Being(s) Here
Getting back in the newsletter game...
Hello, and thank you for being here!
It’s been a while, I know. Last time I wrote to you was from my Substack, which still exists, but I’ve moved my newsletter to this new venue (Buttondown). Nothing should change on your end because this newsletter is, and will remain, free and not so frequent as to clutter your inbox. If you don’t want it there though, there’s an unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email. If you want to know what I’m hoping to do here, check out the li’l about page and, if someone forwarded this to you, and you’d like to, you can
It’s funny; my last post on Substack was about the absolute nightmare that was my abortion experience in 2022. Now, in May 2025, I write to you as the parent of a one-year-old child. (The short version of that is: He’s pretty incredible and I’m enjoying him a lot!)
I write to you also with the news that I have a new book coming out! Finally—at least, that’s what it feels like to me, since my first book came out in 2020, and five years feels, arbitrarily, like too long to have between books.
Beings (Bloomsbury, September 23, 2025) is the product of three plus years of very intense work, both intellectual and emotional. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever written1. It’s about alienation, archives, queerness, and the first alien abductees, and I’ll be writing a lot more about it in the coming months, so I’ll just leave you with the Bookshop pre-order link for now2.
The ARCs (advance reader copies) of my book came in a few days ago and they are gorgeous.
My child happened to be there while I was doing an ungainly unboxing video and he happy-screamed at the perfect moment—it was entirely unorchestrated, which made it all the more delightful. One thing about having a kid, I’ve found, is that his often random-seeming joy helps unleash my own capacity for it.
I don’t want this first post back to be too long. I was going to share some links of recent criticism, and I will in the future. For now, I just have to—sheepishly—acknowledge that every time I restart a newsletter/blog/whatever, I remember once again that I actually do enjoy this kind of writing, which feels both low-stakes and intimate, a way to approach you and the page without the weight and business of the publishing apparatus.
Or, maybe, I just remember that I enjoy writing, full stop. The publishing process can often feel incredibly far away from the writing itself, and writing this book was also pretty torturous (more on that in future missives). So—thank you for being here, for being someone I can write to and who wants to read me.
Unless of course you don’t and you unsubscribe now which is totally cool I swear.
I can’t wait to spend some more time here with you.
Yours, etc.,
Ilana
P.S. While I’ve been writing this newsletter, my son has said a lot of random words which I feel compelled to include so you, too, can enjoy this found poem:
chair
harder!
Abbi… Abbi!
puppy
hoo-hoo!
oh no
Although I still have a soft spot for my utterly unsellable novel Spiritower written while I was reading Ulysses by James Joyce (which should give you a sense of why it’s unsellable).
I’m sorry, but I’m obligated, as an author living under capitalism, to
begask you to pre-order my book at almost every opportunity because it is extremely helpful in proving there is interest from the reading public. If you’re curious about why pre-orders are important for me and other authors, here’s a good explainer.