be a very old lipstick. Hold it in your hands for two minutes, and then start to write.

159. The story starts with a blackmail note, includes a visit to Chicago’s Museum of Surgical Science, and ends with a fight about road kill.

160. Give your character a memory about tennis. The memory involves a raccoon, a lollipop, and a girl whose nickname was Squawk.

161. Whatever you’re working on, put a stale rice cake into it.

162. The utopian grocery store.

163. Go somewhere you've never been via Google Street View. Then go on Wikipedia and find out the history of the place as precisely as you can. Your character's date or college roommate or mother is from this place now.

164. The story starts with a trick deck of cards, includes a story about a tiger tamer, and ends with Gretchen taking a vow of chastity.

165. Pretend that in your life you have known two very different people both named Leslie Sutter. Write about both of them.

166. Stick an incredibly irritating housefly in a scene that needs one. The fly is not symbolic.

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167. The absolute weirdest kid you went to high school with.

168. Set an entire story in a shoe store. Include a deck of flashcards and some origami. It starts with the word "credit."

169. Make yourself a really, really, really good piece of toast. Slather it with butter and salt or whatever you love. Eat it very slowly. Write about how it tastes.

170. Give a character suspenders to wear.

171. Give your main character a signature dish that they're amazing at, even if they don't know how to cook anything else. Then go read some very specific tips/watch videos about how to make it. Then either write about it or quit writing and become a chef.

172. Write a full paragraph about dandelions.

173. Write the first line of a story or poem. The line must include the word "flagrant," a glass of vodka, a porcupine, and a sense of ennui.

174. Start a story in a Starbucks bathroom. I mean, start your scene there, do not actually go to the Starbucks bathroom to write.

175. Go on Zillow and pick out a house for your character. Take screenshots.

176. Set an entire story in a laundry room. OR Write an essay about a laundry room. OR Write a poem about a laundry room. OR Do your actual laundry.

177. Your butter keeps vanishing.

178. You're meeting Robocop's girlfriend for the first time, and you're nervous.

179. The story starts with someone discovering an antler. It includes SAT prep and a broken toilet bowl, and it ends when the Duran Duran poster finally comes down.

180. Write about a camera shop called Hocus Focus.

181. Write a poem or essay about what you're going to wear to vote this November.

182. Set an entire story in an IKEA. You know you miss it.

183. Your main character's computer breaks down completely mid-story. Sad Mac and everything. All documents lost. How does this destabilize the story?

     Stay tuned for parts 2, 3, and 4… And if you’re a paid subscriber, please feel free to share any prompt responses in the comments!

Is this a metaphor? Maybe. Did I already know it was a doomed proposition? Yes.

Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of stuff. So much stuff that I’ve been losing track of it all, and haven’t properly shared everything with the world. So I figured I’d share a bunch of it with whoever cares, which presumably is the people who subscribe to this newsletter and only the people who subscribe to this newsletter.

I met LeVar Burton and awkwardly told him that he was Big Bird!

Hopefully it came out a little better than that. I was trying to express that I grew up watching him on PBS, and that Zooming with him was almost as surreal as meeting a muppet, and okay, this sounds worse the more I explain it. He was absolutely lovely, though, exactly the person you’d hope he is.

This all happened because on the penultimate episode of his podcast, he read an old short story of mine, “The November Story,” aloud in his perfect LeVar Burton voice—and then later he had a celebratory Instagram Live to mark the end of his podcast, and I got to be one of the drop-in visitors. I don’t think there’s a recording of the live event, but you can listen to the story!

Sing with me now: Butterfly, in the sky…

I wrote about a twenty-year-old email for New York Magazine:

Gmail just turned 20 (?!?!) and New York Magazine asked a bunch of writers to dig back in our emails for something we’d written in 2004, and talk about it. I found an email from a very wobbly time in my life, and picked it apart. Here’s the link; you can also read entries from writers like Major Jackson, Sloane Crosley, and Paul Murray.

For Poets & Writers Magazine, I wrote about writer envy and rage-vomiting:

If you subscribe to the magazine, you can read the article here.

And this link takes you to an un-paywalled version, although I highly recommend subscribing to Poets & Writers either online or on paper; they do great nonprofit work and are a fantastic resource for all writers.

I wrote for Oprah about learning Hungarian:

For Oprah Daily, I wrote a personal essay about family, place, and learning Hungarian.

You can read it here.

And it includes photos of my family, like these ones…

I edited the summer issue of Ploughshares!

