Weekly Roundup: September 5, 2025

Hellllo and Happy September! I didn’t post last week because I was in the Netherlands. I did some book research there and also just had fun exploring. We went to the Dutch Grand Prix in the beach town of Zandvoort and it was such an amazing experience. I’ll include some trip photos at the end of this post. I’m still feeling jetlagged and foggy-brained, but happy to be back home with my daughter and pets. On to the roundup!

Quote of the week:
“Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.” –Ernest Hemingway

What I’m reading:
The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei. I started it on the plane and I’m almost done. It’s a good story about sisterhood and family.

What I’m listening to:
The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM by Toni Natalie. I’m never NOT interested in a cult tale.

What I’m watching:
I watched a few movies on the plane. LOVED Anora. Liked Drop, The Woman in the Yard, and Babygirl. Still keeping up with (and loving) Dexter: Resurrection.

Writing news:
I’ve been doing lots of pre-writing activities (aka research). Not a lot of writing happening. My agent says she’s obsessed with the first three chapters of the new thing I’m working on, so that’s encouraging Also, there are exciting things taking shape for my 2026 novel, MOTHER IS A VERB. This past week, we picked the audiobook narrator, I finished copyedits, and we discussed cover options (coming soon!). The book releases on February 17.

Interesting things I learned this week:
I learned a lot of interesting things about Amsterdam and the Netherlands, but my brain has not yet compiled a list of these things. Let’s say it’s coming soon. Here are some other random things I learned this past week:

Modern kids are SUPER sheltered: 56% have never talked to a neighbor while alone, 62% have never walked or biked anywhere without an adult, 71% have never used a sharp knife (source: The Harris Poll survey)Research shows women reach emotional maturity around age 32, while men often don’t get there until 43 (source: Psychology Today)Only 25% of Americans believe they have a good chance of improving their standard of living. Nearly 70% said it was no longer possible to work hard and get ahead (source: Wall Street Journal–NORC pollFrom 1975 to 2018, at least $50 trillion moved from the bottom 90% to the top 1% (source: Wall Street Journal)The percentage of Americans who report they “never had enough time” rose 10% in the last decade (source: Harvard Business School). And a Pew Research survey found that 6 in 10 U.S. adults say they’re too busy to enjoy life The Miss Universe pageant will welcome Palestine for the first time in the pageant’s historyPope Leo will welcome a pro-LGBTQ+ Catholic group to the Vatican for the first time in historyThe U.S. Mint’s new quarter honoring Stacey Park Milbern, co-founder of the disability justice movement, is the first to depict a woman using a wheelchair on American currency

What I’m grateful for:

A safe, smooth, fun trip to the Netherlands. So far, I have not tested positive for Covid, despite a stranger coughing all over me on the flight backAn amazing pet sitter while I was goneThe village who loved on my daughter while I was goneThe summer weather that’s still hanging around

Snapshots from my trip:

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