Welcome to the Tuesday tastemaker

issue #54: snapshots November 26, 2025: Day before Thanksgiving 6am. I blink in the dark and begin extracting myself from the heavy softness of weighted blanket and down duvet. In the kitchen, I brew my coffee while the cat looks on, groggy and perplexed. It is too early for both of us, and eventually he abandons me for bed. I roll out my yoga mat, because there has to be something between waking and working, and settle in at my desk. I have a goal today, and I will not be deterred: I’m going...

Oh hi, Reader. Did you forget about me? Did two-plus weeks of silence catapult me into the void? Am I floating in space? Different question— Does a short reprieve from constant content creation, a blip in sending consistent weekly emails, have a meaningful impact on your readers? Or have they just been living their lives, filling their days with zoom meetings and lesson plans and client work and dinner, just like you? I would tell any client or friend of mine this, and yet I willfully ignore...

What a weird-ass holiday season this has been, amiright? Something about this particular year ending is hitting different. It feels like there's a collective energy shift, which is such a woo thing to say but I mean it—a gathering close. A contraction. Pulling back all the resources, emotions, data, and spending that have scattered far and wide, and reevaluating where we want them to go. I've seen this in the "return to analog," which makes me chuckle because a lot of the people touting that...

issue #56:Christmas Blues All month long, Reader, I’ve been hearing a whispered mantra at the edges of my consciousness: “I think I might be done.” I heard it last week when I was vacuuming the apartment instead of inviting you to my birthday workshop. I heard it the other day, layering caramelized onions into the lasagna. I hear it when I go for walks, when I linger in the shower too long, as I ponder the year to come. Its soft drumbeat thumping out the rhythm of my days. And in its...

issue #55: This is what the “new economy” looks like Oh hi, Reader! First of all, have you seen Candy Cane Lane on Prime yet? It’s an Eddie Murphy joint that came out last December (I think), and it might have been the weed, but I found it incredibly stupid and funny in the best way. I thought about it the whole next day and laughed. Recommend. I didn’t come here today to talk to you about Christmas movies, though. Everyone else is already doing that, so of course, I am NOT! 😎 Instead, I came...

issue #54: Do my references alienate you? Reader. Do you have someone in your life who often responds to normal conversation topics with arcane movie quotes? Are YOU that someone? I am. I’m that someone. I may have the memory of a perimenopausal slice of Swiss cheese who smoked too many joints in her twenties… but I never forget a great line of dialogue. Every year, my friends and I gather in a festive backyard to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, projected onto the side of the...

Hold on to your butts, Reader, it’s Black Friday! Today’s email is another one I wrote for Danielle Leslie—I worked with her for over five years, so there’s quite a library there. If you’ve been following along with this little trip down memory lane, you’ll recognize many similar themes from Pt. 1, the Lovecraft Country email. Danielle was really creative and visually expressive, and she was always deeply obsessed with some trippy, cosmic weirdness. It gave me so much material to work with,...

The other night I had a crazy idea. I’ve written a LOT (a LOT!) of Black Friday / Cyber Monday emails for my clients—but in ten years, I’ve never, ever written one for myself. But this year, I’m going to. On Small Business Saturday, I’m sending out an offer for $500 off The Craft, and it will apply whether you pay in full or in installments. That’s not the crazy idea—the crazy idea is, every day from now until then, I’m going to be releasing an exclusive bootleg from the vault: A bona fide,...

Tuesday Tastemaker #52: In defense of the children Two things before we get into it, Reader. I’m dropping a surprise on Small Business Saturday, Nov. 29, which I guess is not a surprise because I’m telling you about it right now—it’s $500 off The Craft and it applies to ALL the payment plans too. If you’ve been hanging back, enter your info here and I’ll make sure you get first dibs. I only want 8 people in the 2026 cohort. I’m hosting a free writing workshop on Monday, December 29th, which...