it’s too soon, but i’ll take it:

while the trees continue to wake up, i’ll be talking with the tree whisperer herself, Suzanne Simard (Finding The Mother Tree), about her new book, which looks at renewal and resilience in forests (and people). the event is hosted by my beloved SF bookstore (and long-ago employer) Green Apple Books at the SF Botanical Garden on April 2. please do come, if you’re nearby; it’ll be downright mycelial.

if you missed the big announcement last time, i’ve re-started Scratch, my project about how writers survive. and i do mean survive in all the potential and expansive definitions of that word. this time around, i’m collaborating with dear friends and brilliant writers Rahawa Haile, Latria Graham, and Maggie Mertens to deliver Scratch as a weekly newsletter.

basically, this means that once a week we send you one story via email — it might be an interview, an essay, a topical deep-dive, or … whatever else we feel like. it’ll be long-ish. it’ll likely contain both practical information about being a working writer and consideration of the fact that creative laborers are humans who also have feelings and desires and senses of humor and values, and do not exist just to shovel content into the endlessly expansive jaws of capital, Especially In These Times™.

this week’s Scratch is about taxes — honestly, i hate talking about this stuff, but i love this interview that Maggie did with a novelist author whose day job is being a tax preparer. it is kinda long. but you know what? you know how to read, so it’ll be a breeze! and it’s multifaceted — whilst working on this piece, i both cried at recognition of my own money shame and was reassured that i am not morally bankrupt because i failed to pay my 2025 quarterly self-employment tax installments (i did not want to give that man any interest income, and i’m not sorry!). just read it.

last week we kicked things off with a peek inside our group chat. and our income ledgers. also our souls, a bit?

and if you are still like, "wait, what is a scratch?”, you can read the manifest-o-nnouncement here.

look, you know i’m gonna ask, so here it is:

all this stuff is free to read, because we want people to read it, and also we know money is hard. we are four self-employed writers with no outside backing who are doing this because we think culture makers need it. hell, we need it. and we also need money in order to, well, survive. if you are able to support this independent experiment in slow digital media, please do subscribe.