My 4-year-old son woke me up at 6 AM on Saturday morning. So even though he had an acceptable amount of sleep, I did not. He had a sitter scheduled for that evening, and the idea that I’d have two nights in a row with not enough sleep made me want to cry.

He has an okay-to-wake light that signals when it’s time to wake up. The wake-up time is 6:45 a.m. He wasn’t so far off, but losing those precious forty-five minutes felt like I was being deprived of oxygen. And so, as he pulled me out of bed with every trick he knows, my mood was something of an ogre.

I tried everything to plead with him on why sleeping until the blue light is so important. Sleeping is when you grow; sleeping repairs your brain and makes you smarter, sleeping keeps you healthy, and then the winner. Sleeping makes your muscles work better.

“It makes me faster?” He asked with a calculating look in his eyes.

“Yes, it’ll make you faster than all your friends.”

And that’s when I knew it was clicking for him. He told me he’s sleeping so much that he was even going back to sleep at that exact moment. That’s when he fake-snored for a few minutes, then woke up even faster.

All this cuteness, though, did nothing for my mood. I was already on my second cup of coffee and had to make it to 5 pm, where then my night would just begin for another five hours of being a charming adult.

I tried taking a shower, doing my hair and makeup, taking my son to all his activities, but nothing was changing my mood. And finally, it was 4:30 pm, I was dressed and ready for my night, and I looked at my son and asked a two-word question.

“Dance Party?”

He nodded yes, but made me promise we’d do loud songs. We started with a mom/son dance to our song, “You Are the Best Thing” by Ray LaMontagne, and worked our way through all sorts of classic rock.

Then the invisible weight on my chest started to shatter. With each move of my body, in synch with the music, the sways of my hips, the twirls, the lifting of my son, and twirling him, and suddenly the mood had lifted. The ogre left my body. The best parts of me were left behind. Glistening with sweat and the reminder. Dancing always helps.

Here’s our current dance party playlist. Just in case you need to find your way back to yourself.

I recently tried. A creative PM role, a good team with meaningful work. And still, my nervous system went on fire. Not metaphorically. Physically. The low-grade panic that sits in your chest all day because you’re not where you’re supposed to be.

This isn’t new. I think it started when I left my first full-time job at the Sundance Institute. I was in charge of the content, digital marketing, and some regular marketing. When I told my bosses I was leaving, the Executive Director at the time was offended that I left without another job lined up. I didn’t know how to explain; I wasn’t looking for my next job. I was going to start making my own work. And so, during the festival, I requested my entire team to ask everyone they interviewed a single question: “What was your last day job before you could support yourself as an independent artist?”

This is what I was trying to drum up the courage to do, and I had this incredible video, “Quit Your Day Job: The Risk of Becoming an Independent Artist.”

It’s been watched 50,000 times, most of the views were probably by me. To give myself the courage to stay at it.

Then, as I was working on my own, I felt like an amateur. I’d watched thousands of movies and read hundreds of scripts. I had a sense of craft, but I still needed to find my craft. I came across a video called The Gap, made from an Ira Glass quote about the time in an artist’s career when their work doesn’t match their taste. It’s the period of learning craft. It also inspired me to keep on going.

Now I’m weeks away, maybe months, depending on my agent, from going out on submission with my first novel, 13 years into committing to my craft. My second screenplay is about to be walked into a major buyer with an attachment. But I needed some cash flow, so an old colleague hired me as a creative PM at his new boutique generative design and digital studio. And my nervous system went on fire. I’m about halfway through what will likely be my last project.

I wanted to understand why I can’t seem to do anything other than my own work. Was it PTSD from terrible workplaces? I mean, I did my time in some rough company cultures. I worked at The Weinstein Company, need I say more? Then I went to a talk at my synagogue, CBE, in Park Slope for Jodi Kantor’s new book, How to Start. We’re not related, but couldn’t be more proud to share a last name with someone I admire.

At the talk Jodi Kantor was joined by Esther Perel, and Priya Parker. Perel said something that snapped into place for me: people have different tolerances for stability and freedom. Stability is a paycheck. Freedom is risk.

That idea struck a chord in me. I need the freedom to leave my computer and take a walk to find the creative resonance that most of the roles I take require. And yet, the need for a creative PM to be always available at their desk, and that for whatever reason, completely dysregulates me.

So, instead, I created a budget, a financial runway, a prayer, because I’m all in as a writer, as a thinker, and as a creator. And I’m going to trust the universe to start paying me for my craft. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s a discomfort my body knows how to hold, more than the slow panic of a life that isn’t mine.

If you know me, you know I love technology. It’s one of the arenas in life where I can just play. I get it, even the most complex systems make sense to me. And yet, the more I’ve discovered craft as a writer, the less I want to use AI in my writing.

The way I’ve always used AI is human-first, AI-second. I know what I want, and I use it to help me get there. At the same time, I’ve been working to fulfill an ambition to make a living as a writer. But I’m insecure AF.

I love writing fiction, but when it comes to personal essays, I’m nervous about creating unfettered attention. It just feels to vulnerable to be out there, just me. Something about fiction feels like just enough veil that I can be authentic and honest with my characters, my story, my plot. But starting this substack and trying to find my voice, my authority, my red-dress energy, something in me didn’t trust myself.

Recently, I took a ballet class. This is a hard and fast tangent, but stay with me, I’ll bring it around, I promise. Something about being in that class and feeling my body move in space. I remembered why I always feel most myself in a ballet class. It’s the only place I’ve ever un-appolegetically taken up space. Letting the energy of my body move through the floor to the lava center of the earth and the top of my head, all the way to the outer reaches of the galaxy. It’s pure freedom to take up space in that way and share the infinite expansion of my energy way beyond my human shell.

So when I hit the page, why can’t I let my energy run through my words in the same way? I sit, I write, and I let my heart guide me. But then I’m nervous about spelling and grammar and saying things in the ‘right’ way. So I ran my essay through an LLM (typically ChatGPT and, more recently, Claude) and felt like they’d edit it in a voice acceptable to the world. And then I’d share it.

It was still my idea, the original drafts were mine, but it became cluttered with AI tropes, lots of em-dashes, and somehow the soul was sucked out of my words. The AI editor isn’t my friend. It is a machine that doesn’t know how to read. Small confession, I still use Grammarly. But it's really just for spelling and grammar checking.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been studying the craft of writing. I’ve been reading. Like, a lot. Mostly contemporary fiction, but honestly, anything I can get my hands on. And one day, not so long ago, something clicked. It was like I’d taken the red pill (or is it the blue pill, I can never remember), but a pill that took me inside the matrix. Only it wasn’t inside a computer graph, it was inside the multi-dimensional world of craft. It started with a simple thought, wow, this author feels like she is telling the story to an old friend (Lisa Phamm’s, Discipline), or the description is altering my olfactory senses, (Partick Suskind’s Perfume: A Story of a Murder), or wow, the engine of this story just hooked me from the jump, (Frederick Backman’s My Friends).

And then it dawned on me, AI is trained on data. But it’s not taught to read. It doesn’t know how to feel a book and let the world wash over it. A book rewires our brain; it quite literally creates new pathways, and if you don’t believe me, AI can tell you all about it. Kidding, check out some scientists who have written studies, which is likely where you’ll get the real information rather than TikTok University.