Ploughshares is perennially one of my favorite literary magazines, and I was thrilled to guest-edit their summer issue. The process involved choosing half the work from finalists they sent me, and soliciting work from writers I admire for the other 50%, and then offering edits on what were already brilliant pieces. You can order the issue now right here; it features work from Dur e Aziz Amna, Ramona Ausubel, Peter Mountford, Khaddafina Mbabazi, DK Nnuro, Suzanne Roberts, and more and more and more.

I wrote for the LA Times about the heartbreak of the recent Alice Munro news:

This article was originally paywalled but appears to be available to everyone now, at least for the moment.

Also: A reminder that writers almost never write the headlines of their pieces, and the headline here comes off a bit harsher than what I’m saying, so please don’t judge it by that (and please try to remember not to assume you understand anyone’s article online when all you’ve seen is the headline).

My novel class is now available on demand!

In November, I taught a 6-part online “Novelist’s Toolkit” course with StoryStudio Chicago (where I’m Artistic Director), covering everything from outlines to tension to backstory to writer’s block to revision. People seemed to love the class (yay!) and we recorded it, and it’s now available on demand.

You get all the recordings (six videos, 2+ hours each), plus a bunch of handouts and exercise sheets. You can check out the course here.

And while you’re there you can check out shorter classes from Porochista Khakpour and Frances de Pontes Peebles; more on-demand classes are coming soon!

Palate cleanser; here’s something someone else did:

One of my favorite podcasts, If Books Could Kill, picked apart J. D. Vance’s book last year. It’s a satisfying and elucidating takedown, if you’re into that kind of thing.

I’ve been, like… canonized?

I once got in a huge fight with a college boyfriend over the idea of canon; I argued that it cemented us in hegemony and patriarchy (I was 20, and very passionate, and possibly drunk) and he, a straight white boy, was like “The canon is great and will never change!” (Okay, that’s probably not fair—he was very smart and it was likely a more nuanced argument, but that’s how I heard it.) Jump cut to 2024 and the New York Times list of best books of the 21st Century (so far) and what feels like at least a much more responsible way (they polled 503 critics and writers) to pick the best books of the past 25 years and, well, to this:

The Great Believers came in at number 64, which is flattering and overwhelming (and fundamentally wrong because no, it’s absolutely not a better book than The Plot Against America or We The Animals, numbers 65 and 66 respectively) and pretty damn amazing. I have no idea what 20-year-old me would think about this.

It’s at the very least a fantastic list of books, and I’m honored to be in amazing company. I’m confounded by Louise Erdrich’s absence, but otherwise in solid agreement that all the books I’ve read from this list are fantastic.

And then the fresh news from yesterday: There’s a second list, this one voted on by Times readers, that’s quite different, with 39 books the same. The Great Believers came in at number 38 there. If you’re someone who voted for it, thank you so much!

(Granted, all of this is not something I did, or at least not something I did recently. I finished writing that book about seven years ago. This is more something that happened.)

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I visited another Substack!

A couple of former StoryStudio students have started a lovely Substack, as well as an online magazine, about art and mental health. They interviewed me, and you can read it here:

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Artists' Chat: Rebecca Makkai

I went to a party in February 2020, and somebody was talking about Rebecca Makkai. They had just read and loved The Great Believers, Makkai's novel about a friend group devastated by the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Another person joined in, a handful more—they had also loved…

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2 years ago · 3 likes · Marie Minerva Estela

I did other stuff, too…

I promise I’m writing actual fiction, just not quickly enough. And also book reviews that I can’t talk about yet. And I’ve had a couple of lovely readings here in Vermont, where I spend the summer. And I’m teaching right now at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English and will teach at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in August. And in June, I joined the faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars and taught my first residency there! I also made gazpacho.

I need another sticker, probably. One that says, like, Just give up on sleeping…? If you’re better than me at prioritizing your life, please tell me all your secrets in the comments.

So, with thirteen years of hindsight, and in no particular order, here are thirteen thoughts on that first book:

1. I’m devastated by how timely it’s become again

Here’s what I wrote about the book on my socials the other day:

It's about a librarian who inadvertently kidnaps a 10-year-old patron. It's also about a boy whose conservative parents, fearing he's gay, restrict his reading. When the book came out, that topic felt like a vanishing concern.

The book came out in 2011, but to make it more believable, I set it in 2004.

People sometimes refer my "first book" and (understandably) they mean The Great Believers (my 4th). If you want to check out my ACTUAL first book, this is it. I promise it's more galvanizing than depressing. I'd give anything for it to be irrelevant now.

