Welcome to the Tuesday tastemaker

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...

Tuesday Tastemaker #51: What did we talk about before AI? Happy Tuesday, Reader. I read something on Instagram this week that really grinds my gears: “If you use emojis anywhere in your content, I will stop reading because they tell me AI wrote it, not you.” AHEM, no. You know how *I* can tell if AI wrote something? Because of the quality and timbre of the writing itself. There’s something ineffable about real writing that AI just sort of… can’t do. But that also means it’s hard to pinpoint...

#50: Vampires be vampirin’ This week, as requested by one of my readers, I’m doing a deep dive on Sinners, the recent “vampire” movie (in quotes b/c it’s so much more than that), now streaming on HBOMax. This is a lot like one of the lessons I teach in The Craft, my 10-week writing workshop for creatives and service providers. I’m currently enrolling for the 2026 cohort. Learn more here and here. Quick, Reader! How do you stop a vampire?? Garlic! Holy water! Wooden stake through the heart!...