So after this discovery, I started to feel really anxious. Like, what in the heck have I done? I went back to my essays on cultural currents, and I saw some of the slop I was putting out into the world. I did that, all because I didn’t have the courage to be vulnerable. I was so scared to be mediocre that I made myself bad. So, as of right now, I’m stopping, and risking being bad, and letting you see my holes, cause its better to meet me the human than hide behind a layer of machine learning.

And so, I’m going to write an unfiltered, lightly self-edited essay each week. About the stuff that’s on my mind, and I’m going to publish it without any AI assistance. Not even an AI image. To practice being vulnerable. Cause soon enough, I’ll be in submission on my novel, that’s all me, and that’s a f-ton of vulnerability to slingshot into the world without any practice opening my trench coat and exposing my soul.

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What’s AI Good For Anyway?

As writers, we can still use AI to support the business side of our careers and automate boring, mundane tasks, making more space for writing.

But like the recent announcement of the shutdown of SORA, it’s going to become clear, very quickly, that AI isn’t great at making art, and it’s just a waste of money and natural resources. Just because my body can produce song from my vocal cords does not mean I can sing. Just because AI can create words on a page does not mean it can write.

If you’re interested in exploring AI, here’s a list of things AI is good for, according to two LLMs - the below is copy and pasted from ChatGPT after searching the same thing in Claude):

• Task automation - AI automates repetitive or manual tasks, including scheduling, data entry, and document processing.

• Data analysis - AI processes large datasets to identify patterns, trends, and insights.

• Customer support — We ALL HATE this one. How many times have you screamed - I WANT A HUMAN? - AI powers chatbots and automated systems to handle customer inquiries and support requests.

• Recommendation systems - AI suggests products or services based on user behavior and preferences.

• Marketing optimization - AI supports advertising performance, audience targeting, and campaign analysis.

• Software development support - AI assists with writing, reviewing, and debugging code.

• Education support - Not sure I want a bot to tutor my kid but maybe in creative game ways. - AI provides tutoring, explanations, and learning assistance.

• Decision support - AI analyzes information to support business and operational decision-making.

P.S. I am using AI to handle all the SEO crap we need on the back end and to help this post be discoverable.

Welcome to the endless winter.

I keep thinking about the film Endless Summer. Traveling the tropics, surfing all year long, never letting the vibes of summer go. Only, we’re on the opposite spectrum.

Winter started with frigid, arctic-like temperatures. Then the snow kept coming. Even after the blizzard — and the record-breaking snow removal — more snow fell. And now even more threatens as we enter March. Make it end.

The crazy thing is, people are still coming out. I had the honor of sitting in for Kris Brown to speak on behalf of Brady United after a FYC screening of Oscar-nominated short All the Empty Rooms. And the screening was packed. The day after that blizzard. That’s an only-in-New-York thing.

March is also the month when anything can happen. Warm, sunny days. Rain. Snow again. The chaos, the transition toward light — it feels like a metaphor for the state of the world right now.

So I’m going to force myself out to a few things. I hope you’ll join me.

March 2026

🗓 Wednesday, March 4, 2026

📚 Calligraphy Class With Pens and Petals
Learn the beautiful art and technique of creating traditional pointed pen calligraphy! 🔗 Get Tickets

🗓 Wednesday, March 2-21, 2026

🎭 Dance Reflections Presented by Van Cleef and Arpels

This is on my radar to attend. If I had a slightly older child, I’d bring them with me. There’s a lot in this program across dates, but I especially want to see Romeo & Juliet Suite by Benjamin Millepied with L.A. Dance Project at Park Avenue Armory. 🔗 Get Tickets

🗓 Thursday, March 12, 2026 | 7 PM

📚 Literary Dinner in Conversation with Angela Flournoy
A Les Biblioteca x LitClubNYC event discussing love, loss, and friendship. I read Angela Flournoy’s The Wilderness, which is the focus of the evening. The book is incredible. I wish I could go — and if you can, you definitely should. 🔗 Check this space for tickets

🗓 Saturday, March 14, 2026 | 11:30 AM

🎬 NY International Children’s Film Festival: Shorts for Tots (3-6 Years Old)
There’s a lot to explore at the NYICFF for people of all ages and bourgeoning cinephiles. This is the program most appropriate for my kiddo. 🔗 Get Tickets

🗓 Wednesday, March 18, 2026 | 7 PM

📚 BK Walking Book Club: Martyr!
We read a book each month and come together to walk and talk about it. March’s pick is Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! — an instant classic that says everything and leaves a lot unsaid. There’s definitely room for interpretation on the ending. We can’t wait to walk and discuss. Hope you can join us.🔗 DM to be added to the WhatsApp group and join us.

🗓 Friday, March 20, 2026

🎬 Project Hail Mary (In Theaters)
A book-to-movie that’s received a lot of glowing early buzz. The book was a fun, high-octane read — I’m curious to see how it translates on screen.

🗓 Saturday March 28th, 2 PM

🎭 Robot Song
The story follows eleven-year-old Juniper May, whose world unravels after classmates declare her “the most hated person in school.” Withdrawn and isolated, she’s saved when her desperate parents turn to an unexpected ally: a giant singing robot. Blending digital technology, animatronics, and an original score, Robot Song is a joyful reminder of the power of love and imagination.🔗 Get Tickets

A Note on March

This issue is free.

Starting in April (maybe May), Cultural Currents: ATTEND will move to a paid-subscriber rhythm — curated moments and seasonal lists designed to help you meet your people by showing up where meaning already exists.

If this list helped you choose even one thing you wouldn’t have found otherwise, I hope you’ll subscribe and come along.

By this time next week, all the smoke, ash, and lead will be removed from my Pacific Palisades home. In planning this week and what to do with my contaminated items, I’ve arranged with the team to clean and pack the artwork encased in glass, my hard drives, and my NFT Ledger, and to have them sent to me in Brooklyn.

Everything else is being placed on the curb for free rubbish removal by LA County Sanitation. All of my clothing and furniture - save a few pieces we’re keeping to stage the home for selling.

All of the beautiful items I’ve collected, my clothing, Miles first toys, and clothes, are all being taken to the curb. The risk of lead and other contaminants in soft goods is too great to keep with a young child. Some people seem open to the risk; I myself am not. And so each day this week, my heart has grown heavy. The disposal of my past is quite literal.

My library of books, the cost to clean out weighs the value. I’ve collected literature and clothing since high school. The effect of this on my psyche feels enormous. Letting go of the things that served me cause they are now poison. The anker is being lifted, and now I’m adrift.

More than a year later, this fire continues to break my heart, change my life, and tug at my soul. Not all bad, but this moment doesn’t feel good. I’m not sure who to share this with, cause I’m here in Brooklyn rebuilding from afar, and this isn’t a normal thing. So few of us were left with our homes standing, full of ash. So few of us know of the little losses that happen, one after the next, as we rebuild, displaced from our homes. The feeling like I could keep it, go back to it, but then fear the risk. The risk of poison, the risk of another fire, the risk of searching for normal in a community that’s forever changed.

I first learned of Carolyn Bessette’s death while sitting at my summer internship in the original Miramax offices. Someone passed around a CNN link, opened in a browser that felt barely capable of holding the news. The room didn’t stop, exactly, but something inside me did. It was the first time I understood that a person could belong to a city’s atmosphere—that their absence could actually thin the air.

Carolyn wasn’t just a public figure; she was part of the visual grammar of the New York I grew up in.

It’s only now that I see how much of my own aesthetic was shaped in her shadow. I spent years wanting to be the “wash-and-go” girl who looked impossibly composed. The hallmarks were simple: no jewelry, air-dried hair, a wardrobe of quiet luxury before that term became a marketing pivot. I was chasing a specific kind of power—a woman who didn’t chase men, but allowed herself to be pursued; who didn’t disappear inside relationships, but insisted they make space for her.

