My conversation about She's Under Here, with NPR's Courtney Collins at KERA / THINK, is up now. She asked thoughtful, probing questions about disappearance and identity, root causes and consequences. Also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and Radio Public. think.kera.org/podcast/

Who knew I'd ever share a promo page with the great Walter Mosley? Thank you to Diesel Bookstore for hosting this event, in which I'll be in conversation with my pal, Samantha Dunn. For L.A. folks, It's TOMORROW, Sunday, Sept 28, at 3:00 p.m. Please come!

What a week. Here, have a Boulder cat named Olive. Her specialty is the judgmental stare.

Tomorrow (Fri, Sept 26) my conversation with Courtney Collins on NPR's program KERA / THINK will be up. It was a good one. It'll be broadcast on various stations around the country, but you can also listen to the podcast here: think.kera.org/upcoming-sho...

Fall is spider season in LA.

Enough book hoopla. Gonna so some more work on my Lost Boys essay.

Cheering myself up after reading the news by wearing little cat feet.

Happy pub day to @ilanaslightly.bsky.social! I am so looking forward to this book.

Why are so many of the people who friend me on FB listed as "digital creators." Not to be completely out of it, but what does that even mean?

For anybody who wants to know about the shape of the story, or how I am really always trying to write the opening scene of Boogie Nights

Somehow, I missed this pub day FB post by my editor at Algonquin, Kathy Pories, who is both a superb wordsmith and a very kind person. I'm so grateful to have worked with her on She's Under Here.

Reupping this interview with Moa Short in The Cut about my memoir She's Under Here.

The Rapture sounds great, except that T will still be here among us.

On my trip to CO for an event at Lighthouse Writers, I visited our old house in Boulder. They moved the front door!

LA friends. I'll be reading from She's Under Here and discussing the book with the magnificent @samydunn.bsky.social at Diesel Bookstore on Sunday, September 28 at 3:00 p.m. Please come—I'd love to say hi. (p.s. A reservation helps the store plan.) dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-0...

My cousin, who lost her home in the Eaton Fire, reviewed She's Under Here via text.

Boulder Book Store , which used to be my hometown shop has copies of She’s Under Here.

Read at Denver's Lighthouse Writers (my home away from home) last night. The magnificent Erika Krouse was my conversation partner.

I wrote a craft essay for @literaryhub.bsky.social about solo road-tripping and creativity. lithub.com/karen-palmer...

Traveling to teach and give a reading at Denver’s Lighthouse Writers tomorrow. PARIAH by @danfesperman.bsky.social is my travel book. Just started and I’m all in. (Great cover too.)

The best piece I've read so far about my Mom's She's Under Here. For life experiences, many of which happened decades ago, to be so contemporaneously relevant. Whew.

@moashort.bsky.social interviewed me about She's Under Here for New York Magazine's vertical, The Cut. www.thecut.com/article/shes...

My interview with Caroline Leavitt at A Mighty Blaze lovely. Video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSF7...

Yes, I am crashing into your timeline again. (If this publication-week stuff is too much, mute me! I understand completely!) Jacqui Devaney asked thoughtful questions and gave me room (heh) to elaborate.

I'll be talking to the mighty Carolina Leavitt at 4:00 p.m. ET. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

Last call—this is tonight. (Forgive the repost. I live in fear of empty seats!)

Pub day, and @thebookmaven.bsky.social profiled me for the Los Angeles Times. (It's behind a paywall, but yahoo news and aol news have it.) tinyurl.com/ykph8xs7

8/10 “The black-and-white portrait of me at age four was taken by my parents’ friend, Joe Rosenthal, who was famous for the image of American soldiers planting the flag at Iwo Jima... I’d hang it by the front door; I liked the idea of the child I once was standing guard over who I’d become.” —p170

There is no overlooking rank bigotry, dehumanization, and lawlessness. There is nothing to "recognize" in people willing to destroy the vulnerable in service of their own hatreds.

Definitely read this one, and look for our podcast episode with Karen soon!

I am so thrilled to share that an excerpt of BEINGS, with an incredible introduction by @debbieurbanski.bsky.social is now up at @electricliterature.com, which I've been reading since its earliest days, and which I've always dreamed of placing fiction in <3 electricliterature.com/beings-by-il...

LA folks: Pub day event tomorrow @ 7 @ Skylight. Yes it's a Tues, LA traffic sucks, you don't even know me. But: I'll be in conversation w/Matthew Specktor (The Golden Hour), whose writing I adore and whose smarts I admire (and, frankly, fear). Come see us and be entertained! tinyurl.com/yx9rw6rm

Just twiddling my thumbs, waiting for tomorrow, pub day for She's Under Here. I've not had a book out for ages, and everything is different now (help!). 35 years ago I changed my identity to escape my dangerous ex. There have been consequences. Gonna play newsie and shout: Read all about it!

No one in our family has any business sense, but the 10-year-old grandson set up a table at an art fair to sell outfits he puts together from thrift-store finds and small samples from his cologne collection (you read that right), and he made an absolute killing.

This may explain why there’s an aggressive response to people who merely post Kirk’s own words. It threatens the existence of the alternate Kirk - the motivational speaker that had been marketed to young kids and white Christian groups through selective quotation & clips.

Day 6/10 of random sentences from She's Under Here. "Near Hanalei, we passed a pretty gothic church and a swaybacked chestnut horse in a field. The horse sheltered beneath a lone tree with a spindly trunk. A few soaked branches thrashed in the wind. 'Pull over,' I said." —p44

I've never seen anything quite like this CK stuff, and I'm old. The seeming coordination across media, the White House, the State Deptartment, and DOD, everyone stating baldly that there are going to be dire consequences for free speech that, for the most part, merely quoted CK himself.

Text from the review.

From the WAPO review of She's Under Here. 1/2

5/10 Random sentences from She’s Under Here and a relevant photograph. "In my previous life I’d hated being watched, always certain I’d be found wanting. But there was never any threat in Vinnie’s attention. I felt the workings of his lively, curious mind, and absorbed his scrutiny." —p156

From the New Yorker: "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds." This paragraph makes me want to start a notebook where I write a detailed explanation whenever I'm sure I know how something works.

Someone told me they took a class this past summer w/ Ingrid Rojas Contreras in which she taught "The Reader Is the Protagonist." (I can die happy now.) Originally published in VQR, and later in BAE 2017, this essay became the first chapter in She's Under Here. tinyurl.com/mu3eavbf

My mother (RIP Dorothy) would be so proud.

For DC friends: Erin (who is obviously my daughter) will be my conversation partner at People's Book in Takoma Park on October 12, 5:00 p.m.

Feeling a lot of heaviness and fear this morning. I'm sure you all are too. But I am going to continue on with my project of posting, for ten days, random sentences from She's Under Here along with relevant photographs. Here is Day 3.

Democratic lawmakers are assassinated and the left calls for gun laws and an end to the violence. Kirk is assassinated and the right calls for vengeance and civil war.

I will say - the transition in my head fom day-to-day life tasks to thinking about and responding in the ways I can to the deeply harmful and scary things happening these days is increasingly rough.

Day 2/10 “We climbed the porch to the front door. Vinnie ran his finger over the brass nameplate, ‘The Hirshbergs,’ the former owner’s last name. It was like the house had been waiting for us, all dressed up in a phony ID. ‘We should keep it,' I said.” –p138

Going to try something here. My memoir SHE'S UNDER HERE is out in one week (yikes), and god only knows how one drums up attention, but for the next ten days I'm going to post a random bit of text along with an accompanying photograph. Here goes ... #booksky #memoir