Book 1 of 2026: PRIVATE RITES by Julia Armfield, narrated by Hannah van der Westhuysen. The post-death bureaucracy horror novel of my dreams! Plus climate change horror! Plus zealotry horror! I loved it. 📚👀

I made you a winter #playlist featuring Rosalía, Doja Cat, Nova Twins, Sasami, Lola Young & more. Canceled Spotify recently & switched to Qobuz, but I still made 2 versions for easier listening. Qobuz: open.qobuz.com/playlist/445... Spotify: open.spotify.com/playlist/70C... #nowplaying

Found the coolest website that takes random found cassette tapes people submit and digitizes them. I’m listening to an NYC hip hop station from 1994: intertapes.net

Volunteering with hospice patients tonight. One 89yo resident told us that we can go through life any way we want, as long as we’re happy. Then she asked us to make her buttered biscuits and bacon at 9pm. What an icon.

You have THREE DAYS LEFT to preorder my book, submit your receipt via the form on my website, and get a free copy of “In the Hole,” a totally normal funeral planning game by yours truly. #deathpositive #books #preorder #ttrpg #funeral #grief

Ever relevant, this poem by Mary Oliver, especially today.

Good morning. I hate the Monroe Doctrine.

Louisville! Come hang out with me and talk about death this month.

My top 10 books of 2025. Just in case you were wondering. I do, after all, have impeccable taste. 📚👀 @meakoopa.bsky.social @iamjameskennedy.bsky.social @iwriteok.bsky.social @marthawells.com @alvaroenrigue.bsky.social @margaret.bsky.social

i am running into a new year

My Stranger Things hot take is that they did the very best they could ending a show that was only meant to be a single season and had since grown unwieldy. I’m glad I watched.

Book 64 of 2025: THE MANSION OF HAPPINESS by Jill Lepore. A former coworker sent me this collection of essays about different stages of life and death, organized in the manner of the centuries-old morality board game “The Mansion of Happiness.” It was good, if only tenuously connected. 📚👀

MY BOOK IS OUT IN ONE WEEK PLEASE PREORDER THANKS

Blessings upon Kenosha Tire for finding a used tire that fits my car so I can drive back to Louisville ✨

I’ve been a AAA member for years and boy did it just pay off.

Just convinced my dad’s Midwestern boomer friends to try sushi. It’s a Christmas miracle. (I doubt I could have ever convinced my dad to try sushi.)

Dean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti, son of Italian immigrant Gaetano Crocetti Frank Sinatra, son of Italian immigrants Antonino Sinatra and Natalina Garavanta Merry Christmas to everyone except Stephen Miller and his enablers and handlers

Book 63 of 2025: CITY OF INCURABLE WOMEN by Maud Casey. Nothing says Christmas like a fictional, experimental retelling of the many women treated for hysteria in 19th century Paris. Right? Holly jolly? 📚👀

On the downside, Baxter Ave Theaters and ValuMarket are closing, meaning I can no longer walk to the movies or grocery store and will now have to drive to give my money to garbage national chains. On the upside, I get to write another angry email to Ben Reno-Weber.

Latest book mail: a fantastic book on parental death by my friend @rebb003.bsky.social and the debut short story collection by one of my favorite contemporary short story writers Senaa Ahmad!

Book 62 of 2025: KILL THE BEAST by Serra Swift. Looking for a good fantasy novel? This one will scratch that itch. We love a revenge story that gets…complicated. 📚👀

The last time a historically bad Chicago sports team unexpectedly won a championship, it knocked us into the timeline where Tr*mp was elected president. Can’t decide whether a Bears Super Bowl win would knock us back into a better timeline, or make things immeasurably worse.

I was talking to 22yo at the brewery who really likes the movie Queen of the Damned. And I said, “I remember when Aaliyah died—it was horrible!” And they replied: “Aaliyah died?” 😂😭

Holy crap chart from Gallup

Book 61 of 2025: THE IMMORTAL CHOIR HOLDS EVERY VOICE by @margaret.bsky.social. I will take as many Danielle Cain stories as Killjoy is graciously willing to write. Let’s go tell ghost stories in the woods. 📚👀

somebody call the decembrists, this one is coming in hot

My book is coming out in JANUARY I am doing LAUNCH EVENTS both ONLINE and IN PERSON! (Louisville on the 14th, Chicago TBA but late January almost certainly.)

Book 60 of 2025: THE BARROW WILL SEND WHAT IT MAY by @margaret.bsky.social. The second in the Danielle Cain series of novellas is putting the romance in necromancer—and then appropriately problematizing that romance. Let’s go fight demons in a bookmobile. 📚👀

When Harry Met Sally is my favorite movie, and I’d also argue it’s the greatest rom-com ever made. RIP Rob Reiner. This sucks.

Reached an important milestone today at 37 years old: I poured myself beer from a keg for the first time 😂

Book 59 of 2025: HARD TIMES: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION by Studs Terkel. Took me a month, but I absolutely found it worth reading. Time is a flat circle—Terkel may as well have been interviewing people today. I also enjoyed how everyone had mixed feelings for FDR but loved Eleanor. 📚👀

Friendly reminder that the past isn’t past: Tonight I volunteered with an elderly German woman who moved to the U.S. when she was a young adult. So we’re talking, and she tells me she’s 85! Looks great for her age. But that means she was born in 1940. SHE LIVED HER FIRST 5 YEARS IN NAZI GERMANY.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS??? I can outsell her. I really, truly can. My book’s 10x better anyway.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS??? I can outsell her. I really, truly can. My book’s 10x better anyway.

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

Anytime I write literally anything—fiction, nonfiction, an email—I get mad that AI exists all over again. Writing is so wonderful. Why would anyone want to take it away?

Looking to start the new year off right (write!)? I have a flash fiction weekend workshop in January. Learn more and sign up here!

I put a lot of effort into my silly little videos…

I had a joke about Orpheus but I looked back and reconsidered.

Got some questions about the preorder campaign—hopefully this clears things up! Lingering queries or concerns? Ask away. 👇 #bookstagram #preorder #selfhelp #grief #deathpositive #books #ttrpg #funeral #game

Best twisted Russian climb I’ve done yet. Cut my foot open on the rope but it was worth it 😂

Having some follow up tests today for the Lyme disease that is hopefully gone after a course of antibiotics. I’m glad they’re taking it seriously, but every medical professional I’ve talked to is acting like they’ve never seen a case of Lyme before. It’s weird! Ticks are pretty common in Kentucky!

Hey Louisville pals. This is TOMORROW, and if you’re feeling griefy this holiday season, I’d love to see you there. 💗

Hey, Louisville! This is your friendly Chicago expat reminding you to bend your knees and pretend you’re a snowplow when shoveling your sidewalk or driveway. PUSH the snow, don’t lift it above your head or shoulders. 😘 ❄️

I graduated to hoop 2 tonight at the aerial gym! Look at me and my not-quite-but-maybe-someday-abdominal-muscles go!

“Tax the Rich.” That’s all they have to say. And do, of course—which is possibly why they don’t want to adopt the slogan.

This morning I had pie for breakfast and then I drove to Cincinnati to meet a friend and now I’m having a donut for second breakfast. 👍

we have to go back. to warn them.

Introduce yourself with artists you’ve seen multiple times: > Mountain Goats > Ghost > Ezra Furman > Father John Misty > Franz Ferdinand

Eternally grateful to @elenaexisting.bsky.social for introducing me to THE PAINTED SKIN and its sequel (?) THE PAINTED SKIN: RESURRECTION. I love Chinese movie night.