At the time, I believed these choices were a quiet rebellion. My mother wore a full face of makeup to the gym, moving through the world in a state of permanent readiness, as if perfection were a civic duty. My refusal—the bare face, the undone hair—felt like dissent.

Now I understand it wasn’t dissent. It was alignment.

I wasn’t rejecting femininity; I was reaching toward a different version of it—one Carolyn had already modeled. It was a self-possession that didn’t require ornamentation, a presence that didn’t apologize for taking up space.

Lately, as Instagram fills with forensic analyses of her life through the lens of the latest Ryan Murphy production, I’ve found myself less interested in the accuracy of the portrayal than in the collective remembering it’s sparked. Because what’s resurfacing isn’t just a “look.” It’s a philosophy. It’s an understanding of New York as a place where women move with purpose and restraint—where strength doesn’t cancel out femininity, and ambition doesn’t preclude softness. Where being seen isn’t the goal, but being fully oneself is.

Reading these reflections feels less like nostalgia than a startling recognition. It’s the discovery that something I thought I had invented was, in fact, inherited.

For years, I strived to embody that energy—to approximate the restraint I associated with her. But the silhouette and the minimalism were just the shell. What actually appealed to me was the unapologetic coherence of a woman who seemed entirely herself. I’ve realized I don’t want to be Carolyn. I want to be unmistakably, irreducibly me—moving through the world with that same clarity of self, whatever form it takes.

A few weeks ago, I sent the latest draft of my first novel to my agent, and then came the waiting.

Writers know this particular kind of silence. It is the strange, suspended moment between finishing something and knowing what comes next. I did not want to lose momentum, but I also did not know where to direct it.

Around the same time, Anthropic released a new version of Claude, and my favorite AI thinker, Taryn Southern, shared how she was using it to organize her creative archive. On impulse, I gave Claude permission to work inside my writing folder and asked it to catalogue everything I had written over the years. I wanted it to build a map of my projects and suggest where my attention might naturally want to go.

Ten minutes later, I had a spreadsheet listing nearly eighty creative works. Not just finished pieces, but drafts, fragments, abandoned attempts. The sediment of a writing life.

What surprised me was not the efficiency. It was the recognition.

Patterns appeared that I had not consciously tracked. Projects I thought were dormant turned out to be closer to completion than I had admitted. Transitional Object, my next novel, is further along than I tend to believe. And To the Moon, a screenplay I finished just before the fires, had quietly fallen out of view in the chaos of last year. It is close and still needs work, but it is where I am focusing for now while I wait for notes.

The machine did not tell me what to write. It reminded me of what I had already written.

That distinction matters because the real risk of AI is not that it will replace us. It is that it can erode the friction where voice lives. Writing is not just output. It is struggle, delay, obsession, and return. It is the process through which experience becomes form.

Automation removes effort. But effort is where style is born. Used carelessly, AI flattens. Used intentionally, it reflects.

Mapping my projects revealed recurring themes that appear whether I plan them or not. Instead of altering my voice, it helped me recognize it. Instead of accelerating production, it clarified direction. Instead of replacing authorship, it reflected it back to me.

The screenshot below shows you who I am as a writer and what I keep returning to. I feel a little vulnerable sharing it with you. If you try this exercise yourself, I would love to learn what patterns emerge for you.

I am not interested in using AI to write faster. I am interested in using it to stay on the page. To reflect on the work itself. To notice what is actually working rather than spiraling into what might be wrong. To stay grounded in craft instead of getting pulled into the critic that lives in my head.

The goal is not to ignore the next wave of technology. Writers have never done their best work by pretending the future does not exist. The goal is to meet it thoughtfully. To use these tools in a way that keeps us present in our own work. To let them reflect rather than replace. To stay connected to the meaning inside the work.

In the months ahead, I will continue exploring what it means to remain an author in an age of automation. If you are curious about how this might look in practice, subscribe and stay with me.

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I went on a first date recently. It was a fun one, and at the end of the date, we wandered through a bookstore, sharing books with one another. We also talked about the music we grew up with. This date asked if I knew the song "Scentless Apprentice" by Nirvana, and he said he had recently seen an interview in which Kurt Cobain said it was inspired by a book called Perfume.

That evening, he asked me out on a second date, and I told him I was going to read Perfume before our next date. Then he sent me the video, and Kurt Cobain says he read the book 10 times. That’s a lot of time to read any book. But artists are obsessive, and it takes a lot to synthesize a story into a new interpretation. I was curious what other books have inspired songs, and I’ve decided to share these discoveries with you.

Literature and music have always been lovers in the dark, but some relationships burn brighter than others. Here are five iconic musicians whose art was fundamentally transformed by the books they couldn’t stop reading.

1. Kurt Cobain & Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

The Book: Patrick Süskind’s 1985 novel follows Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an 18th-century perfume apprentice born without a scent of his own, blessed (or cursed) with a supernatural sense of smell, who becomes a murderer in his quest to capture the perfect fragrance.

The Obsession: In a 1993 interview with MuchMusic’s Erica Ehm, Cobain confessed: “I read Perfume by Patrick Süskind about 10 times in my life, and I can’t stop reading it. It’s like something that’s just stationary in my pocket all the time. It just doesn’t leave me. Cause I’m a hypochondriac (and) it just affects me–makes me want to cut off my nose.” From Novels to Notes

The Song: “Scentless Apprentice” from Nirvana’s final album In Utero (1993) directly adapts the novel’s opening chapters. The lyrics describe how most babies smell like butter, but Jean was scentless and passed around from wet nurse to wet nurse From Novels to Notes, with the chorus—”Go away / Get away”—capturing Grenouille’s profound misanthropy.

Cobain told Ehm this was “really one of the first times that I’ve ever used an actual story as a book, as an example in a song” Far Out Magazine, adding that he related deeply to the protagonist’s disgust with humanity and need for isolation.

Listen: Nirvana - “Scentless Apprentice”

Get the Book: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

2. David Bowie & 1984 by George Orwell

The Book: Orwell’s 1949 dystopian masterpiece depicts a totalitarian future where Big Brother watches everything and the Thought Police punish even mental dissent.

The Failed Musical: In 1973, Bowie became obsessed with creating a full theatrical production of 1984—a West End musical with an accompanying album and film. He told William S. Burroughs in a Rolling Stone interview that he was planning to adapt Orwell’s vision for television.

Then disaster struck. Bowie recalled: “My office approached Mrs. Orwell, because I said, ‘Office, I want to do 1984 as a musical, go get me the rights.’ And they duly trooped off to see Mrs. Orwell, who in so many words said, ‘You’ve got to be out of your gourd, do you think I’m turning this over to that as a musical?’” Far Out Magazine

The Salvaged Album: Orwell’s widow Sonia Brownell denied him the rights, but Bowie had already started writing. The result was 1974’s Diamond Dogs, featuring explicit Orwell tributes: the songs “1984,” “Big Brother,” and “We Are the Dead” (a direct quote from the novel). Bowie described Orwell’s world as mirroring his own upbringing in postwar Brixton and Bromley Literary Hub, and throughout his life returned to images of people trapped in systems of control.

Listen: David Bowie - “1984” | David Bowie - “Big Brother”

Get the Book: 1984 by George Orwell

3. Tupac Shakur & The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

The Book: Machiavelli’s 1513 political treatise on power, strategy, and survival—the original manual for achieving and maintaining control through any means necessary.

