February 2012
8 posts
Feb 10th
4 tags
A sweet Super Bowl story, even for non-sports fans...
It was weird seeing all those Giants fans all over the city today. Weirder than seeing them, in their Giants hats and jerseys and shit, was hearing them bellow “Go Giants!” I don’t understand sports, but more than that, I don’t understand that level of fandom. That said, I have a Super Bowl story that touched even me: My step-father’s 84-year-old brother Norman has...
Feb 7th
1 note
Feb 3rd
31 notes
“A former unpaid intern for the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar filed a lawsuit...”
–  This comes at a time when the magazine has cut its freelance pay rate in half, too. It hurts, it’s humiliating. But it’s still more than the Times and many other publications pay. NY Times Someone’s been reading Intern Nation… (via millionsmillions)
Feb 2nd
8 notes
1 tag
Feb 2nd
9 notes
1 tag
Feb 2nd
1 note
3 tags
Feb 1st
1 note
3 tags
Molly Fischer’s essay about “ladyblogs” brought to mind something that blew my mind when I taught journalism at SUNY Albany in 2010 and 2011: Most of my female students were devoted readers of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazines. In fact, many of them had those magazines’ websites as their home pages. These were journalism students - majors and minors. There was only one...
Feb 1st
2 notes
January 2012
14 posts
Jan 31st
1 tag
Area Man "had other plans" when ex-colleagues... →
Jan 29th
1 note
Writer's retreat in our guest room, anyone? We're... →
Jan 27th
Today my partners and I brought our TMI Project monologue workshop to an awesome LBGTQ teen conference. Julie started things off with “Football Princess,” her touching and hilarious monologue about her gender identity. Then she did some improv exercises with the kids, and I was amazed at how they just jumped right in - so different from the adults we work with, who tend to be so timid...
Jan 14th
2 notes
Permanent Brain Damage
So here’s another weird thing: I live two doors down from the post office. Because they don’t deliver mail to Main Street (long story), I have to have a P.O. box and pick up my mail every day. Sometimes I stop there in the car, on my way home from errands, especially when it’s cold out. I can’t tell you how many of those times I then forget I drove there, and walk the two...
Jan 12th
2 notes
Jan 11th
10 notes
"Somehow you wind up on the topic of his wife's... →
No, seriously - do not read this if you are related to me in any way.
Jan 10th
1 tag
In Which I Have My First Piece on This...
Okay, but please don’t read this if you are at all related to me? Thanks!
Jan 10th
4 notes
Jan 6th
1 tag
Jan 6th
Jan 5th
1 tag
Here’s something weird: I lately can’t find a place in my house that feels comfortable for writing. I have a whole office upstairs - second biggest room in the house - but I haven’t been able to station myself there for some time. I may have let it get too messy, and I’m not up for the nine million little decisions about what to keep, what to throw away, what to put where,...
Jan 5th
A Friday night in 1987. I am a senior in college. My father calls around 9:30 pm. Dad: What are you doing? Me: Getting ready to meet my friends at a bar. Dad: Oy. Me: What? Dad: JENNIFER LEVIN WENT TO A BAR.
Jan 3rd
1 note
The Same Situation
I wrote some more about my conversation with Glory Goes and Gets Some author Emily Carter for the Emily Books blog. emilybooks: By Sari Botton I got a nice email from Emily (Gould) the other day about my conversation with Emily Carter, published as part of a series I write for The Rumpus. She said she wished the piece had been longer, and I immediately regretted two choices I had...
Jan 2nd
31 notes
December 2011
8 posts
3 tags
Dec 31st
5 notes
Me: So, you’re giving me permission to write these things? Shrink: No. I’m PRESCRIBING IT.
Dec 30th
3 notes
Dec 28th
2 notes
2 tags
Dec 22nd
1 note
4 tags
Dec 22nd
2 notes
Dec 21st
15 notes
5 tags
Dec 21st
6 notes
3 tags
Dec 14th
2 notes
November 2011
5 posts
3 tags
I typically find holidays hard, but this year I’m in a better place. While not exactly ecstatic, I’m in sort of a go-with-the-flow mood that feels new. Something has shifted in me; I’ve somehow acquired a detached acceptance and compassion for my family. Granted, my dad and I are in a little bit of a fight about vitamins, but that’s nothing compared to other things...
Nov 23rd
Nov 21st
1 note
3 tags
Nov 21st
6 notes
Nov 20th
4 notes
Nov 16th
37 notes
October 2011
1 post
2 tags
Greetings from the land of "yes." →
Here’s something pretty meta: a Rumpus essay that includes, among other things, an acknowledgment that just about no one reads this blog.
Oct 5th
11 notes
September 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Anyone got a super-brave memoir/memoirist to recommend for my Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me series on The Rumpus? Like seriously ballsy. Thanks in avance.
Sep 28th
Birthday Open House Sat 10/1
I want to have a low-maintenance open house here for my b-day Saturday night,10/1, but I am not in the mood to create a FB event and invite people one-by-one. Also, last year I did that and there was a glitch, so some people didn’t receive it and they got mad at me. So can I just say right here: Come over Saturday night any time after 8? Bring some drink or snack to share. And spread the...
Sep 27th
3 tags
Write Like a Motherf*cker virtual writers' group... →
The other day, Elissa Bassist posted on FB asking if anyone wanted to commit to writing during the same hour she was going to be shutting off the internet and stringing words together. I said I was busy cleaning the rotting food smell out of my house, post-Irene, but why not start a FB page where others could make similar writing pacts at any given time, or even just state specific writing...
Sep 7th
August 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Aug 25th
1 note
“By writing this book in the old-fashioned first person singular, I have...”
– David Ogilvy, “Confessions of an Advertising Man”
Aug 1st
2 notes
July 2011
1 post
3 tags
Jul 13th
June 2011
2 posts
Great interview w/ Nick Flynn (which I swear I'd... →
Jun 6th
10 notes
1 tag
Dear New York Times Dining and Styles Sections, While it is not very nice of you to reject my pitches about the latest in gluten-free baking - because “GF has been done to death” - only to turn around and BOTH run huge front-page articles about it IN THE SAME WEEK, I want to thank you for making me realize, finally, with 100 percent certainty that I don’t want to be that...
Jun 6th
May 2011
5 posts
davidquigg asked: Hi. This will contain unsolicited advice. So if you'd rather not get that from a stranger, please go ahead and delete it without reading more.

I will keep this short since I bet you have heard some version of this before. Basically, I just want to be sure you realize that your "Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me" series is functionally equivalent to writing a...
May 20th
2 notes
4 tags
May 18th
7 notes
May 17th
I had an op-ed in yesterday’s Daily News. I will have you know I did NOT write the horrible headline. (My suggestion was, “Waiting to Inhale.”) That headline and little edits throughout the piece made me sound a lot madder than I am - just really bothered (and frequently suffocated). I am mostly laughing about this.
May 16th
Third draft of essay completed. Suck it, writer’s block.
May 4th
2 notes
April 2011
8 posts
1 tag
Writer’s block, you are not winning today. I finished a first-draft of an essay, longhand. Who cares if it’s any good? I got it done. (Curtsies.)
Apr 26th