2. This book took me ten years, which is not unusual

I began this book when I was about 23 and had very little business writing a novel, and it came out ten years later; by then I’d published a bunch of stories and had two children. (I took my author photo when I was pregnant and morning sick, with a toddler hanging off my leg. I turned in my copyedits about twelve hours before my scheduled C-section for the younger one, who is now also thirteen.) I had no idea how long novels were supposed to take (I didn’t have a writing community, I don’t have an MFA, and at the time I knew about three writers) so fortunately I didn’t beat myself up about the ten years. And as it turns out, five to ten years is pretty normal for a first novel! Or at least a first publishable novel. Your buddy who cranked out that book in two months and is now shooting it off to agents might have won the land speed record, but let’s wait and see what happens there.

3. I thought my career was over with my first bad review

If you’re lucky, you get some pre-publication “trade” reviews before the book is out. The first one I got was a lovely starred review from Booklist, and I wasn’t nearly grateful enough because I didn’t really understand what a big deal that was. The second review was… I’m not gonna say brutal, but bad enough that my agent called to warn me about it before I saw it.

And I genuinely thought it was all over; this was going to be the end of my career. That night, my husband and I had tickets to see David Sedaris and I sat there in the middle of the audience like a zombie. I was the only person not laughing at a David Sedaris reading.

I also looked at Goodreads too much, and remain scarred by my very first “I wanted SO badly to like this book…”

4. People assumed it was about me

A funny thing about first novels: Readers are much more likely to assume they’re autobiographical—even when the book is about, you know, someone literally kidnapping a child. Doubly so when it’s a first-person novel, and the character is vaguely in the same demographic as the author. (And, as others have pointed out, readers are less likely to assume an act of pure imagination on the part of women or writers of color.)

I got a lot of reviews that wondered if I knew it was wrong to kidnap children. I got a lot of interview questions along the lines of “When you got to Chicago, why did you tell Ian that….” Sometimes they’d then catch themselves, sometimes they wouldn’t.

This wouldn’t have bothered me quite as much if I hadn’t still been teaching elementary school when the book came out (I switched to part time the following school year and then stopped) and I was devastated that anyone might think I was writing about one of my students.

5. People thought it was YA

Since no one knew me or my writing yet, it was really hard to get people to understand that a book about a children’s librarian and a child was not, in fact, a book for children. That said, I probably sold a few extra books to people who thought it would be a great gift for a preteen, so maybe it’s a win?

6. I said yes to everything

This is kind of what you have to do, to the extent that you can. I slept on couches so I could attend festivals that didn’t pay, I did readings where three people showed up, I hustled in every way I knew. I’d spend all day traveling to a thing where I sold ten books (yay!) and then realize that I’d basically earned ten dollars against my advance for a whole day of work. But it was all worth it. As I said above, this book was my foot in the door. I was meeting booksellers and readers and other writers. I was getting to know the landscape. I was giving myself tension headaches and severe dehydration, but in a good way!

7. It still has a life!

If this had been my only book, I'm quite certain that very few people would still be reading it. Later books, when they do well, have this wonderful way of boosting the backlist (your previous books), and it’s been thrilling to see The Borrower stay in print and sell a few copies every week like the Little Debut That Could. It’s being translated into Polish right now, after the success of my last two novels in Poland—and I’m already anticipating the weirdness of any interviews where I’ll have to grasp for long-forgotten minor character names.

8. I now have another “debut”

Here’s the strange dance I have to do now: Someone says “I just read your first book! So, how long did that one take you?” and I basically have to go “Wow, thank you so much. What, ah—what do you believe my first book to be, exactly?” And like one in ten times, they actually mean this book.

9. I got angry mail about librarians

You’d think librarians might be mad about the kidnapping thing. But no. What some (few, vocal) people did not like was that Lucy, my main character, had been put in charge of the children’s department of a floundering small town library despite not having her MLIS degree. It’s definitely a feasible thing! But I understand why they were upset. Librarians don’t get enough respect. Librarians are skilled superhero professionals with advanced degrees! My character is technically a library worker, not a librarian—although that doesn’t tend to scan well.

