Is "doomslang" making us all numb?

One week until The Age of Magical Overthinking is birthed into the world...

Weekly Q&A:

Q: What’s your best advice for marketing a book?

A: I’ll tell ya, learning how to self-market my books has been one of my life’s great odysseys (I’m only partially kidding). I guess to summarize everything into a single nugget, I’d say that once the crafting of the book is done, I kinda start treating the whole endeavor like an entrepreneur launching a product. By that, I just mean I’ve tried to cultivate a willingness to throw a whole lot of marketing spaghetti at the wall in an effort to get the word out about my book. These strands of spaghetti will look different for everyone—they might look like starting a podcast, pitching yourself as a guest on others’ podcasts, sending copies of the book to influencers, launching a substack (hi!!!), pitching freelance essays related to the book’s themes, ramping up your social media presence, and showing off all your efforts to your publisher so that they’ll be more motivated to support your book with their resources, as well. Everything I do is totally an act of hurling stringy noodles at nearby walls and hoping to goddess something sticks. The process definitely feels ickily self-promotional and soul-sucking at times, but I just try to remind myself that I’m not doing it for me, I’m doing it for the ideas in the book, which belong to everyone… and the only way to share that ownership is to make sure people know about it!

My op-ed about “doomslang” is now published in Esquire!

I am delighted to share this new piece, inspired by a chapter in The Age of Magical Overthinking that covers a cognitive bias called “declinism,” or the false intuition that life is only getting irreversibly worse. I got to report on how that sentiment shows up in language, and how we use slang to cope. Working with my editor Adrienne Westenfeld was an utter pleasure!

I’m finally covering homeschooling on Sounds Like A Cult.

Stereotypes say that homeschool kids are a little, well, ~quirky~ but is that because they grew up in a "cult" of sorts? The American homeschool landscape is currently undergoing an especially fraught *paradigm shift* with upwards of 2 million kids being taught at home as of 2023. This surge is fueled by a range of sociopolitical factors, from the relatable (school shootings are scary!!!!) to the undeniably sinister (ahem, IBLP… ahem, Lord of the Flies-style unschooling practices that overlap with the troubled teen industry???). Homeschooling—with its insular communities, lack of regulation, and sometimes radical approaches to child-rearing—can add up to something eeeeeeeerily reminiscent of a fringey, paranoid sect. To help parse it out what “cult category” homeschooling falls into, I interviewed my pal (and homeschool *survivor*) Justina Sharp. This is delicate subject matter, and everyone’s experiences are different, so if you’re interested in learning more, be sure to check out the resources in our shownotes! The episode drops at 2am PST.

Snag tix for my Philly live show with a new promo price!

This live variety show featuring Kelsey McKinney from Normal Gossip, musical guests, drag burlesque performances, and a juicy powerpoint presentation on parasocial relationships is going to be LITTY TITTY. Get your tickets, now with a special promo price starting at $15!!! You won’t regret it ;)

The new book comes out in exactly one week and one day. There’s still time to preorder. I beg that you do :)

We’re in the home stretch. I poured everything I have into this book. If any part of you could spare a pre-order (or one for a friend if you’ve already done so!!!), it would mean the sun, moon, and stars to me.

FILM: Blackberry 

I am endlessly riveted by cinematic exposés on the rise and fall of iconic brands, and this film on the meteoric success and subsequent crash of Blackberry phones does it incredibly well. The doc moves through the story at a snappy clip and while there are barely any women in it (which we hate), I still highly recommend it, which says a lot!!!

BOOK: Grief Is For People

Sloane Crosley is the writer who made me feel like I could write books one day. Her voice is singularly witty, and I am always enchanted by her way around a pithy metaphor. Her latest book is a memoir about grief and is both devastating and devastatingly funny. It’s also very short, so you can (and should) slurp it down in two days!

PODCAST: Petty Crimes 

If you enjoy Sounds Like A Cult, you have got to tune into my buds’ Cear and Griff’s impossibly charming show Petty Crimes, which is a hilarious crime pod that’s not really about crimes the way that my cult podcast is not really about cults. I personally dare you not to fall in love with Ceara and Griff!!! Be sure to catch us on tour together on April 16, if you live near NYC :)

CLOTHING: Jungalow Hypnotic Quilted Jacket 

I’ve posted a couple pics of myself wearing this quilted jacket, which I admittedly have been wearing almost every day since I bought it lol, and the people have been inquiring about where I got it, so here it is! It runs quite small—I’m 5’1” and opted for the M/L size.