12 Comments

How about post that contains all the links for your podcast appearances. Would that be doable?

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I will try - I try to add them to regular posts as they happen but as you know I'm bad at logistics. But I'll try and do a roundup every month or two that includes podcasts and freelance pieces.

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Outstanding, thank you!

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I was going to send this as an e-mail but decided to share it here, since it applies just as much to Freddie as his audience. I often use this newsletter for book recommendations since very few people in my close circle are interested in recommending books. So far the ones from here have been excellent, so I wanted to recommend an author that I think subscribers of this newsletter (and Freddie) might enjoy.

Her name is Lisa Taddeo and her writing is very irreverent and transgressively funny, obviously influenced by Joan Didion, Bret Easton Ellis, etc. She also provides very female-centric POV's without being reductive, and I don't know what else to say except that her books are very skillfully and tautly put together. One is called "Animal", it's like one unfiltered inner monologue of a very jaded and promiscuous woman. Her other which I'd recommend just as enthusiastically is called "Three Women"; I'd describe it as a series of ghostwritten vignettes about the sex lives of three (real-life) women. Both books were innovative but also just hilarious and easy to breeze through. If you're a philistine like me who refuses to read long books, they're less than 300 pages each.

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I’m so happy about the baby. I can’t wait to see pictures and read your reflections on parenting. Boys are the best. ❤️

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I think it be great if you could make it on Bad Faith podcast once a month. I'd listen. Now I'm realizing I haven't checked in on that podcast in awhile. Queue'ing up some episodes now.

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Have you read Emmett Rensin's book The Complications: On Going Insane in America? (If so, any thoughts?) I'm looking forward to reading your own book on mental illness.

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I am halfway through it.

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"I’m still consumed with guilt about people paying money for my work and I want to find more ways to make that money feel well-spent."

The only other time I've ever commented here was to say this same thing, but as a paid subscriber, I consider the money to be a gesture of thanks for all the years you were a lonely voice of sanity and a vote in favor of keeping you from having to spend any more time in the wilderness where I don't get to hear that voice. I would continue to pay and do it happily even if there wasn't a single added bonus for paid subscribers. And I am entirely certain that I'm not the only person who thinks so.

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Oh yeah, $5/month is worth it for the posts alone, forget everything else.

Just for myself, I wouldn't tune in to a podcast even if it were free. As a semi-luddite I've never understood the appeal of any of them, and I'm fairly convinced they supplant reading in general, which has got to be a bad thing.

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That's a shame about the fiction novel, it was certainly rough but had a haunting charm...some stories I read and forget about, others stick around in the head for ineffable reasons. You managed the latter, so I think there's definitely a spark there. (Sans illustrations make it harder, they fit the ambiance perfectly.) Eager for the published second attempt in future.

The low monthly rate here for (deprecated?) yearly subscription is perhaps a guilt-maker on your end, but barely a consideration for this poor paid subscriber. I have few recurring "subs" in general, and this is actually tied for cheapest of them all. Half as much as [recurring charity] that I don't quite have the heart to cancel, less than half of food delivery sub (an actual guilty indulgence), and far less than certain other Substacks. The actual $5/mo Patreon I'm part of posts less than weekly! So your value proposition is just really good, and I consider any extras just that, superfluous excess.

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for this paid subscriber, I don't need "subscriber only" stuff. I just value your writing and want it to keep appearing.

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