Aug. 4, 2025, Update:
Podcast: I got to make an episode of Decoder Ring, Slate’s podcast that solves cultural mysteries. My animating question was why are Americans so convinced that Britons have “bad teeth”—what do they even mean by that?
Honors: A Place of Our Own was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize!
Reading: I loved Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s first novel, Glassworks. It’s so propulsive and fresh and sharp. I am also enjoying Perfume & Pain, by Anna Dorn. They’re completely different—Perfume & Pain is so cynical, interior, and hard-shelled, whereas Glassworks was embodied and (surprisingly for a book where all the characters feels unloved) focused on humans’ desperate need for connection. Such confident writing in both.
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