10. I was shaking like a leaf at my first event

My very first book event, before the novel was out, was a debut author panel for Chicago’s Printers Row Lit Fest. Patrick Somerville (now a Hollywood bigshot) moderated; Belinda McKeon, with whom I just got to do an event this year in Ireland, was on the panel too, as was Deanna Fei. So was Samuel Park, another Chicago author. We were both absolutely vibrating with nerves. After the event, Sam and I walked around the festival in the rain; we became friends, and he became the person I’d text with publication woes and vice versa. Sam passed away in 2017, before the publication of his second novel, The Caregiver—an absolute masterpiece. You should read it.

11. I can look back with fresh eyes on passages I completely forget

Seriously—I had to look something up this week for my Polish translator and found entire passages that I had no memory of—presumably ones added quite late to the book, so I hadn’t lived with them for ten years. It’s rare that we get to read our own work as if from the outside. What I read did not suck! Granted, I didn’t let myself read much.

12. People will always call it The Borrowers or The Burrurrurr

The title came late—the working title had been The Tin Man Symphony, which means absolutely nothing—and of course it’s a reference not only to libraries, and the borrowing of this child, but also to Mary Norton’s classic children’s novel The Borrowers. With an S. Which is what 90% of people call my book, including when they’re introducing me onstage, or on the radio. I’ve started occasionally slipping up myself. I have no idea anymore which of those books I wrote. Maybe it was the one about little people in the walls. Could I get the royalties for that?

I also didn’t realize that when people said it fast, it would sound like an absolute mouthful of mashed potatoes. Like so:

13. It was easy to lose sight of how lucky I was

Publication is so emotionally hard, and debuts are terrifying. As soon as I started making writer friends, I had people to compare myself to, negatively. It was so hard to remember that publication itself had once been a goal beyond my wildest dreams. That it’s something many brilliant, worthy writers will never manage to luck into.

It’s a hell of a lot easier now to look back and see how well things really went. No, it wasn’t a blockbuster. It didn’t win any awards, and it was on a grand total of one end-of-the-year best books list. But it came out from a major press. It started my career. It had translations. It had pages and a cover and everything! I wrote a book and people read it. People are still reading it. That’s an astounding blessing by any measure.

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Wait, a bonus thing—one to grow on:

Ian is in my latest book

Only a few people have told me about finding Ian (who would now be 30 years old) in I Have Some Questions For You, but he’s there. If you missed him, look again.

Yes, language is ever-changing. Yes, spellings evolve. But sometimes, when you’re a little too ahead of the curve on those changes, you look kind of dumb.

If you are writing anything other than a very casual text message, the word you’re looking for—the one that sounds like the beginning of “yammer,” the one that indicates a casual “yes,” the one that precedes “Let’s go, Rangers!”—is spelled YEAH.

No, it’s not flexible. If you’re a writer and write dialogue that includes “ya” or “yah” or “yea” (when those aren’t what you mean, which they probably aren’t), a copyeditor will change it. Always. To “yeah.” Because that’s the way it’s spelled.

This is not a pet peeve of mine. It’s a peeve, yes, but “pet peeve” implies that I’m only bothered by it for personal, intangible reasons. And that’s not the case. If you’re a writer and you submit a story with characters saying “yea,” it’s like turning in a story with typos in the first line. If you work in a bank and you reply to your boss’s email with “Yea, thanks,” she’s not going to be impressed. You’re not going to be taken as seriously. And I want you to be! I want you to find success and world domination!

Wait, what about “yea”?

This is pronounced “yay” (rhymes with “day”) and it’s an actual word—a pretty old-fashioned one that’s been around since the 6th century CE.

It’s the opposite of “nay,” as in “Are you voting yea or nay on the new guillotine proposal?” Or you might say “Yea verily, Winnifred pined for her prince.”

If you are not actively serving jury duty, you probably don’t need this one.

What about “ya”?

There are two possible pronunciations here, and (probably) neither is the one you’re looking for.

You could pronounce it “yuh,” indicating a casual “you.” As in, “Ya hungry?” or “See ya later!”

Or you could pronounce it “yah,” like the way a Swedish person would say yes (Ja!). If this is what you truly intend, there’s a better way to spell it (see below).

Honestly, if you write “Ya, let’s head over at nine,” I’m gonna read that whole sentence with a Swedish accent.

What about “yah”?

This would, as above, be pronounced “ya,” like the beginning of “yacht.”

Both “yah” and “jah” might be short for Yahweh, and my friend Merriam Elizabeth Webster says that with that etymology, it can also be an expression of frustration or contempt, so if that’s what you want, use it accordingly.