The Prison Transformation: While incarcerated in 1995, Tupac read voraciously. Works such as The Prince by Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli and The Art of War by Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu sparked Shakur’s interest in philosophy, philosophy of war and military strategy. Wikipedia He studied Machiavelli’s work intensely, reading it multiple times.

The Rebirth as Makaveli: Upon his release, Tupac adopted the stage name “Makaveli” for his final album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. In a September 1996 Vibe interview, he explained: “It’s not like I idolize this one guy Machiavelli. I idolize that type of thinking where you do whatever’s gonna make you achieve your goal.” 2Pac Legacy

The transformation was profound. Tupac—who had studied Shakespeare at Baltimore School for the Arts, where he performed in Shakespeare plays and identified themes of gang warfare in the Bard’s work Wikipedia—emerged from prison with a new philosophy, applying Renaissance political strategy to hip-hop warfare.

Listen: 2Pac - “Hail Mary” (from The Don Killuminati)

Get the Book: The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

4. Patti Smith & A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud

The Book: Arthur Rimbaud’s 1873 collection of prose poetry—raw, visionary, rebellious work from the teenage French poet who wanted to become a “seer” through the derangement of all the senses.

The Lifelong Obsession: Rimbaud became Patti Smith’s North Star. She describes how she loves classics and modern works, with A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud among her most reread poetry Goodreads. Speaking of another Rimbaud-influenced work, she wrote about receiving Sylvia Plath’s Ariel at twenty, saying it became “the book of my life then, drawing me to a poet with hair worthy of a Breck commercial and the incisive observational powers of a female surgeon cutting out her own heart.” Far Out Magazine

The Punk Poet: Smith carried Rimbaud’s spirit into every performance. Her debut album Horses (1975) opens with a Rimbaud-inspired reimagining of “Gloria,” and her memoir Just Kids chronicles how she immersed herself in New York’s literary scene while keeping the French poet’s revolutionary fire alive in her own work.

Listen: Patti Smith - “Gloria”

Get the Book: A Season in Hell & The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud

5. Jay-Z & The Odyssey by Homer

The Book: Homer’s ancient Greek epic about Odysseus’s ten-year journey home after the Trojan War, facing mythical monsters, divine wrath, and the ultimate test of loyalty and perseverance.

The Hip-Hop Odyssey: Jay-Z has cited Homer’s epic as a formative influence on his understanding of narrative, journey, and loyalty. The ancient poem resonated with his own story of rising from Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects.

The Connection: Discussing The Odyssey, Jay-Z said he “got lost in reading about Odysseus’ struggle to get home and his longing for someone so strong, as his wife was, waiting for him. That’s like a dream—that kind of strength, love, loyalty,” Echostories noting the poem has “beautiful rhythm.” Echostories

His 2010 memoir Decoded makes the case for rap as a form of poetry, arguing that hip-hop, like all great art, touches on universal human experiences—the same timeless themes Homer explored thousands of years ago.

Listen: 99 Problems

Get the Book: The Odyssey by Homer

The Alchemy of Influence

What makes these connections so powerful isn’t just that musicians read books—it’s that they devoured them, returned to them obsessively, and let them fundamentally reshape their artistic vision.

Kurt Cobain didn’t just read Perfume once; he carried it in his pocket everywhere, reading it on airplanes, between shows, until its protagonist’s isolation became inseparable from his own. David Bowie didn’t casually reference Orwell; he tried to transform the entire novel into a multimedia experience, and when denied, channeled that dystopian energy into one of his most unhinged albums. Tupac didn’t skim Machiavelli; he studied the text like a manual, emerging from prison with a new name and philosophy.

This is literature as fuel, as obsession, as transformation. The words on the page become riffs, become screams, become entire aesthetic revolutions.

What books have fundamentally changed how you see the world? Drop your literary obsessions in the comments.

Ps. Second date is coming up, and I’m halfway through the book with Scentless Apprentice on repeat. Hopefully he doesn’t think I’m insane.

February is cold AF. Here’s some extra motivation to leave the house.

This winter — my first full one in 13 years — is brutal.

It’s ugly out there. And not just because of the freezing temperatures and the disgusting black snow piling up on corners. It’s the state of the country. The violence. The rising cost of simply existing. The constant low-grade feeling of helplessness hums beneath everything.

My antidote is remembering this: we still live in a democracy, and each of our voices matters. Call your representatives. Email them. Make videos. Tell them clearly that we aren’t having it.

My other antidote is community — getting out of isolation, showing up with an open, kind heart, seeing each other’s humanity, and actually using the freedoms we’re fighting to keep.

And remember, it’s the month of love. Let’s be cupid.

February 2026

February 2026

🗓 Wednesday, February 4, 2026, 8 PM

📚 Written in Brooklyn Storytelling Series presents: Love & Other Mistakes
Written in Brooklyn returns for Valentine’s season with true stories that might make you laugh, cry, and reconsider texting your ex. These events are always fun, and I’m genuinely bummed I won’t be able to make this one. If you go, please report back and tell me everything. 🔗 Get Tickets

🗓 Saturday, February 7, 2026

🎬 BAMkids Film Festival 2026
A kid-friendly film festival at BAM Rose Cinemas featuring short films and family programming for ages ~3–12. Thoughtful, imaginative, and actually enjoyable for adults too. 🔗 The Program

🗓 Friday, February 13, 2026

🎬 Wuthering Heights (In Theaters)
Stormy. Obsessive. Unhinged romance as an art form.
A Valentine’s counterprogram best shared with friends who love literature loudly and without irony.

🗓 Saturday, February 14, 2026 | 11:30 AM–5 PM

🎨 For the Love of Art at Brooklyn Museum
Family-friendly art-making and cultural programming tied to Valentine’s-style creative fun. A great excuse to wander the museum with intention. 🔗 Get Tickets

🗓 Wednesday, February 18, 2026 | 7 PM

📚 BK Walking Book Club: Atmosphere
We read a book each month and come together to walk and talk about it. February’s pick is Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere — an out-of-this-world love story that feels right for this moment. 🔗 DM to be added to the WhatsApp group.

🗓 Thursday, February 19, 2026 | 1 PM

🀄 Mahjong Lesson & Dim Sum @ Leland Eating House
Lunch with a reason to talk. Tiles clicking, plates passing, strangers slowly becoming table-mates. Low pressure, high texture. Also, all the cool kids are learning Mahjong. 🔗 Get Tickets

🗓 Saturday, February 21, 2026 | 2 PM

🎭 “Show Up, Kids!” Interactive Family Comedy
A participatory theater experience at ShapeShifter Lab in Park Slope, where kids help create the show. Joyful, collaborative, and genuinely fun. Ages ~3–10. 🔗 Get Tickets

🗓 Wednesday, February 25, 2026 | 7 PM

📚 Word Sprouts
A community reading event at The Old Stone House as part of the Park Slope Food Coop’s WordSprouts program. Expect local writers, spoken word, and open-mic-style poetry and fiction.🔗 Get Tickets

Last-Chance Experiences in February

👃 Mind-Scent Experience, 113 Spring
An immersive scent journey through memory, intuition, and mood — ending with your own custom fragrance. Interior, sensory, and surprisingly emotional. 🔗 Get Tickets

If you’re looking for more literary-coded events, check out for their incredible February lineup.

A Note on February

This issue is free.

