Archive • Dear Hugo • Buttondown

January 29, 2024

Dear Hugo, It is January, letter-writing season. Resolutions and all that. My inbox is piled with them. This will be my last letter to you, at least in this...

Puking in Epcot

February 28, 2023

Dear Hugo, Nearly a year since my last it's-been-two-whole-years letter, and I finally got Covid, unless I didn't. I am frustratingly unable to test...

November 2, 2022

Weymouth Residency Recap

October 24, 2022

Dear Hugo, The good news is that I didn't forget how to write things that aren't emails. The Weymouth Center/Boyd House was great. I had a quiet, sunny room...

Research Rabbit Hole: The Good-wives Lamentation

Dear Hugo, in the interval since I last worked on an unfinished, research-heavy newsletter about the Blockley Almshouse, UPenn, and the long history of grave...

Dear Hugo, Two years minus two days ago, I went to see a Portrait of a Lady on Fire at the Ritz and then dancing at Ulana's. Two years minus one day ago, I...

Bernard Cone, continued

September 20, 2021

Dear Hugo, I finally finished an essay, and even submitted it somewhere. It's a more refined version of my musings on the Bernard Cone Photograph Albums from...

Dear Hugo, my brain is still fragmented in a million pieces, though somewhat recovered since last time I wrote. For instance, I sewed a dress. A nice linen...

A Note on the Conceit

Dear Hugo, I can’t remember where I read it (probably Slate, it seems like a real Slate type of thing) but there was an article, years ago, by these parents...

Research Rabbit Hole: Bernard Cone Photograph Albums Edition

Dear Hugo, in my Blue Stoop class this week we were tasked with bringing a photograph related to our writing project. I could have brought an old family...

Born on Battleground

Dear Hugo, We have returned from our Grand Tour of North Carolina. Between Topsail, Raleigh, Greensboro, and Charlotte (plus the Asheville wedding in May)...

The Sky Is Blue

Dear Hugo, This isn't going to be a letter so much as an extended excerpt of a book I'm reading, but I think that's allowed since we are on our semi-...

Research Rabbit Hole: Junk Drawer Edition

Dear Hugo, We’re posted up in Raleigh for a little bit. You are having a great time with your indulgent empty-nester grandparents who are happy to play board...

Evocative Title: Followed by a clunky subtitle that catches a bunch of search terms

Dear Hugo, I figured out how to put pictures in this thing. That's an aerial image of a piece of Guilford County, circa 1937. It contains the parcel of land...

Research Rabbit Hole: Richard Pryor Edition

Dear Hugo, A couple weeks ago I finally finished writing something I'd been thinking about and researching and (very occasionally) attempting to draft for...

Dear Hugo, people ask how you picked your name. What happened is, the kitten outside was mewling. It was the end of November and cold. I shook a little dish...