oh, nothing, just writing another book

I really should have learned the first three times

Oops, I did it again:

I’ve been shorthanding this one as “It’s a book about dating that is actually a book about fascism,” and my agent calls it “Love won’t love you back.” And despite the conflicted and troubled relationship I have with A. the industry and B. my last book, I’m really, genuinely, 100 percent excited about this one to a degree that embarrasses me. And thrilled to be reunited with Alessandra Bastagli and to be landing at One Signal, which has published so many other brilliant comrades lately. They get me and this book, and I can’t wait to work with them. Which, well, as the Work Won’t Love You Back girl…it says a lot.

Some of you have heard me talk about this project over the past year, hint at it on Heart Reacts, or read something that I wrote that hinted at it. Or, really, if you’ve read WWLYB you can see some of the contours of it in chapter 1 and the conclusion. And, well, after a few conversations about From the Ashes I sort of realized that I’m always writing about love in a way. Raechel Anne Jolie wrote a while ago, inspired by Hanif Abdurraqib, about the Johnny Cash school of obsession—that we are often, when it comes down to it, writing about three things, the way Cash wrote about Love, God, and Murder. All three of those humans—Jolie, Abdurraqib, and Cash—are inspirations to me and it made me think: my three are something like Love, Work, and Revolution. (If we can add a fourth, throw in Death but anyway that’s a bummer.)

So. This book is about heterosexuality, not in a “what about the straights” way or even in a heteropessimism/heterofatalism kind of way, but about the fact that this social structure we call heterosexuality is embedded at the very roots of capitalism and it’s particularly central to the kind of far right politics we’re seeing around the world right now, with its obsession with birth rates and warrior masculinity and binary gender. It’s about the way heterosexuality as we know it is a fairly recent historical invention that comes laden with a set of expectations that the economy we labor under no longer supports, how destabilizing all that is, and how those expectations sucked anyway and we can do better.

It will not be about my life, for the most part. I think I’m done writing memoir for the foreseeable future. If you want to know about my life either become my friend or read From the Ashes. But it is informed of course by my life, and by the many men that I have loved and continue to love and, yes, sleep with and have relationships with. I don’t think men are “the problem” or “broken” so much as I think we’re all fucked by structures that have done none of us any favors. (Even the winners of this system—I mean, look at Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, not to mention Trump. Do these dudes look like all this anxious masculinity is making them HAPPY? Not that I care one tiny little iota about their happiness, I wish them nothing but misery. But, well, I hope you get my point.)

Also, I’m looking forward to writing a book that will have some fucking levity in this moment, which is dark as hell. My subject matter at the end of the day is deadly serious—again, you only have to look at Musk and Trump to see the endgame, the heteropatriarchy-by-any-means-necessary plan—but it’s also, sometimes, hilarious.

And so. If you want to get a glimpse at some of my thinking in longer form, here’s a piece I wrote for the Baffler in which I first wrote the words “Heterosexuality is broken,” poured out in a rage during lockdown, and a more recent review of some of the people who’ve influenced my thinking in this direction at Dissent. (Thanks to Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek, Sophie Lewis, M.E. O’Brien, Sophie K. Rosa, Alva Gotby, and Kristen Ghodsee.)

Will of course plug shamelessly when we have pre-orders up, but we’re thinking you might see her in the world around Valentine’s Day 2027. If I live that long and one can still put out critical books in Trumplandia, anyway.

Troublemaking

I am writing to you from the airport awaiting my flight to Dublin for the Marxism conference, at which I will be talking about Trump on Friday’s keynote panel and having a conversation with one of my favorite humans, Rodrigo Nunes, about From the Ashes on Sunday. (I’m a little terrified to have given someone who knows me so well the opportunity to question me in public, so if you’re in Ireland come see me squirm! Also come see him talk about Bolsonaro on the Saturday, and other brilliant comrades Eamonn McCann, Paris Marx, Shaun Harkin, Becca Bor, Fiona Ferguson and many more.

Then the following weekend, because I’m a glutton for punishment/another of my favorite humans, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, asked me to, I’m at home in New Orleans at the New Orleans Book Festival March 29th. Two different talks, both with Samhita!

I was on Let’s Talk Memoir with Ronit Plank, which was lovely and different for me, my above thoughts on memoir notwithstanding. It was interesting to talk about craft in this particular way.

You can still get the beautiful art prints made by Nicole Manganelli—order them now directly from Radical Emprints, sign up for her newsletter, and if you have a bookstore or other distro, she has a new wholesale page! ALSO we may have another collab coming soon, keep an eye out and in the meantime:

Writing

Mostly for print pieces that haven’t come out yet! But a couple pieces for In These Times on the federal worker fight-back: Federal Workers Rise up Against Musk, Trump and Drastic Cuts and The Movement Supporting Public Employees Is Rising.

And at Dissent, an extended version of an excerpt from From the Ashes (think of it as a remix single), on housing, immigration, and the idea of home, featuring the brilliant Edain Altamirano and Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia in Minneapolis.

Podcasting

Heart Reacts continues! This is, for new readers, my advice podcast for surviving late capitalism, co-hosted with Craig Gent. It’s also a great place to go if you want to hear me thinking through what I called the “lies heterosexuality tells us.” In our most recent episode, we talk about the power imbalances of wealth, and how to deal with conflict in your organizing home.

You can get the show wherever you get podcasts (and if it isn’t showing up, let me know and I’ll see if I can fix that).

Please do send us questions—the form is totally anonymous. And please do share with your friends and comrades and that person you’re thinking of writing in about.

And someone else’s dog

This is Ida. You’ve seen her before!