Why I have to start at the beginning
While exploring your warm-ups a few weeks ago, I promised more about my conflicted relationship to outlining. It turns out my relationship to it is even more...
On post-plague disappointment
For my apocalypse book, I’m researching the Black Death. It’s probably the most stereotypically “apocalyptic” event I’m exploring, in terms of its sheer...
A round-up of your warm-ups
Thank you to everyone who commented or sent me notes on your writing warm-ups! No one does it exactly the same way, and the diversity of approaches was...
What’s your warm-up?
My husband is a musician, and I’m always learning new things about the creative process by watching him work. Lately I’ve been thinking about scales, and the...
Finally some helpful book publishing advice
Writing a book is an emotional minefield. Not only are you doing the hardest intellectual work of your life, but also at regular but random intervals every...
Three ways writing a book is different than covering news
When I set out to write a book, I thought it’d be basically the same as writing magazine stories, only much longer. On the surface, I’m doing the same sorts...
What I’ve learned writing about apocalypses, during an apocalypse
What's wrong with back to normal
My best productivity advice
I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on last week’s issue about stopping work even when you don’t want to or think you can’t. (Thank you!) I want to...
Why stopping work is just as important as starting
In my last newsletter of 2021, I included this note about recalibrating my work and rest schedules: When I was doing mostly news and feature articles, I...
A frontier double feature
Hi friends! I’m back from a holiday break that managed to be both relaxing (because I spent most of it cross stitching at my parents’ house) and stressful...
Breaking Bad and the power-mad white man
The Antihero Triology, Part 3
The Antihero Trilogy, Part 2
There’s a scene midway through season 2 of Mad Men (set in 1962) in which Don and Betty go to a Memorial Day celebration at a country club. Veterans are...
Quantifying colonialism
Another week, another news article. An unsustainable pace if I also want to write a book, so this is it for me and news for a while (I hope). I wrote about a...
Forensic anthropology’s race problem
I’m pausing the Antihero Trilogy to share a story I published this week, about a debate roiling in U.S. forensic anthropology. For decades, forensic...
The Antihero Trilogy, Part 1
Over the course of the pandemic, my husband and I have watched and/or rewatched the three antihero dramas credited with defining the Golden Age of...
How should a writer write?
I’m thinking a lot about how I want and need to structure my days. Not just my workdays, but especially my workdays. And most especially my writing days,...
On Indigenous voices and diverse sources in journalism
This week I wrote about a new paper on human footprints found in White Sands National Park, which possibly date to as far back as 23,000 years ago. This is a...
Against the American Dream
Hello! I took an unplanned late-summer vacation from the newsletter, because, well, I didn’t feel like doing it for a while. I’m trying to honor my own...
Simone Biles is our hero
Breaking the tradition of disposable bodies
In praise of Schedule Send
I hate email. (I know, I’m writing an email newsletter. We contain multitudes.) I don’t even get that much of it. For me, email is not so much a time suck as...
