My book is really about loneliness and alienation (like all my favorite books), but politics comes up in it because everyone is obsessed with politics now.

"Mostly I think Spleen is about celebrating our friendship. It's a love that needs to be emphasized more widely rather than romantic love. Spleen is also a fantasy escape that gives us agency in ways we don't have in reality."

The “death of the mother” is trying to do two things: the first is a nod to family abolition and the death of the mother within a capitalistic context. And the second is explicitly thinking through “mothers” dying during childbirth or dying because they are unable to receive care for abortion.

“Once in a while, somebody is interested in what I might have to say. This somebody says, ‘I want to hear you out. I want to hear you out until there’s nothing left. I want you to tell me everything

They say you shouldn’t feed the trolls, but trolls are an essential component of the culture.

I think sometimes what people mean by “likable” as opposed to sympathetic or goodhearted is “conforming to my idea of what behavior I should aspire to.”

I think outside of drinking himself to death, Fitzgerald had a pretty fantastic life.

I attribute a 30% of our relationship to being Aries, 30% to being writers, and 40% to being mentally ill.*

The Pete Davidson Love Letter is actually my favorite thing I’ve ever written, too. I fell in love with him in the fall of 2017 when I saw him speaking about mental health on Weekend Update. It made me feel so much less alone. He was so cute with his buck teeth.

I’m somewhat like that, but more of a junkballer, a term better known for baseball pitchers: someone who gets by with unexpected spins and slices and wiliness due to a deficit of conventional talent.

Kate Axelrod’s new book of stories, How to Get Along Without Me, is, to quote the jacket copy, “a collection that summons the perversity and poignance of twentysomething dating lives from a bracingly

Can you each pick two words to describe your book? 

Laura: Escapist fantasy

Eve: The first thing that came to mind for me was: “Oh, god.”

The black Mr. Sketch marker, Cucumber JUUL pods, Dr Pepper Lip Smacker, spirit duplicator, soggy sugary cereal milk mush, pink rubber pencil shavings, burning toast stroke, pumpkin spice scented hand sanitizer. 

Let’s get more filthy!

If I could be in The Fifth Element, I'd want to be in the scene where they pulled things out of the blue opera singer's belly. But I would want to keep pulling out new, surprising things.

Marissa:
I try very hard to be polite and normal, like manners are weirdly important to me given I'm a huge fuckup generally but my inner world is probably a less palatable version of Helen’s 💀💀

Anna:
You’re out here trying to be a good happy girl 

Guys, you’ve got Earl fucking Palmer out here in LA. The guy played on “Tutti Frutti” for chrissakes. You don’t think he could be part of the next hot thing?

            i think the other end of seinfeldian is like
            tiny things really sharply observed

I have no interest in living another 360 years. The folks I get along with have about died off and the world will be on fire by then. I’m blowing my brains out.

SHELDON LEE COMPTON: The aliens actually showed up. They only communicate through images and demand you show them one overall image that explains our civilization. You have five minutes to Google Image search. What do you type into the search bar?

LEAH HAMPTON: “Image of Donald Trump shitting on an endangered butterfly”

What I mean is I write auto-biographical fiction and as such I’m a habitual and unrepentant liar-liar-pants-on-fire sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Full facial tattoo or painlessly losing your lips. One has to happen. What is it going to be? What’s that facial tattoo going to be? How’re you going to face the world without those lips?

Rebecca K. Reilly’s debut novel Greta & Valdin was a bestseller in her home country of New Zealand in 2021, and today it’s being released in the US and the UK. Pitched as Schitt’s Creek meets

I also have a white t-shirt I like a lot that says JOHN PRINE IS PRETTY GOOD, but I don't actually wear it because it comes down to my knees.

Normalcy has no moment to collapse because it is absent from the start.