Month: August 2026

My Editor Asked Me to Write a Piece Making Fun of a Story I Actually, Secretly Agreed With, and I Am Still Working Out Whether I Can Do That Job Honestly

by

My Editor Asked Me to Write a Piece Making Fun of a Story I Actually, Secretly Agreed With, and I Am Still Working Out Whether I Can Do That Job Honestly – Satire is supposed to punch at absurdity wherever it finds it. Tonight I am discovering how much harder that principle is to hold onto when the target is something I privately believe in.

I Got to Watch a Reader Actually Laugh Out Loud at My Writing for the First Time, and It Completely Recalibrated How I Think About This Whole Job

by

I Got to Watch a Reader Actually Laugh Out Loud at My Writing for the First Time, and It Completely Recalibrated How I Think About This Whole Job – Years of writing for an invisible, unknowable audience. Then, once, by pure accident, I got to actually watch the joke land in real time.

I Have Been Staring at a Blank Page for Six Hours Trying to Write Something Funny About a Genuinely Terrible Week, and I Am Starting to Wonder if Humor Writing Just Does Not Work That Way

by

I Have Been Staring at a Blank Page for Six Hours Trying to Write Something Funny About a Genuinely Terrible Week, and I Am Starting to Wonder if Humor Writing Just Does Not Work That Way – The deadline does not care that the week was bad. The page, six hours in, remains stubbornly, uncooperatively blank.

A Reader Wrote In Convinced My Satirical Piece Was a Genuine, Serious News Story, and I Am Still Deciding Whether That Is the Best or Worst Compliment I Have Ever Received

by

A Reader Wrote In Convinced My Satirical Piece Was a Genuine, Serious News Story, and I Am Still Deciding Whether That Is the Best or Worst Compliment I Have Ever Received – She was furious. Genuinely, sincerely furious, at a completely invented premise. I do not know whether to feel proud or mildly concerned.

I Submitted the Same Humor Piece to Twelve Different Outlets Over Two Years Before It Finally Got Accepted, and I Kept a Genuinely Unhinged Spreadsheet Tracking Every Single Rejection

by

I Submitted the Same Humor Piece to Twelve Different Outlets Over Two Years Before It Finally Got Accepted, and I Kept a Genuinely Unhinged Spreadsheet Tracking Every Single Rejection – Twelve submissions. Eleven rejections, each with its own specific flavor of polite discouragement. Then, finally, a yes that made the whole spreadsheet worth it.

My Editor Asked Me to Write Something ‘More Relatable’ About My Own Divorce, and I Am Still Working Out Whether That Note Was Actually Reasonable or Genuinely Insulting

by

My Editor Asked Me to Write Something ‘More Relatable’ About My Own Divorce, and I Am Still Working Out Whether That Note Was Actually Reasonable or Genuinely Insulting – Relatable to whom, exactly, is the question I cannot quite let go of, four days after receiving that specific note.

I Turned Fifty This Week and Genuinely Expected to Feel Devastated About It, and Instead I Have Spent the Whole Week Unexpectedly, Almost Suspiciously Content

by

I Turned Fifty This Week and Genuinely Expected to Feel Devastated About It, and Instead I Have Spent the Whole Week Unexpectedly, Almost Suspiciously Content – Every cultural script told me this birthday was supposed to feel like a crisis. It has, so far, felt like something closer to relief.

I Got Genuinely, Publicly Torn Apart Online for a Column I Wrote Last Week, and I Am Trying to Actually Sit With the Valid Criticism Rather Than Simply Defending Myself

by

I Got Genuinely, Publicly Torn Apart Online for a Column I Wrote Last Week, and I Am Trying to Actually Sit With the Valid Criticism Rather Than Simply Defending Myself – Several hundred replies. Most of them furious. A handful genuinely, uncomfortably correct about something I got wrong.

I Went Back and Reread My Own Twenty-Year-Old Diary From University and Wanted to Simultaneously Hug and Shake That Girl Until Her Teeth Rattled

by

I Went Back and Reread My Own Twenty-Year-Old Diary From University and Wanted to Simultaneously Hug and Shake That Girl Until Her Teeth Rattled – She had no idea what was coming. Reading her own naive certainty from this side of it was considerably more painful than I expected.

My Teenage Daughter Asked Me What Feminism Actually Meant Today and I Realized I Have Spent Twenty Years Writing About It Without Ever Properly Explaining It to Her

by

My Teenage Daughter Asked Me What Feminism Actually Meant Today and I Realized I Have Spent Twenty Years Writing About It Without Ever Properly Explaining It to Her – Twenty years of columns, two books, and I froze completely the moment my own kid asked the question directly, over breakfast, with cereal still in her mouth.