Starting in April, Cultural Currents: ATTEND will move into a paid subscriber rhythm — curated moments and seasonal lists designed to help you meet your people by showing up where meaning already exists.

If this list helped you choose even one thing you wouldn’t have found otherwise, I hope you’ll subscribe and come along.

Welcome to Attend.

It’s a monthly list of happenings in Brooklyn (and some in Manhattan).

When I moved to New York last year with two suitcases and a preschooler, I felt completely unmoored. Everything was unfamiliar — the streets, the rhythms, the people — and I was too busy surviving the transition to imagine how life here might eventually feel. But over the months, something shifted. I showed up at preschool events. I went to readings and talks. I wandered into museums on weekday afternoons. I said yes to new friendships and reached back out to old ones. Slowly, almost quietly, the year that began in chaos ended in immense joy.

So for 2026, I’m inviting you to join me in this practice of connecting, cultivating wonder, and seeking awe. As a solo mom, my life is shaped by rhythm, so each week I choose one thing for my son and one thing for me — two small anchors that make the week feel textured and alive. That’s the heart of Attend.

This monthly edition, along with other curated cultural insights, will soon be available only to subscribers. Take a look at this month’s list; if it resonates, I hope you’ll stay and subscribe. There’s a whole year of wonder ahead.

We don’t need more plans.
We need meaningful ones.

This list is an experiment in choosing just enough:
one moment each weekend to expand a child’s sense of wonder,
and one moment during the week to reawaken our own.

Mostly Brooklyn. Sometimes Manhattan.
Family-aware. Adult-curious. Easy to miss if you’re not paying attention.

Subscribe now

WEEK 1 | January 5 –11

🧠 Weekday (Jan 7)

Under the Radar Festival — running from 1/7-26/2026

📍 Multiple NYC venues

Experimental theater designed to interrupt your thinking — not soothe it. One performance is enough. This is art in progress, and that’s the point. I’m looking at going to something on Wednesday, the 7th, when I typically have my weekly babysitter.

🔗 The Program
Why attend: creative recalibration

🧒 Sunday, January 11

Brooklyn Bowl Family Concert — The Music of David Bowie for Kids

📍 Brooklyn Bowl

A live, kid-friendly rock concert that invites movement, dancing, and shared joy. The Rock and Roll Playhouse introduces children to real music culture without dumbing it down or overwhelming them.

This one is Bowie — theatrical, playful, and perfect for little bodies that want to move.

🔗 Get Tickets
Good for: ages 3–7
Why attend: live music as shared joy

WEEK 2 | January 12–18

🎨 January 14, 6-9 PM

📚 LitClubNYC Book Club Event: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

📍 Sisters, BK

Join for their curated events. I’ve been wanting to attend an event now for six months, and finally, it lines up with my sitter schedule. And with this book. I’m listening to this masterpiece as I type.

🔗 Subscribe for info about their event schedule
Why attend: Community, Culture, and Literature. (A kindred spirit, right?)

🧒 Weekend (Jan 17, 18 &19)

The Tortoise & the Hare & Puppetworks Brooklyn — Marionette Theater

📍 Brooklyn (Park Slope)

Hand-carved marionettes, and fairy tales told with patience and warmth. Kids are transfixed because nothing here shouts at them. Parents remember what storytelling felt like before screens.

🔗 More Info & Reservations
Good for: ages 3–6
Why attend: analog wonder

WEEK 3 | January 20–26

🍷📚 Friday, January 23

Intro to Italian Wines: Wine Between the Lines — Liz’s Book Bar

📍 Liz’s Book Bar

A gentle workshop exploring the foundations of Italian wines — regions, grapes, labeling — paired with conversation among fellow readers. Perfect for beginners or anyone looking to deepen their wine knowledge in a warm, low-pressure setting.

🔗 https://lizsbookbar.com/events
Why attend: Wine + conversation + books = winter warmth

🧒 Weekend

NY Transit Museums: Holiday Train Exhibit

📍 Grand Central

My son loves trains, and I don’t want to miss this. The Holiday Train Show is a classic NYC winter tradition — model trains weaving through a miniature cityscape inside Grand Central. We’ll likely use this as a meet-up adventure with cousins.

🔗 https://www.nytransitmuseum.org/exhibits/#gct
Good for: ages 3–6
Why attend: There’s nothing like things that go

WEEK 4 | January 27–31

📚🚶 Wednesday, January 28

BK Walking Book Club, Reading: Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang

📍 Indoors for winter on a track in Park Slope

Books + walking + conversation. No sitting still. No pressure to finish perfectly. I founded and host the BK Walking Book Club, a growing community of Brooklyn readers who think best in motion — and it has become the adult rhythm that anchors my month and continues all spring.

🔗 DM me if you’d like to join (We have a WhatsApp group.)

Why attend: thinking in motion, real community

🧒 Saturday, January 31 | 11:00 AM–1:00 PM

Toddlertopia Brooklyn

📍 Brooklyn

A pop-up, multi-activity play experience designed for little bodies and curious minds — music, building stations, movement, and open exploration. It feels like a small festival scaled correctly for young children.

Energetic but not chaotic, social but not overwhelming — a great end-of-month release.

🔗 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/toddlertopia-brooklyn-tickets-1962120648679

Good for: ages ~2–6
Why attend: hands-on joy and exploration

BONUS (If You Have the Bandwidth)

🎬 New York Jewish Film Festival — one screening

📍 Film at Lincoln Center
📅 January 14–28

Pick one film. Treat it like an appointment. Global cinema, often with director Q&As, is shown once or twice and gone.

🔗 https://www.filmlinc.org/festivals/new-york-jewish-film-festival/

Why attend: a rare chance to see global Jewish stories that rarely hit mainstream theaters

🎨 A Moody Museum Moment: Monet and Venice

📍 Brooklyn Museum

A gentle, atmospheric exhibition that dissolves the city into color and light. Perfect for a quiet weekday escape. (Check the updated winter calendar — exhibitions shift.)

🔗 https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/monet_and_venice

Why attend: beauty that slows time

A Note on January

This issue is free.

Starting in April, Cultural Currents: Attend will be part of a paid subscriber-only rhythm—curated moments and seasonal lists designed to help you meet your people by showing up where meaning already exists.

If this list helped you choose even one thing you wouldn’t have found otherwise, I hope you’ll subscribe and come along.

It became clear pretty quickly that people don’t want to meet in the dark and walk in the freezing cold. And honestly, who can blame them? It’s been cold as hell here in Brooklyn. So I wanted to offer some alternatives.

I took the question to our WhatsApp group—Where can we walk together without freezing?—and, as usual, the group got creative. There’s a track at the YMCA Park Slope Armory. We could walk a mall like Navy Yard or City Point. Maybe even explore Industry City.

The YMCA Armory stood out right away. It has a wide-lane indoor track and felt like the most straightforward option. I emailed. I called. I followed up. Eventually, I learned we could get day passes for $20.

So when the date arrived, a small group of us—four total—met at the YMCA Park Slope Armory to discuss Sandwich by Catherine Newman.

When I arrived, I signed up for a day pass. A few minutes later, two others joined me and casually mentioned to the membership desk that the fourth person in our group was already a member. To our collective delight, they waved us all through—no extra charge.

And just like that, we walked.

We spent about 50 minutes circling the track, talking about the book. We talked about lies and relationships. Parenting. Creating rituals for our families. Aging parents. And how genuinely pleasurable the book was to read. Between the four of us, we spanned a wide range of life experiences: an empty nester, a childfree woman, a mom of two, and me—with one.