And you could absolutely use it to indicate “yes,” if and only if you want your character to pronounce it like the beginning of “Yamaha,” and not like the beginning of “yak.” There are plenty of accents and dialects for which you’ll want to use this as a phonetic representation of speech, and to my mind the H on the end of the word makes the pronunciation clearer and more intentional than the somewhat confusing “ya.”

What about “yay”?

This is what you say when you find a ten-dollar bill in your pocket. You already know how to pronounce this one.

What about in text messages?

Ya, sure, knock yourself out, yea. Will you look super smart? Not really. But then does it look smart to use more poop emojis than punctuation marks? Nah.

Who died and made “yeah” king?

The OED dates it to 1863, and also offers four different regional pronunciations. (Don’t you love it with the Brits, who will take the R off the end of any word, just stick it randomly onto the end of another?)

The etymology here is pretty simple and obvious: Sometimes people don’t like to close their mouths. That S is hard work! Say “yes” and then say “yeah.” Wasn’t the second one like a thousand times easier? Plus you can draw it out (“yeahhhhhh”) without sounding like a snake.

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Why is English so hard?

English is hard even for native speakers (I misspell many things, including “whoa,” which is apparently not spelled “woah,” even though it should be)… But in the past year I started really studying Hungarian in earnest and lemme tell you, Hungarian makes English look like—not even like a walk in the park, more like taking the moving walkway through the park on a 72-degree day.

And listen, we can do this one thing. We can get this one common word right, and be better understood.

Yes, we can! Yea, forsooth!

What are paperbacks?

Beyond the obvious (the floppier cover), they’re bound with glue rather than with the stitching that usually holds a hardcover together. This makes them flimsier and more likely to fall apart 20 years later, but they don’t hurt as much if you’re reading in bed and you drop one on your face.

When do they appear?

If a book originally came out in hardcover, the trade paperback usually comes out a year later. An exception would be if the book is doing extremely well, and they keep it longer in hardcover (for which the publisher makes a better margin). For instance, All the Light We Cannot See stayed in hardcover for three years. Another exception, a sad one, would be a book that really underperformed in hardcover and so the expected paperback is never issued.

Wait, what about Fabio?

Right, so there are plenty of books that appear as paperback originals. For one thing, there are “mass-market paperbacks,” which are smaller in surface area and usually printed on cheaper, acidic paper. These are the ones you might find in an end-cap or spinner rack at the pharmacy. Often these are romance novels or mysteries or thrillers, but not always.

If you read literary fiction, you’re more likely to own a lot of “trade paperbacks”—larger in surface area, acid-free paper, sold in indie bookstores and elsewhere but probably not at Walgreens. And while many trade paperbacks are reprints of hardcovers, there are plenty of trade paperback originals (as in, it never came out in hardcover) for all kinds of books—including commercially-aimed romance/mystery/thriller books and lighter novels, but also including books from smaller/independent presses that aren’t up for a two-edition extended rollout, and books from larger presses where for whatever reason, the publisher felt better taking one shot than two.

Many other countries have gone to one high-quality paperback and dropped hardcovers almost entirely. These books often have nice, sturdy covers, “French flaps,” and thick paper with beveled edges.

Is it the same book?

Yes, with the same pagination and everything—but usually, in the preceding year, people have gotten in touch about any typos or factual errors, and so those will likely get fixed in the paperback. For instance, I had three different people write to me after The Borrower came out to inform me quite angrily that the dog on the Hush Puppies shoe box is a basset hound, not a beagle—so that is fixed in the paperback.

Who thought this was a good idea?

Okay, a very brief history of the paperback.

In the mid 1800s, as steam-powered presses made printing easier, several British publishers started producing cheap “yellow-backs” (on cheap yellow, or yellowing, paper) and selling them in railway stations. These were all stereotype reprints of existing books, with rights bought from the original publisher.

Albatross Books, a German publisher, was the first to go with a standard look and a notable logo and the shocking new sans serif font. This was the early 1930s, though, and then 1930s Germany happened.

Allen Lane, a British publisher, launched Penguin Books in 1935 and basically copied all of this, including a bird logo. His success inspired Pocket Books, Dell, and Bantam in the US. They eventually started republishing more recent titles, and they got really into those spinner racks. During WWII, the Armed Services distributed 122 million paperbacks to troops.

In 1950, Gold Medal Books started publishing paperback originals—which is when we started getting pulpy westerns and romances and incredible books like these ones that I found this summer:

A lot of writers who used to write for pulp magazines moved over to writing entire novels about, uh, nude men with thighs but no legs? This is why “paperback writer” was a specific job as of the Beatles’ 1966 song.

