SWIFTIE BOOKS, INVESTIGATIONS, AND FLOWER ART

LIFE OF A BOOKMAN

Bookman: 1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi that's me!!

Reader-less: You'd think that this newsletter would put a fire under my booty to read something to report back on! But alas, I did not. I DID however recommend a handful of books. The ones that I got into deep conversation about were: Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier (and another of her greats, My Cousin Rachel...which I haven't yet finished but will) I recently heard Taylor Swift chirping about Rebecca in a late night clip, which truly is so on brand for being off. Rebecca is the LEAST Swiftie book I can think of but yet it makes total sense she loves it and allegedly it inspired her song 'Tolerate It'?? If you need encouragement to read this book that has nothing to do with Taylor Swift, read this piece in The Guardian: Daphne Du Maurier Taught Me How to Love Literature. See how I totally distracted you from the fact I didn't read a book last week? lololol

What I've been writing: Damn I had such a fun weekend writing Evangeline!!!! I have the final act all mapped out, which if you're ever struggling to write, knowing where you're going is SUPER helpful. I do it for my scenes and chapters too, like if I just generally have an outline of what Evangeline wants here...and some thing that she'll do...and what it causes (we're talking like 5-10 bullet points of messy thoughts) it'll get me writing instead of looking at the blank page. I have an outline for my book before I write my book, but I find that by the time I've gotten to the back third, that outline probably should be revised because all kinds of things have appeared in the book and for the character...which I definitely didn't know about when I started.

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history.

Is this the Broligarchy's First World War? When all the outlets look the same on Substack, it can be hard to tell what's real reporting. Or what's just an outlet for unsubstantiated opinions. Well, this one is the former, and comes from Investigative Journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who exposed the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal. “Dominique Pelicot and Andrew Tate and Jeffrey Epstein are only symptoms. They are the doorway through which we can understand the forces behind not just another catastrophic Gulf War but a global power structure in which state violence, commercial profit and the control, domination and violation of women are inextricably entwined.” Her reporting connects a lot of dots that become impossible to unsee, which is why you should read it.

Celebrity Assistants Finding TikTok Fame This was fascinating to me. Imagine having a Anna Wintour as your boss, and filming your entire day running errands for her!? Ok, so the Anna part is “alleged” but as someone who works with high-profile clients, I cannot imagine relaying this much information publicly “without naming names”...because the public is so good as sleuthing, they'll find out in a heartbeat with enough imagery/whereabouts/deets. Gen Z is so bold and honestly I'm here for it!!

Epstein Walk of Shame, the mysterious Guerilla Art project in DC Big star stickers popped up on the sidewalk in DC, naming people connected with Jeffrey Epstein, and made to look like the Walk of Fame in LA. I love an anonymous art project. I especially love an anonymous art project that is publicly naming pedophiles and sex traffickers for what they are.

Ben Affleck and AI Earlier this year, my friend sent me some epic reels of Ben Affleck being Ben Affleck. And one of those clips was about how LLMs are a reduction to the mean, which is a death knell for any creative trying to be creative. I couldn't agree more, which is why I posted this fun little video about how to fight off the flattening of voice that you're seeing EVERYWHERE online (but not here bb). I'm pretty fascinated by what role AI can take (and not take) in creative work. These are tools that I work with every days, tools that were trained on books I've written, so I have a pretty good idea. But this piece in the Hollywood Reporter really surprised me. Ben selling an AI company to Netflix!? Oh so quietly!? Hmmmm.

Other stray ones: The Call Her Daddy podcast was once a major friend fall-out, and the gal that got the bad side of that deal has a book coming out. Anyone going to read? New season of The Last Thing He Told Me on AppleTV is out, with Jennifer Garner, and who knew that they could take this story into another season. It's sorta working for me!?

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

For International Women's Day, I went to the San Francisco Flower Mart with a couple galpals. I had one goal: find all the hand-drawn flowers that decorate the covers and pages of Daisy.

There’s a lot of things I love about my book (like the story that centers one of history's great women, who created the largest organization of women and girls, who became who she was thanks to the love of great friends, duh). But there's nothing about the physical side of this book that I love more than the vision designer extraordinaire @raissa_pardini brought to life, sketching flowers for the back cover AND each chapter heading. “Like field notes,” she said. Like field notes, indeed.

And the end result was so delicate, so commanding, so fitting, so Daisy. So I took Daisy to the flower market with me to see if we could spot the flowers from the sketches. And spot the flowers we did!!!

If you haven't joined the Daisy chain by snagging your copy, you should. Copies are dwindling :)

Woman on xx