Content
Clear is Kind
The line between direct and obnoxious is thin, but firm. Your goal is to remain securely on the generous side of the line, avoiding the obnoxious side as much as humanly possible. Often in our attempts to avoid being obnoxious, we overcorrect and become non-committal, evasive, defensive, passive aggressive, and (the worst one) unclear. Making (…)
Pause Before Publishing
About a decade ago everyone and their mom was obsessed with “vulnerability.” Brene Brown gave her now famous TED talk on the topic and popularized the term, leading people to become devout practitioners of vulnerability. What did that mean? No one knows. But what happened was people started oversharing everything private about themselves on the (…)
I Accidentally Went Viral on Threads
Soooo, I accidentally went viral on Threads. I wrote, “Can we get a thread on authors who found success after 40?” and it exploded. 110k views. 1.4k likes. 1.1k comments. 65 reposts. The comments section filled with authors in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s sharing success stories, including Kiese Laymon, Amy Dubois Barnett, Shaka (…)
Why Open AI ChatGPT Will Not Ruin Writing, But We Will
This is my least favorite topic at the moment because, well, outrage is profoundly boring to me. But enough people have asked me to comment on ChatGPT so here we are. Am I worried about it. What are my thoughts. What will happen to writing and writers and original thought! I’ll start with the punchline: (…)
Why You Should Endure The Discomfort of Being Direct
There is no such thing as a friendly reminder. “Friendly reminders” are passive-aggressive roundabout ways of avoiding direct communication and clarifying your position. There are fascinating reasons why we do this, which Dr. Harriett Lerner, Patron Saint Of All Things Anger, talks about in detail here. The gist is that many of us avoid conflict (…)
Be Wary of Anyone Selling You Certainty
About a decade ago I went down the rabbit hole of learning about food. I started with the woo-woo stuff (Kris Carr’s book isn’t bad), did a stint with the conspiracy theorists (Forks Over Knives, Anything about gluten and your brain), and then graduated to the promised land of Michael Pollan. If you haven’t read The Omnivore’s (…)
A Grammar Crisis
A friend pulled me into a marital dispute which is a precarious place to be and in ordinary circumstances I recommend avoiding this at all costs, but this dispute was a grammar one and so I had no choice. I had to weigh in. The dispute was over whether or not it was kosher to begin a (…)
Going On a Newsletter Sabbatical
Over the last 5 years, few things have brought me more joy than these Thursdays with you. Our debates about what is or isn’t true, the safe container to think in public, the testing of ideas. I love being in the public sphere and you have given me the space to do what I love: (…)