Trade paperbacks came on the American scene around 1960, with publishers retaining the rights and republishing the books themselves, rather than selling the rights to a paperback press. (Often, the paperback is put out by a specific paperback imprint within the larger house. So my books bear the Viking logo in hardcover, but the Penguin Paperback logo in paperback. Vintage is the main paperback imprint for Random House, and so on.) That’s where things stand now, with Colleen Hoover having mostly replaced the aliens and pirates and naked clones.

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So why do they still make hardcovers?

As noted above, it’s a better margin for publishers: Hardcovers sell for twice as much, but don’t take twice as much to produce. They also take up more room in a store, which makes them more noticeable on a shelf or table. And because not every book comes out in hardcover, it’s a signal from the publisher that this is a book to take seriously. A hardcover is more likely to be reviewed, for one thing.

Do paperbacks sell more than hardcovers?

Currently, according to Statista, hardcover books are about 30% of the market, paperbacks are about 38%, ebooks have fallen to about 12%, and audiobooks (the fastest growing sector) are up to around 12%. (If you notice that doesn’t add up to 100%—the rest are board books, “special bindings,” and “other,” which I assume either means comic books or books printed on fruit leather.)

Of course, that doesn’t mean this is how the sales of any individual book will break down. I can tell you, for instance, that almost six years in (!), The Great Believers has sold more than twice as much in paperback as it did in hardcover. (The audiobook has sold about as much as the hardcover did, and the ebook has sold almost as much as the paperback.) If a book has a long life, most of that life is in paperback. Think about how many more paperbacks The Cather in the Rye has sold, versus how many copies it originally sold in hardcover. In contrast, think of the political books issued in hardcover, bought in bulk, and then complete forgotten.

Why does the cover sometimes change?

If a book does spectacularly well, they won’t change the cover much. Witness the hardcover and paperback versions of Where’d You Go, Bernadette:

But if sales were only okay, or less than okay, a redesign might help a book appeal to a new, different audience. Here are the hardcover and paperback versions of my second novel, The Hundred-Year House. It sold respectably well in hardcover, but the redesign helps signal that the book is kind of gothic/about ghosts.

Later on, a cover might change for an anniversary edition or special edition or because it got made into a movie and now they need to ruin the book by putting Adam Sandler on the cover.

Are you going on tour for this? Why?

Yep. And here’s my schedule:

I'll also be at the Ennis Festival in Ireland in early March, followed by events in Barcelona and Madrid, and then the Literary Women of Long Beach Festival on March 9th.

I’m very lucky to do this, as not everyone tours for a paperback. It definitely feels different than the hardcover tour—less nerve-wracking, for one thing. A year in, people are more likely to have already read the book (which means more specific questions at the events), but might be bringing their book club to the reading. Touring again means you’re bringing the book back to people’s attention, at least in the communities you visit. There might be more press, and if nothing else it’ll be all over the bookstore’s social media.

And then here’s what it took me a few books to figure out: The main thing about a book tour isn’t the audience, as lovely as they are; it’s making friends with the booksellers.

What’s up with Target?

They’re a pretty big mover of paperbacks, and (alas) in some communities, the only physical way for people to browse books. They have a small selection, and this will be the first time a book of mine is there. Although I’d always prefer that you buy my book from an indie bookstore, Target is in fact my spiritual home so I’m more than okay with my book hanging out there. The decision to carry a book is not up to each individual Target, it’s up to the Target Book Decider, which is probably not that person’s real job title. (Same, by the way, with airport bookstores, almost all of which are Hudsons even if they sometimes have a different name. I love it when people text me, like, “The Anaheim Airport bookstore loves your book!” but really, it’s not that one airport or store; Hudson either carries and highlights a book or doesn’t.)

What’s the best way to order a paperback?

(Best for the writer and the literary ecosystem, that is.) By far the best way is to preorder (before the book is even out) from an indie bookstore, or to get it right when it comes out. And you can do this online if you don’t have a local one. The second best is to get the book from said indie after the pub date. (Tied with these two—but this isn’t about paperbacks—would be preordering or ordering the audiobook from libro.fm, which gives your money straight to the indie bookstore of your choice, or ordering the ebook via Kobo, which does the same.) The next best is a larger brick-and-mortar store. The next best is getting your wonderful local library to order it. The next best is funding Jeff Bezos’s penis rockets.