It felt easy. Grounded. Human.

Whether we find our way back to the Y, to a mall, or somewhere else entirely, we’ll keep walking together. And we hope you’ll join us in the new year.

Below are the upcoming dates and books. If any of them speak to you, DM me and I’ll add you to our WhatsApp group.

Dear Younger Self (A Newly Barely Surviving Solo Mom),

Remember that first holiday? The one with the two-week-old potato baby, a grieving parent, and—because your timing has always been impeccable—a fresh COVID booster right before Joshua Tree? When you felt so spectacularly awful you could barely lift your own child, your milk supply dried up entirely, and despite being surrounded by family, you felt like you were failing at life in IMAX with surround sound?

Yeah. Plot twist: that was actually... normal.

The fourth trimester is a special kind of hell that no one adequately warns you about. (Why is it called a “trimester” when it feels like a decade?) Year two wasn’t much better—a newly minted one-year-old, zero community to speak of, and doing the holidays solo for the second year running. Good times.

But then year three happened. Hanukkah in the Palisades with friends. Christmas dinner at another friend’s place. Our favorite single-mom-and-son duo coming over for New Year’s. And suddenly... it got better. Like, a lot better, not just “wine-at-3pm better.” Though let’s be honest, there was a lot of wine.

Here’s the thing they don’t tell you: Every year adds a little more community, a little more family, and exponentially more fun. The early years are brutal—the kids are basically tiny, ungrateful dictators who don’t understand why you’re working so hard, and you’re left wondering if you’re doing everything wrong. Literally everything. You’re not. They just aren’t ready for it yet.

What I wish I’d known then (and I’m just starting to feel it now): the magic will come.

My son is four now, Jewish, and absolutely obsessed with all of it—the twinkle lights, Santa (we’re complicated), The Polar Express, the whole shebang. We hit up the botanical gardens’ light show, where he promptly scorched his mouth on hot chocolate because, of course, he did. He recovered with remarkable speed, and then danced through those magical light tunnels with friends. It was perfect because it was chaotic and real.

A Word About Santa Photos and Other Pinterest Lies

I was scrolling the Single Moms by Choice Facebook group (as one does), reading a thread about taking kids to see Mall Santa. The consensus? Tears. Trauma. Photos that look like hostage situations. One mom described it as “paying $40 to emotionally scar my child.”

My hard-won advice: Keep it stupid simple. Stage your photo op at home. Slap a Santa hat on that kid. Plop them in front of a menorah. Done. Perfection is a scam sold by people with ring lights and too much time.

Take a short walk to see some lights. Drive around the neighborhood. Keep expectations lower than your energy levels (which is saying something). As your kid grows, so will the magic. And please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t let Instagram make you chase something bigger than you can actually give.

The Real Magic

For me, the joy is in our community—the ramshackle, beautiful, chosen-family kind. Going to temple (or church, or wherever you find your people) for the town celebration. Enjoying Chinese food and a movie with the same enthusiasm as lukewarm hot chocolate under twinkly lights.

The magic isn’t in the production value. It’s just... there. And there’s no wrong way to find it for your family.

I have a small two-person family—a mom-and-son operation. But with our extended family, our friends, our larger village? Our joy, warmth, and love are infinite. Turns out, that’s more than enough.

It’s actually everything.

Love,
You in Four Years (Slightly Less Anxious, Significantly More Caffeinated)

Lately, every time I open social media, it feels like a dystopian QVC channel.
A conveyor belt of strangers staring straight into my soul to tell me about the thing I absolutely must buy: a hair straightener, a magnesium gummy, an eye cream, a Korean pore vacuum that literally shows you what was inside their face.

I never asked to know that.

And the wildest part?
None of it feels human. Not even close.

If this is “creator culture,” no wonder AI influencers are taking over. The people selling to me barely resemble people anymore. Everyone looks poreless, ageless, and mildly amphibian—floating in their bathroom light like digital ghosts.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:
I get why they do it.
It works.
It makes money.

I’m a writer, a single mom, a person who loves art and also has rent due. Believe me, the temptation to hop on TikTok and start reviewing books is real. The algorithm loves books right now. I could be that girl. A stylish black turtleneck, a stack of novels, a soft filter…

But every time I open the app, I get hit with a foot pic, ten skincare routines, and another woman whose face looks like a newborn because she’s using the fetal filter. And I’m supposed to trust her about retinol?

There’s a voice deep in my soul that keeps whispering:

Turn. Off. The. Phone.

Write instead.
Connect instead.
Talk to people who aren’t selling something.
Commune with art.
Make work that won’t expire in three hours.

Power to the folks who can create online and stay authentic.
But shame on the industry that trains people to contort themselves into soft-filtered mannequins for brand money that will never, ever feel good.

Now → Next → How (the Substack “story engine”)

Now: I’m noticing the slow creep of QVC-style capitalism overtaking our creative spaces. It feels like a cultural turning point.

Next: I’m exploring what it looks like to build an online presence without selling my soul (or my pores). Expect experiments in book criticism, culture essays, and creative life updates, minus the bathroom lighting and sponsorship codes.

How: I’ll share the behind-the-scenes of how I navigate this tension: How writers grow online without becoming content machines… and whether it’s still possible to keep your humanity in a world built for selling.

If you want to follow this exploration of culture, art, motherhood, and creativity without turning into an NPC on TikTok—stick around.

We’ll figure it out together.

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I recently saw a post on Instagram about “seasons”—the idea that motherhood, work, identity, and ambition all shift in cycles rather than along a straight line. The woman who shared it was talking about her choice to pause her career to raise her children. She made it clear she wasn’t judging those who can’t afford that pause or simply don’t want it. But the idea lodged itself somewhere in me.

As women, we transform many times over. We have our kid years, our menstruating years, our erratic perimenopause years, and eventually our menopause years. Some of us have single years, married years, divorced years, parenting years—and sometimes those seasons overlap in ways we never expect.

I never paused my career after childbirth—being a single mom by choice makes that nearly impossible—but the way I work, what I want, and what I’m willing to sacrifice for my ambitions have all shifted dramatically.

There was a time when I wanted, desperately, to direct a feature film. I wrote three films hoping one would be my debut. One fell apart because the budget ballooned. Another never got traction. The third landed me a manager and even attached a female director for a moment. And then my son was born.

At one point she asked why I didn’t want to direct the film myself, and I tried to explain that the desire simply wasn’t there anymore. I scanned my body, searching for any flicker of excitement—and felt nothing. The idea of leaving him to make a movie didn’t energize me; it left me cold. There was no resentment, no sense of abandoning a dream—just clarity. I didn’t want to direct anymore. I wanted to write.

So I leaned in. I had always written, but now it is the center of my creative life. Since then, I’ve written four films and two novels, all in various stages of revision, development, or quiet gestation. This is my season now.

As I sit by the window on a dark fall afternoon, feeling the year tilt slowly toward winter, I keep returning to that Instagram post. Sometimes the wind blows us into a new season without asking permission. Sometimes we walk willingly into it. Sometimes we don’t realize the shift until we look back.

What I’m learning is that to be a mom, an artist, and a professional, I have to evolve—sometimes all within the same day. The relief comes from realizing I don’t have to be everything all at once. I can let myself follow whatever needs me most in the moment, trusting that my identity isn’t fractured—it’s seasonal.

And in that acceptance, I’ve found an unexpected inner clarity. I can be present here, rooted in what matters now, while staying open to whatever the next season brings.

