Untitled Thought Project is Catherine Lacey’s untitled project of thought.

I’ve been writing here since early 2023 and I still don’t know what’s going on or how to do it or what I want to do next. It’s a place of confusion and curiosity, a repository for open emails and things that are not quite essays.

Sometimes I write posts that are exactly 144 words. This number was chosen because it’s a dozen times a dozen, also known as “a gross,” a term I learned while doing an inventory of nails and screws in my family’s hardware store. Here’s one about depression, one about smoking, one about Botox, and one about God.

Here’s a photo of Annemarie Schwarzenbach and a very good dog.

In the first few months of 2023 I was writing a series about things that strangers had lost. In early 2025 I started Public Letter Project which quickly overwhelmed me and has been half-abandoned.

The sculpture of the person with long arms in my avatar is by the incomparable Kiki Smith.

Subscribe to Untitled Thought Project

144-word essays, book stuff, writing stuff, etc.

People

Catherine Lacey

@catherinelacey

THE MÖBIUS BOOK, a hybrid work of nonfiction and fiction, is forthcoming from FSG in June 2025.