The next best is buying some weird pirated version. The next best is walking into a store and actively talking everyone out of ordering it. The last best is joining Moms for Liberty and destroying the fabric of our country and its free speech and educational system.

The accurate answer is No, of course not — who on earth would have a yearlong book tour other than someone so absurdly famous that they’d have the power to do just about anything, including getting themselves out of a yearlong book tour?

But I know what they’re really asking is whether I’m still doing events for my book. Even then, I don’t know how to answer. If you mean Are you traveling occasionally for writing-related events, then I guess the answer is Yes, I will be on book tour for the rest of my natural life, fates willing.

But if I actually take the time to explain it all to someone who actually wants to know, they’re usually fairly interested, or at least they pretend to be, so—for the actually interested—I’m going to break down the kinds of events a writer might do, and why someone like me might be on the road this much.

Let me say first that I’m incredibly fortunate to have this many opportunities, and most of them did not happen until my fourth book. There are writers who do more of this than I do, but the majority of published authors might have just a couple of events for a new book, and one of those might be in their own living room. My gratitude for all these opportunities is one reason I keep saying yes to so many of them, despite being a little bit exhausted and very dehydrated.

So here are the things…

Actual Book Tour

This is when the hardcover or paperback has just come out, and my US press sends me around for a couple of weeks. I’m usually in a different bookstore (or sometimes a larger venue, or a library) each night, usually in conversation with a local author. I’ll read for five minutes, chat with the other author for 20, answer some audience Q&A, sign books, and then go out for a bite with the one high school friend, two college friends, three author friends, and one former student who live in that city. Then I wake up and get on a plane and do it again.

Before Zoom, these stops often included local media (radio, podcasts, maybe local TV); now, those interviews tend to happen in advance of my visit, or totally unconnected from my being somewhere physically.

Heyyy, by the way: It’s really fun and at least 20 karma points to support authors on book tour. It’s not like a book club; you absolutely are not expected to have read the book beforehand. Nor do you have to know the author or something. Often there’s wine and cheese. (If you live in Chicago, you can come out to see me interview Marie-Helene Bertino about her brilliant new novel on 2/6/24!)

Book Festivals

There’s at least one book festival somewhere in the country just about every weekend of the year, especially from spring to fall, hosting anywhere from five to five hundred authors. The festivals will invite authors, and sometimes pay their way, sometimes not. Sometimes the press pays. (For my first books, I was sometimes cashing in airline miles and couch-surfing.) Typically I’ll be on two panels, or have one panel and one solo event; there will be a couple of author and donor parties; and there’s a giant signing tent where I’m usually sandwiched between a fantasy author with a thousand-person line and a poet who’s now my new best friend.

I love the camaraderie of festivals. I always keep an eye out for who will have a new book the same year as me, because those are the people I’ll be seeing in Austin and Miami and Tucson and Brooklyn, etc. all through the year.

The smaller festivals are among my favorites. You get to know the other authors a little better, and you often sell more books; readers are eager to buy a book from everyone there, rather than racing past you to get in line for James Patterson.

Heyyy, by the way: If you’ve never been to a book festival and there’s one near you, you should go! Often the kids’ programming is especially amazing, if you have young readers in your life.

University/School Gigs:

A lot of colleges and private high schools have reading series. They might bring in three or four authors a year, to give readings and visit classes. Or an MFA program might bring in an author to meet with students, lead a one-day workshop, and give a reading. Or a university might bring in a Writer In Residence to do all this stuff and stay for a whole month. Children’s and YA authors spend a huge amount of time doing school visits for young readers. From everything I’ve heard, these are both as rewarding and exhausting as you’d expect.

These gigs also usually pay money, which means they’re how a lot of writers support themselves. Think particularly of award-winning poets who might have big names but still aren’t selling many books because the world doesn’t read enough poetry.

Heyyy, by the way: If you donate to your alma mater anyway but also want to support working writers, you can always earmark your donation for the English department, a certain reading series, etc. If you happen to be financially blessed, you could even endow a visiting author deal and get it named after you. If you’re very wealthy and had a lousy business magnate father who hated books, this is honestly a great way to stick it to him. Just putting that out there.

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Benefits:

There are lots of other events that might involve writers: a book lunch for an alumni association, a literacy foundation’s gala, a library fundraiser, a young writers’ award dinner, etc. etc. etc. At the best of these, you have an amazing time, help a great cause, sell some books, and get really good food. Other times you’re the table host at table #37, sitting with a bunch of banker bros who are there because their bank bought a table, and you find yourself whispering “good cause, good cause, good cause” as you down your third gin and tonic. One time a drunk guy leaned over and very intensely asked me to “define creativity.”

