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the best days of our lives
May 9, 2024
On Tuesday I went to Schwartz & Sandy’s to watch the season (series?) finale of Vanderpump Rules. This may or may not be a sentence that means anything to...
embarrassment of riches
March 18, 2024
Like many people, I have a longstanding list of things to do when (if?) I have more money. This list isn't just expensive clothes I want, though I like to...
raises
February 26, 2024
Last week, I wrote about religion and war. This week: money time. Usually at the end of each year I send a breakdown of how much I made, and how I made it....
protest
February 20, 2024
Often, at some point during high holy days services, someone sitting in the pews near me will turn around and compliment my singing voice. I am always...
well.
November 29, 2023
Earlier this year, it seemed, briefly, like I might get a job. In April, a woman emailed me out of the clear blue sky to say she worked for a website that...
archival material
October 27, 2023
Mostly just taking the occasion of the re-release of 1989 to remind you that I wrote a whole bunch of essays about the album when it was first released in...
on-field performance
October 9, 2023
I grew up in a sports-minimal household. This is in part because I grew up in a television-minimal household; no cable until I was twelve, etc. etc. I once...
IRL
October 4, 2023
That bad boy is my dad! And I'll be interviewing him tomorrow about his book at Chevalier's books at 6pm. Come see us banter! I'll even show you pictures of...
cruising
September 7, 2023
Ten years ago, I took my second-ever writing workshop. The format was simple: every week, we were allowed to bring in up to four-- later six-- pages of...
bodies bodies bodies
September 1, 2023
[Fair warning: this one is about death.] Last year, right around this time, three in a row: Amy (cancer, fast); Jess (cancer, slow), and Sparrow (brain...
rooms
August 7, 2023
I have seen Taylor Swift live twice, and both times I have burst into tears during the first five minutes of the show. The first time was eight years ago...
preaching to the choir
May 18, 2023
I have taught, let's say, a hundred+ aspiring writers over the course of the last seven years. I have taught beginning fiction classes, novel workshops,...
good bad days
May 12, 2023
I keep taking walks with my friends and painstakingly laying it out: the opportunities that have disappeared, the industries that are crumbling, the deep and...
sea change
April 24, 2023
This Tinyletter turns seven on Wednesday, which means my freelance career is just a few weeks behind. Seven years! (If it feels like all we're doing lately...
life-changing
March 27, 2023
My goddaughter turned seven on Sunday. Here's an essay I wrote about her just after she was born. Here's what I wrote about her in my Tinyletter on the...
bright, young
March 15, 2023
Twelve years ago, somehow, I published this piece in The Paris Review Daily. It got some notice from agents wondering if I had a book, but it also netted me...
evolution
December 29, 2022
I can't tell you how many versions of this Tinyletter I've written. I keep trying to tell a story about this year and how it was, but it never quite comes...
territory
November 11, 2022
Over the weekend I did one last canvassing shift. As it happened I had been assigned almost the exact same route a few months prior, but it would have been...
old haunts
October 20, 2022
A couple of weeks ago I flew to New York, and then B and his girlfriend and I drove to Binghamton for a friend's wedding. First, though, we drove to Colgate,...
rejection
October 4, 2022
(I wrote this a while ago, but it felt too raw to send at the time. Today I wrote a different Tinyletter that's still too raw to send, so now I'm sending you...
companions
August 31, 2022
Last September, I went to see a psychic. Or, well, I Zoomed with a psychic, technically, sitting at my desk in my house, but you know what I mean. She pulled...
revisiting
June 21, 2022
The problem with writing a newsletter pretty regularly for the better part of six years is that sometimes it feels like I've covered all the topics. Remember...
dreams
June 8, 2022
I grew up in Hollywood, and so I spent a lot of my childhood politely telling people that I had no intention of going into the industry. I had seen,...
poseur
May 10, 2022
Something I never could have predicted is that one of my favorite parts of the culture writing I do is getting to interview people. I have pretty bad social...
good reads
April 26, 2022
Sometimes-- rarely, but sometimes-- an editor gives me an assignment and I can immediately envision it: like oh, yeah, I know the words to that song. I very...