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Since I don’t celebrate Christmas, the pressure to buy gifts for an entire extended family isn’t quite as intense. My biggest focus is my son, whose 4th birthday is the week before Hanukkah, which is the week before Christmas. He doesn’t yet understand that we don’t celebrate everything, so I’m spreading his gifts across the month and preparing for a marathon of magic-making. But one thing I refuse to do? Elf on the Shelf. That’s my hard line.

Still, so many people I love do celebrate Christmas. So, in between ordering Chinese food and going to the movies (the true holiday traditions), I try to pick out something small and meaningful to wrap for friends and family.

And honestly, what’s better than a book?

Here are some ideas:

1. For the young kid: The Smart Cookie, by Jory John, illustrated by Pete Oswald.
   A sweet, funny reminder that everyone learns differently and everyone is smart in their own way. Perfect for kids transitioning from play to more structured learning.

2. For The Tech Enthusiasts - Culpability by Bruce Holsinger
   For the friend who sends you AI think-pieces at midnight. A family’s autonomous minivan gets into a fatal crash, and every character feels responsible. The question becomes: was it one of them—or the AI?

3. For Someone in a Reading Slump: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
   This will pull even the most exhausted reader back into a book-a-week habit. Glamour, romance, scandal—it’s irresistible.

4. For The Romantic: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
   I read this twice because I couldn’t bear to leave it behind. A late-night comedy writer and a musical guest fall into an unexpected, delicious slow burn.

5. For the Recent Divorcee: Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn
   For the friend who needs a little nudge back into pleasure and possibility. Funny, sexy, cathartic—hand it to her with a wry smile.

6. For the Art Lover: My Friends by Fredrik Backman
   A novel about a painting, two artists across generations, and the haunting question of what it means to devote yourself to art. I want to reread it endlessly just to live inside the language.

7. For the Empty Nester: Sandwich by Catherine Newman
   A tender, nostalgic story about motherhood, identity, and the layers of who we become to our children over time.

8. For the Women’s Study Major: Hazel Says No by Jessica Berger Gross

   A sharp, resonant exploration of why it remains so hard for women to say no, especially to men with power.

9. For Your Best Girlfriends: The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy

   A stunning portrait of female friendship over decades: marriage, kids, heartbreak, reinvention.

10. For the Influencer Obsessed: Everyone is Lying to You by Jo Piazza

    Trad wives murder mystery, need I say more?

11. For the Therapist that Needs a Therapist: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
    We all know who this person is.

12. For the True Crime Obsessed (though it is fiction): Our Last Resort by Clémence Michallon
    A cult, a murder, and estranged chosen siblings left to figure out their past while saving their future.

I listened to this book, translated from its cult-classic status in Japan, but I almost wish I’d read it on the page so I could savor every word. The audio tripped me up a bit with the names—probably my own processing—but I suspect the written version might make the immersion even richer.

The food writing in this novel is otherworldly. At one point, I did exactly what the main character, Rika, does: I made warm rice, topped it with cold, expensive butter, and let it melt at the back of my tongue. The book’s sensory descriptions are decadent, transporting—this passage in particular wrecked me (in the best way):

“The first thing Rika felt was a strange breeze emanating from the back of her throat. The cold butter first met the roof of her mouth with a chilly sensation, contrasting with the steaming rice in both texture and temperature. The cool butter clashed against her teeth, and she felt its soft texture right down into their roots. Soon enough, just as Kaiji had said, the melted butter began to surge through the individual grains of rice. It was a taste that could only be described as golden. A shining golden wave, with an astounding depth of flavor and a faint yet full and rounded aroma, wrapped itself around the rice and washed Rika’s body far away. It was, indeed, a lot like falling. Rika stared down intently at the bowl of rice with butter and soy sauce and let out a long sigh, feeling her breath rich and milky.”

I still dream of that taste introduced to me by a fictional character.

The story uses food as an unlikely bridge. Rika, a journalist who can’t cook, tries to break the ice with Kaiji, an incarcerated gourmet chef and convicted serial killer who used food both as seduction and weaponry, targeting lonely businessmen. Rika wants to know if Kaiji is truly guilty. In the process—and in her friendship with a troubled woman tied to the case—Rika’s ideas about womanhood, beauty, desire, and her own place in society begin to unravel.

What’s framed as a murder mystery is, at its heart, a study of how women navigate their bodies, their appetites, and the pressures placed on them. By the end, Rika’s entire self-concept has been cracked open.

Needless to say, I loved this book. It was adapted into a TV series in Japan, but it deserves an English-language adaptation immediately. At least, I really hope it gets one.

@jesskantorNothing better than a book you can taste. Butter by Asako Yuzuki #bookrecs #booktoker #bookworm

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It’s Wednesday, smack in the middle of Banned Books Week—a week that shouldn’t have to exist, but does. Once upon a time, America called itself the land of the free. Today, we need a designated calendar slot to celebrate the books our leaders don’t want us to read. A week to remind ourselves that free expression is now a curated privilege.

The American Library Association announced this year’s theme: “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” Which sounds witty and almost retro, except it’s chillingly literal. Orwell’s 1984 is no longer a warning—it’s a playbook.

Here’s the irony that keeps me up at night: the very books being pulled from shelves are likely feeding the machine of artificial intelligence. The same banned texts are training the very AI systems that many of the book-banning crowd are heavily invested in. Think about that for a moment. The gatekeepers want to keep these works out of your hands, but they’re perfectly fine letting their machines ingest them wholesale.

When I asked ChatGPT whether it was trained on banned books, here’s what it said: yes—at least for public domain works like Ulysses, Huckleberry Finn, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and The Communist Manifesto. Copyrighted modern texts like Gender Queer or All Boys Aren’t Blue aren’t ‘officially’ in its training set, but their reviews and discussions are. In other words: AI gets to learn from diverse perspectives, even if we don’t.

That’s the hypocrisy. The very people funding AI’s future seem desperate to restrict our present. They don’t trust us with books, with nuance, with complexity. But they trust their machines to absorb it all. It’s almost funny—except it isn’t. Because the stakes are our ability to reason for ourselves, to imagine for ourselves, to think outside the confines of whatever sanitized “official story” we’re allowed.

So this week, I’m rebelling in the simplest way possible: I’m picking up a banned book. Looking for Alaska by John Green. It’s about a 16-year-old named Miles, which also happens to be my son’s name. A coincidence, but a meaningful one. If the next generation is going to inherit a world of curated thought, the least I can do is hand my Miles stories that make him think freely. You can read the book report here.

If you want to do the same, here’s a curated list of actions you can take to resist censorship and defend the radical act of reading.

Because let’s be honest: the people who want to ban books? They’re the ones who most need to read one.

Our First Walk

Last night, Wednesday, August 27th, we held our very first walk, and it was better than I could have imagined. I arrived 15 minutes early to our meeting spot—Jane’s Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park—and snapped a quick photo to share in the group since most of us hadn’t met in person.

One by one, people appeared, each with their own distinct stride, and introduced themselves. Soon the nine of us who had RSVP’d gathered together, chatting easily as if we’d all been waiting for this exact moment. Strangers only minutes before, we were suddenly a community.

We even flagged down a walking photography group and asked them to capture us holding up the book—our first official club photo!

One member surprised us with homemade cookies in the most thoughtful packaging, while I handed out the bookmarks I had designed. It instantly felt special, like a tradition was already forming.

Talking, Walking, Connecting

We began with a simple question: How did you feel about the book?