Heyyy, by the way: Please never drunkenly ask a writer to define creativity.

Book Clubs:

I do very few of these nowadays, and really only for friends—but they’re so fun, and lots of authors absolutely live for these, especially when the book is new, the writer is just starting out, and/or the book club can pay a little bit. Plenty of writers are especially happy to Zoom in.

There are other kinds of book clubs, too—ones for the employees of a big corporation, or for a country club, or for a library—and sometimes these pay. I once heard of a very wealthy book club flying out an author and putting her up at Canyon Ranch, which, hey, call me.

The coolest book club I ever visited was this group in Milwaukee that had been meeting for over 100 years. There was a wait-list, and you could basically only get in when someone died.

Heyyy, by the way: Especially if your book club is reading a debut author, invite them to Zoom with you!

Foreign Tours:

Authors have different publishers in different languages and territories, and a foreign press might have the funds to bring an author over for a festival or a book tour. This is less glamorous than whatever you’re picturing (the schedule is usually packed and the author is usually jet lagged), but it is a lovely way to see the world, and it’s very nice to get picked up at the airport and taken around by a bookish person who can order for you in restaurants.

Heyyy, by the way: If you’re in Ireland, Barcelona, or Madrid, I’ll be coming your way in March.

Conferences

I absolutely love teaching at writers conferences. I’m often leading a workshop for a week or two; and often there’s a public reading in the middle of this. I just finished teaching at the Key West Literary Seminars, and I’ll be teaching at the Bread Loaf Writers Workshop in August.

Heyyy, by the way: The application for Bread Loaf is 2/1/24. DO IT!

The one thing I’ll never do again:

This is a Me Problem, to be sure; many other authors love it.

Sometimes billed optimistically as an “author signing,” there’s this thing where you sit at a table, either all alone or next to other authors, and wait for people to maybe stop and talk to you and buy a book. This isn’t a signing table following a talk, or at a book fest; you’re just sitting there in a bookstore or library or Costco, while people try to avoid eye contact with you. It’s awkward when you’re alone, and honestly worse when you’re in competition with other writers. Do you try to look more friendly and approachable than the sweet mystery author next to you? Does one of you shout something out to get attention? It’s hell.

If you’re David Sedaris, though, it sounds kind of great.

Hey, speaking of book tours:

Here are my US paperback tour stops later this winter!

2/20: CHICAGO; Women and Children First (at the Swedish American Museum) with NPR’s Greta Johnson
2/21: DETROIT (or actually West Bloomfield); Schuler Books
2/21: MONTCLAIR, NJ; Montclair Literary Festival with Julie Otsuka
2/26: LOUISVILLE; Carmichael’s Bookstore at Louisville Free Public Library with Katy Yocom
2/27: RALEIGH; Quail Ridge Books with Rachel Simons
2/28: ATLANTA; A Cappella Books at Wild Heaven Brewery with Jessica Handler
3/9: LONG BEACH; Literary Women Festival

If you’re local, I hope to see you!

I’m the little one stage right (photo left), wearing a Hungarian dress that’s too short for me. And I’ve been wondering for years about the kid whose hand I’m holding.

I have posted this photo several times on social media, asking for interpretations, and we have not come to a consensus.

Here are the possibilities:

1. We were doing some elaborate preschool production of A Christmas Carol, and this kid was one of the ghosts. (Unlikely.)

2. The kid’s mom, at 8 am, was like “You need a costume today? Are you f*%&ing kidding me, Jason? I don’t care, go find your Halloween one.”

3. Jewish family protesting these Christmas-centric festivities.

4. This was a toddler so obsessed with Grimace that he got his mom to make him a Grimace costume to wear around the house, and then he pitched an absolute fit when she tried to make him wear the assigned Christmas gear, so she gave up and let him be Grimace again.

5. Witness protection program; he walked around like this all year and I’ve blocked it.

6. Some kind of Christmas mouse (as in, “not a creature was stirring, not even a”) which would make total sense if he turned around and we saw his tail.

7. Four-year-old nihilist (now a philosophy professor at Sarah Lawrence) expressing that all values are baseless and knowledge is impossible.

8. Lump of coal?

Do you have another theory? Was that YOU, and it’s all coming back to you now?

Let me know. Please.

And happy holidays; remember that eggnog is a protein.