bubbles
April 13, 2022
One of my favorite parts of the year, Before, was Sunday afternoon, around 5pm, at the LA Times Festival of Books. The Festival is massive, and even though...
the duality of Zan
April 7, 2022
Good joke, right? I came up with it on the fly yesterday in conversation and was very proud of myself. Anyway, a couple of things for you this week: an essay...
sick, brah
February 3, 2022
So it finally happened: I got it, or it got me. A few weeks ago I had what I thought was a sinus headache, and then what I thought was a sore throat from...
success stories
December 30, 2021
A thing about being in my mid-thirties and being single and also, you know, having a career without a clear path, and because of that periodically being...
true love
December 20, 2021
No essay today, just news: I'm teaching a one-day virtual writing class early next year! If your New Year's resolution involves finally composing the Great...
conflicts of interest
December 6, 2021
Last week, S and I bought a Christmas tree, a Douglas fir, 5-6 feet tall. It's round and shaggy and currently dropping needles all over our living room. The...
simmer
October 28, 2021
Various things have happened recently that made me think: that could be a Tinyletter. I've been boxing again for the first time since March of 2020, and...
timing
September 22, 2021
I had drinks with a friend recently (hi, Ann) during which we talked about being over 30 on TikTok. I downloaded the app the way a lot of people did, on some...
face time
July 7, 2021
I wrote the first draft of this Tinyletter something like a month ago, when the reopening seemed to be going better. In retrospect, it should have been...
quickie
June 11, 2021
because I don't have an essay in me right now but I do have some stuff I said and wrote recently to share with you: I appeared on Vox's Today, Explained to...
moving on
April 12, 2021
For the last eight years, I've had two roommates. They've been different roommates in different apartments, but always two of them; three of us, total, in...
graduation
March 10, 2021
You would think that writing books about adolescence would mean I would think about high school a lot, but I really don't. Or I don't consciously think about...
critique
January 22, 2021
This feels like a dangerous thing to admit to group of people that includes current, former, and hopefully future students, but I started teaching writing...
colophon
December 15, 2020
First things first: I'm teaching a virtual fiction writing workshop next year! If you have an idea for a story and want to figure out how to get started,...
accounting
December 10, 2020
I feel really sheepish writing you another Tinyletter so soon after the last one's dramatics, but a) someone asked a question I wanted to answer and then b)...
whatever this is
December 1, 2020
I keep thinking of Tinyletters I could maybe write and then not writing them. It's hard not to feel like I've told you every story about myself and my life...
ashes, ashes
September 10, 2020
California is on fire; I'm having a hard time. I keep thinking about the opening pages of a novel I tried to write some ten years ago, now, which begins...
longer letter later
August 21, 2020
I O U more than this, Tinyletterers, but it's Friday and California's on fire, literally, and so is the rest of the country, metaphorically speaking, so all...
happenings
July 15, 2020
A very short one today, mostly just to remind you that I've gathered a few favorite LA YA authors for a virtual event tonight. Come see us talk writing queer...
exposure
July 7, 2020
I woke up on Monday of last week and saw that, on Twitter, a bad man was having his Day of Reckoning. I was not surprised by this; I had had a bad experience...
where I was from
June 4, 2020
In April, I wrote an essay for LitHub about trying to write contemporary fiction in a world that changes so rapidly & drastically; it was published today....
quiet
May 27, 2020
The problem with saying "I'm listening" is that you aren't: you're talking. That's something I've been trying to keep right at the front of my brain these...
around no one
May 8, 2020
Like everyone else in my demographic, I've been listening to the new Fiona Apple album on repeat for the last few weeks. It's good walking around music, and...
recent history
April 28, 2020
Friday marked my four year freelance-iversary, which means that this Tinyletter is also four. Which is crazy! Freelancing was supposed to be a stopgap...
suspended animation
April 17, 2020
I said to K the other day that the things I've been fantasizing about most frequently in isolation are a haircut, and getting to pet a friend's dogs. "Not...
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