Central Places has been out for a month, and life is slowly turning back to normal, which is both a bummer in that childhood day-after-your-birthday kind of way, but also a total relief because boy, I was really getting elaborate with some dark dread fantasies of getting hit by a truck/coming down with COVID/imploding on a subway seat before I got to see pub day with mine own eyes. But we did it! It feels like I got away with something, and now I’m laying low to make sure no one catches on before I turn 30 next week. Sometimes I think milestones are kind of like those gargantuan cumulonimbus clouds, where they look like scary shit rolling in from a mile away, but then when you’re in it, it’s just misty wisp everywhere, and you can’t see that well??
Stuff I’ve liked recently: the Emily movie is basically Emily Brontë fanfiction, and I loved it so much (especially Emma Mackey in it!); the Leslie Jamison joint on imposter syndrome, writing about the gorgeous Lily Kwong orchid show at the New York Botanical Garden, the only sensible explanation of AI chatbots thus far, and the Judith F. Baca murals at MOCA Geffen last month.
Stuff I’ve been in: some highlight interviews that I’ve gotten to do for the book…
Interview magazine with Terry Nguyen…if you pick this up in print, we’re right between Alison Roman and Caroline Polachek lol
Grub Street Diet with Emma Alpern (my favorite comment is the one that’s like, wow I can’t emphasize how NOT jealous I am of any of these food choices)
The Longform Interview, AKA Max Linsky gave me some premium therapy/career counseling…
How Long Gone with Chris Black and Jason Stewart— let me just say I understand a lot more about NY men right now after finally listening to a few eps of this…
Vogue with Emma Specter
Embedded with Nick Catucci
Teen Vogue with Livia Caligor
The Creative Independent with Kristen Felicetti, which was a lot of process/perception talk!
Phenomenal Books with Qian Julie Wang; Phenomenal so kindly made CP their book of the month!
The Otherppl podcast with Brad Listi, (very in-depth on book stuff!)
This Needs Hot Sauce with my girl Abigail Koffler
Bustle with Samantha Leach, who also so kindly made CP a book club pick!
Shondaland with Katie Tamola
People! I got some Facebook DMs from high school teachers for this…
Also, this writeup of the Central Places finsta in Dirt was also nice, and so was this review in The Rumpus! Oh, and doing a collab with @starterpacksofnyc was an IG dream come true.
xoxo im gonna take a really long nap now…
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