As we walked, the group naturally split into two paces—fast walkers and strollers—while a few floated between. Conversations circled around the book’s themes:

• How would the parents in the group (most of us!) handle similar situations?

• Would we be upset if a spouse took an action without the family’s permission?

• How did you feel about the characters? There was a majority consensus around the comic relief and unrelenting loyalty of the younger brother, Wolf.

• Another Jewish woman and I found a moment to discuss the antisemitism the family faced and how it felt to read.

And then we found ourselves on one of the piers of Brooklyn Bridge Park that felt like we had entered the woods. We ventured further in and saw a perfect stone talking circle, ideal for us to face each other while engaging in more personal conversation. We discussed how no matter what a woman does in a challenging situation, she doesn’t win.

The book permitted us to share our own stories, and it proved to be the perfect kind of book club read: layered, accessible, and full of angles to debate.

What’s Next

Our conversation wound down when a group of kids arrived with a speaker, filling the air with music. We laughed, packed up, and agreed it was the perfect cue to call it a night.

Everyone left energized and eager for the next walk—where we’ll be reading “James,” by Perceval Everett.

If you’d like to join, here’s the schedule. Just reply here or DM me on Instagram, and I’ll add you to our WhatsApp group.

See you on the next walk. 🌿📚

Everything in my life has been shown to me from the perspective of a right-handed person. It started young. One of my earliest memories is getting to use the cute panda scissors in kindergarten. I felt cool, yeah, but that was the first time I realized I was different. Being a left-handed person doesn’t seem like a major thing to deal with. But I’ve had to reverse engineer a world made for right-handed people. Like opening a door, for instance. Have you, a right-handed person, ever reached out for a door with the doorknob on the left side, across your body? No, I don’t want to show you my cleavage, I’m just opening a fucking door.

It’s an interesting way to experience the world. I was taught to write by a right-handed person. And I can’t really write, which is funny, cause I’m a writer. My handwriting was so bad that they gave me a laptop in the 3rd grade. That’s 9 years old. Same age, I got contact lenses. And now, a pen in hand, it can only be a murder weapon for me. I try to write, and my hand cramps. I just don’t know how to hold the damn thing. So if you see a pen in my hand and I’m not writing you a check, you should run, cause I’m going straight for your jugular.

It’s an invisible thing to be left-handed, but it’s a thing nonetheless. I was so relieved when my son chose to pick up his fork with his right hand and attempt to throw a baseball at t-ball. He’s definitely right-handed. There’s hope for him to be able to write. I was thinking I’d do all his tracing exercises and relearn how to do longform. If anything, to have a cool signature when I release my first book. Some people are afraid of what people will think about their books. Not me, I’m nervous that I’ll need to sign them. Would it be uncool to make a custom stamp? Like what if it’s a 3D printer that’s hooked to some AI where I can dictate a personalized message, and it will write for me. Like a little signing robot. I wonder if that will fly. Or I can just relearn to hold a pen. It might be freeing to write long form. But I type so goddam fast. Can my brain even slow down enough to write with a pen? Should I just stick to calligraphy classes, so I can create some cool initials and a heart, and call it a day? Of course, I haven’t sold my book yet, but I’m that weird left-handed person that’s had to figure out how to make a world that’s not built for me work in my favor.

I can’t stop thinking about those panda scissors from kindergarten. There were three pairs and only one left-handed kid. I always got first choice, and the rest of the kids would fight to the death to hold them. I didn’t have to share. Not my panda scissors. Would it be weird if I bought a pair for my right-handed child? Just so he can feel a little left of center, too. He’s a pretty think-outside-the-box kid for a right-handed person. Hopefully, as he individuates from me, he doesn’t lose that, as he conforms to a world that’s built for him.

I want to talk myself out of blaming my quirkiness on my left-handedness. But could you think about it? How rude is it to shake hands with your left? Like that’s basically telling someone you hate them. And dancing, you always start with the right foot. I mean, women already dance backwards and in heels. How much can one woman take?

It’s good luck to step on a plane with your right foot first. Am I single-handedly making flying dangerous by stepping with my left foot first? And eating, the etiquette is to cut with the fork in your left hand, put the knife down, and switch to your right to take a bite. But I’m the monster who just cuts and eats, cuts and eats. How vulgar can a woman be?

One of the most special left-handed moments in my life was at a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in San Sebastian. I’m blanking on the name, but it’ll come to me. And they serve the amuse-bouche before bringing the flatware for the next course. They observed the table so carefully that they reversed the table setting for me, with the first course. They saw me and adapted. It opened up my heart with my stomach, and I swear it was the best meal of my life. Oh, it was called Martin Bestegue. Yes, my mom, my late step-father, and brother were there, and spending time with them was a special memory. But sometimes I’m lost in my family, a little bit invisible, but that day. I was seen, my left-handedness on display and fully embraced

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Today is my birthday. This time last year, I thought I’d stay in Los Angeles. By November, I had decided New York would just be my summer city—the best of both worlds. It was a freeing choice. I was ready to put down roots, to keep investing in my home and community.

And then, life turned. After the fires in January, I knew I had to leave. During the evacuation, I felt a fear that lodged in my body, the kind that lingers deep in my cells. And no matter where I went, I had to rebuild my life. So I chose to be closer to family. I made a split-second decision: move to Brooklyn. I bought plane tickets, found my son a school, packed our two suitcases, and got on a plane. We went from one hotel to the next and finally into our longer-term rental.

There were a lot of emotions swirling. The daunting task of starting over, rebuilding, affording a new life, and ensuring stability for my son. I expected most of that. It didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was a sense of relief. I could let go of everything that wasn’t serving me. Even returning my car—and not having to pay for gas or insurance—lifted a weight. Though on a long freezing walk to school, my son loudly cried out,

“I miss our car!”

“Me too, bud, me too.”

I get to redesign my life. It’s as much an opportunity as it is a stressor. I can focus on joy and family. From across the country, it’s easier to deal with home insurance and remediation at arm’s length, rather than living inside it every day.

Those first months are a blur, but what I remember is the kindness of strangers, of Miles’s half-siblings’ families, of my friends and family—all of whom kept us from hitting the pavement, giving us what we needed to find our footing.

I wish I could thank all of you specifically for how you helped us. I’m so touched by all of you; each of you made such a difference. What I do know is my heart grew from the love you showed me. Despite the hardships and chaos of the world, there is goodness out there. I’ve felt it. I’ll always be better for it.

Another surprise: I’m enjoying single motherhood in New York far more than I expected—more on that in another note (because who doesn’t love a good NY vs. LA comparison?).

This year has held both tragedy and triumph. My son is thriving. I’ve made new mom friends I adore. I’ve stayed in touch with mom friends I miss terribly. I wrote a book called Mom Friends that I’m currently querying. I’ve reconnected with old friends, made new friends, and I’ve had great sex with one of said friends, which may be the inspiration for my second book. ;-)

My screenwriting partner and I are still churning out rom coms and have projects circulating. I started a walking book club that’s grown to nearly 50 members. I’m reading two books a week. I’ve rediscovered dormant parts of myself.

I know every playground in Park Slope (I think), two in Fort Greene, and Brooklyn Bridge Park. I found my people, who include a great hairstylist, colorist, hard gel nail manicurist, and perimenopause specialist. I even found a new long-term apartment.

It’s a strange thing to both struggle and thrive at once. But maybe that’s what middle age is—holding fear and relief, loss and joy, struggle and triumph—all at the same time