Archive • practice • Buttondown

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

February 26, 2025

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...

January 21, 2025

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

November 5, 2024

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-...

October 7, 2024

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...

September 9, 2024

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:...

September 5, 2024

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....

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...

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...

February 26, 2024

Last week, I wrote about religion and war. This week: money time. Usually at the end of each year I send a breakdown of how much I made, and how I made it....

February 20, 2024

Often, at some point during high holy days services, someone sitting in the pews near me will turn around and compliment my singing voice. I am always...

November 29, 2023

Earlier this year, it seemed, briefly, like I might get a job. In April, a woman emailed me out of the clear blue sky to say she worked for a website that...

archival material

October 27, 2023

Mostly just taking the occasion of the re-release of 1989 to remind you that I wrote a whole bunch of essays about the album when it was first released in...

on-field performance

October 9, 2023

I grew up in a sports-minimal household. This is in part because I grew up in a television-minimal household; no cable until I was twelve, etc. etc. I once...

October 4, 2023

That bad boy is my dad! And I'll be interviewing him tomorrow about his book at Chevalier's books at 6pm. Come see us banter! I'll even show you pictures of...

September 7, 2023

Ten years ago, I took my second-ever writing workshop. The format was simple: every week, we were allowed to bring in up to four-- later six-- pages of...

bodies bodies bodies

September 1, 2023

[Fair warning: this one is about death.] Last year, right around this time, three in a row: Amy (cancer, fast); Jess (cancer, slow), and Sparrow (brain...

I have seen Taylor Swift live twice, and both times I have burst into tears during the first five minutes of the show. The first time was eight years ago...

preaching to the choir

I have taught, let's say, a hundred+ aspiring writers over the course of the last seven years. I have taught beginning fiction classes, novel workshops,...

I keep taking walks with my friends and painstakingly laying it out: the opportunities that have disappeared, the industries that are crumbling, the deep and...

This Tinyletter turns seven on Wednesday, which means my freelance career is just a few weeks behind. Seven years! (If it feels like all we're doing lately...

My goddaughter turned seven on Sunday. Here's an essay I wrote about her just after she was born. Here's what I wrote about her in my Tinyletter on the...

Twelve years ago, somehow, I published this piece in The Paris Review Daily. It got some notice from agents wondering if I had a book, but it also netted me...

December 29, 2022

I can't tell you how many versions of this Tinyletter I've written. I keep trying to tell a story about this year and how it was, but it never quite comes...

November 11, 2022

Over the weekend I did one last canvassing shift. As it happened I had been assigned almost the exact same route a few months prior, but it would have been...

October 20, 2022

A couple of weeks ago I flew to New York, and then B and his girlfriend and I drove to Binghamton for a friend's wedding. First, though, we drove to Colgate,...

October 4, 2022

(I wrote this a while ago, but it felt too raw to send at the time. Today I wrote a different Tinyletter that's still too raw to send, so now I'm sending you...

August 31, 2022

Last September, I went to see a psychic. Or, well, I Zoomed with a psychic, technically, sitting at my desk in my house, but you know what I mean. She pulled...

The problem with writing a newsletter pretty regularly for the better part of six years is that sometimes it feels like I've covered all the topics. Remember...

I grew up in Hollywood, and so I spent a lot of my childhood politely telling people that I had no intention of going into the industry. I had seen,...

Something I never could have predicted is that one of my favorite parts of the culture writing I do is getting to interview people. I have pretty bad social...

Sometimes-- rarely, but sometimes-- an editor gives me an assignment and I can immediately envision it: like oh, yeah, I know the words to that song. I very...

One of my favorite parts of the year, Before, was Sunday afternoon, around 5pm, at the LA Times Festival of Books. The Festival is massive, and even though...

the duality of Zan

Good joke, right? I came up with it on the fly yesterday in conversation and was very proud of myself. Anyway, a couple of things for you this week: an essay...

February 3, 2022

So it finally happened: I got it, or it got me. A few weeks ago I had what I thought was a sinus headache, and then what I thought was a sore throat from...

success stories

December 30, 2021

A thing about being in my mid-thirties and being single and also, you know, having a career without a clear path, and because of that periodically being...

December 20, 2021

No essay today, just news: I'm teaching a one-day virtual writing class early next year! If your New Year's resolution involves finally composing the Great...

conflicts of interest

December 6, 2021

Last week, S and I bought a Christmas tree, a Douglas fir, 5-6 feet tall. It's round and shaggy and currently dropping needles all over our living room. The...

October 28, 2021

Various things have happened recently that made me think: that could be a Tinyletter. I've been boxing again for the first time since March of 2020, and...

September 22, 2021

I had drinks with a friend recently (hi, Ann) during which we talked about being over 30 on TikTok. I downloaded the app the way a lot of people did, on some...

I wrote the first draft of this Tinyletter something like a month ago, when the reopening seemed to be going better. In retrospect, it should have been...

because I don't have an essay in me right now but I do have some stuff I said and wrote recently to share with you: I appeared on Vox's Today, Explained to...

For the last eight years, I've had two roommates. They've been different roommates in different apartments, but always two of them; three of us, total, in...

You would think that writing books about adolescence would mean I would think about high school a lot, but I really don't. Or I don't consciously think about...

January 22, 2021

This feels like a dangerous thing to admit to group of people that includes current, former, and hopefully future students, but I started teaching writing...

December 15, 2020

First things first: I'm teaching a virtual fiction writing workshop next year! If you have an idea for a story and want to figure out how to get started,...

December 10, 2020

I feel really sheepish writing you another Tinyletter so soon after the last one's dramatics, but a) someone asked a question I wanted to answer and then b)...