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- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 7
- Latest publication
- Sep 25, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 10, 2026
Latest issues
Your Own Astonishment (opens the original)
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<img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="1023" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eKVi!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffa01a297-ac6b-4a0f-9eda-625f64435065_1580x1110.p
When a Few Words Change Your Life (opens the original)
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A rather short one for you today, dear writers, about how two short sentences turned a teenager into a novelist. Please support this labor of love by liking, commenting, or subscribing 💙As
My Daughter Went to College and I Ate Salad with James Patterson (opens the original)
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My firstborn started college last week, all the way on the other side of the country, even though the week before she was 13 and had turned all the living room furniture upside down for April Fool’s Day, and the week before that she was eight and obsessed with Warrior Cats, and the week before that she came into the world early, long and skinny and red, folded into a V with her ankles next to her ears.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!FF-U
Five Surprising Reasons to Write a Novel (opens the original)
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The other day I learned that Ian Fleming wrote his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, to take his mind off his upcoming nuptials to Ann Charteris, a British aristocrat. Although the two had been lovers for years, Fleming was experiencing “hysterical alarm at getting married"; writing the book, he later said, “was better than biting my nails and thinking that getting married at forty-three was too big a step.” (Writing the novel was also an attempt to make money so he could keep Charteris in
Ann Beattie's Barf Bag (opens the original)
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“I can hardly think of anything that pleases me more than writing a sentence that surprises me.” —Ann BeattieAmen to that.Once in a while, when I don’t feel like writing first thing—when it seems as if none of my sentences could possibly surprise me—I make a cup of coffee and read a Paris Review interview. Yesterday’s pick was the 2011 conversation between PR editor Christopher Cox and the writer Ann Beattie, “an unparalleled portraitist of disaffe
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