scope and scale
When you start teaching at your old high school, everyone wants to know if it's changed at all. What's different, what's the same. The answer is, everything...
sunlight
I have a friend who keeps a list of every time she eats dumplings in a year. She keeps another list, too, of all of the best things that happen to her: nice...
reading log #4
I haven’t written one of these in a while, but I have been reading a lot. Last weekend I turned in a draft of romance #3, aka SELF-INDULGENCE, and was so...
trip
I forgot to write to say: the book came out. yes, YES, the book is out, etc. I did an event at the Rachel Comey store in Los Angeles; I did events at McNally...
emergenc(i)es
Recently I’ve been infinitely more attuned to the sounds of sirens and helicopters. And I’ve been thinking about how many people live their whole lives...
reading log #3
Before we get started, I want to put news about SQUARE WAVES events right up top, since they are coming up so soon! Please come see me IRL: June 24 - in LA...
reading log #2
Maybe this is a dangerous thing for a romance author to admit, but I’m getting a little tired of books with sex scenes in them. Not because there’s anything...
reading log
Recently I was talking a friend about what we were reading. She observed that she was having a hard time figuring out what contemporary fiction was...
true american
Earlier this week I went to Costco. It was a Tuesday, a little before noon and unseasonably hot, and the place was bustling, practically bubbling over with...
mixed metaphors
Last August, I drove up to Berkeley and stayed in an AirBnB tucked into a narrow, winding hillside. I spent a few days in town: drank a flight of vermouth...
sky blue sky
Two weeks ago, just before noon, a text from a friend who was teaching on the westside. fire spreading rapidly on north side of campus. Ten minutes later, a...
counterprogramming
Because what could I possibly say about the election that hasn’t already been said. Also I’m starting with links today, because the first one is time-...
hatikvah
I went to a Jewish elementary school. Every morning, before we went into our classrooms, we gathered on the playground, lined up by grade, and recited the...
whelm
In 2016, after my first book came out, I wrote, of the week that had preceded its release: “it's like trying to recall the details of days spent in a fever:...
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juvenilia
My next book comes out in five days, on Tuesday, September 10th, so I am deep in promo mode, trying to figure out how to get people to, you know, care....
dates
In March of 2020, I spent about a week at a farmhouse up in Humboldt County, in northern California. I was there, in theory, on a writing retreat, but I...
inciting incidents
I have spent years of my life imagining how I would meet Hanson. When I was younger, I would fantasize about running into them at an airport or by hotel...
book news
Surprise: I wrote another one. My first romance novel (well, actually novella) will be out September 10th. It is called BIG FAN, and I will tell you more...
the best days of our lives
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
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...