My pocket notebook is my least-formal of my 4 notebooks, so it usually turns out to be my favorite and most surprising notebook to flip through. Here’s a peek inside my latest.
Typewriter interview with Sarah Manguso
After a brief hiatus, the typewriter interviews are back! The latest is a great one with writer Sarah Manguso.
Writing shouldn’t be easier
Here’s a page from my diary that I put at the top of today’s newsletter: “Making it easier.”
Gift ideas for dads & grads
It’s what folks in the book industry call “Dads & Grads” season. Here are two ideas:
1. Give them one of my books with a few crisp bills as a bookmark. (When in doubt about which book of mine to give, I suggest the deluxe hardcover anniversary edition of Steal Like an Artist.)
3. Buy something off my gear list, last year’s gift guide, or my yearly list of favorite books.
May 2025 mixtape

Here is a mopey, gloomy, gothy, synthy mixtape for a heating earth. A cousin to Dancing in the Ruins.
I made it from a sealed, pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents at the record store. I taped over the cassette’s protection tabs and then I taped over the music and then I taped over the artwork.
I wish Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without A Face” didn’t have to have the bad macho guitar breakdown 3/4 through, but that’s how it goes.
You can listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.
Filed under: mixtapes
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