I have long been confused by the widely used phrase some personal news that people use on social media usually when, it seems to me, they’re sharing professional news. Or is the word “personal” here meant to distinguish it from actual News-News…? Or has the distinction between the personal and the professional completely collapsed? I have never understood this. Please feel free to enlighten me. I suppose this post vaguely falls into such a category.
The paperback of Biography of X is available now!
If you want a signed copy, I signed some at Greenlight Books in Brooklyn and Exile in Bookville in Chicago has signed bookplates in theirs. If you’re a bookseller and want me to sign books or bookplates, I would love to if space and time permit. 1
Also— I am absolutely a sucker for the feature on the iPhone and Instagram and whatever else that shows you “this day a year ago.”
Various technologies tell me that today marks one year since the launch of Biography of X at P&T Knitwear. I knew I didn’t want that event to be a straightforward novel-release thing, since the book isn’t exactly straightforward either, and though I was super nervous about enlisting three of my most charming friends to pretend to be “Catherine Lacey,” it was really fun and set the tone for a very charmed first year of that book’s life.
Next week I’ll be talking to Chris Kraus at Skylight Books in Los Angeles! Absolutely a dream. Her book, After Kathy Acker, was a hugely important influence on this book and one of my favorite entries into the badly-behaved biography genre.
There are a few other events coming up in the coming months in Brooklyn, Manhattan, San Francisco and London for the Dylan Thomas Shortlist. In June I’ll be in Italy and Paris, more on that and other European dates soon. If you come to an event, please allow me to write something weird in your book dedication; I like to come up with things that sound like demented fortune cookie messages.
The other update is— I’m going to slightly alter the format of this Untitled Thought Project. I like the 144-word form! It’s fun to work in that kind of restraint. So I am thinking I’ll start sending those out once a week then occasionally longer, other things. I might start doing interviews with people I admire or monthly book/film/music recs. I have a vague plan to go through all the photos I’ve taken of pages from books and writing about why I took a photo of that particular page.
And I am totally open to suggestions, too. A few months ago a reader suggested I write about the revision process and I have been doing that, but I keep revising my thoughts about revision, making it difficult to send it out. Anyway— thank you for that suggestion and I welcome any more you all might have.
Mainly I’ve realized that the long personal-ish essay that I thought I’d be working on here is just not that interesting to me right now so— no more of those. And while I am extremely thank to the paying subscribers who make it possible for me to spend a few hours each month writing in this way that still feels very new and uncertain to me, I will probably be using the paywall less often.
Until soon!
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