E.B.'s ✨NEW✨ Notes & News: April 2025 🐢🐺🌈🐹💀💕📝📚🕊️🎉
Remember when I thought my newsletter parental leave was going to be six months?
Notes & News: April 2025
Oh, hello, friends! Did you forget about me???
The last time I emailed you all it was back in December 2023, when I announced the forthcoming arrival of the newest (human) member of the Bartels-Corrado Menagerie. Well, let me tell you, a lot has changed since I sent out that last newsletter.
First things first: that abstract/anonymous “Baby B.C.” I referenced sixteen months ago is now a toddler-sized little dude named Luca, who is chatty, mobile, and has all kinds of strong opinions (cheese is delicious; green beans are gross), likes (dancing to the Bluey theme song), and dislikes (being told it’s time to get out of the bathtub). Luca is pictured above, surrounded by copies of his mom’s book! (It’s still so wild to me that I am someone’s mom.)
Second: it’s hilarious that I thought I would only need six months off from writing my newsletter while learning to care for a tiny human. (All of you subscribers who are parents are knowingly chuckling now, aren’t you???) Also, I will add, spring and early summer 2024 were particularly difficult for me and my family, and so the idea of restarting this newsletter in July 2024 like I said I would, in the midst of that stuff, was just too painful. So, here I am now, restarting my newsletter after sixteen months instead of six. Better late than never?
Third: you’ll see that you are now getting this email via Substack instead of Mailchimp. I made the switch because I feel that I have more of a community of fellow writers and friends on Substack, plus there are more opportunities for you all to engage with me and this newsletter (comments! chat rooms!) rather than just passively receiving a monthly email from me. I hope you don’t mind following me over to this platform, but if you do and/or if you are not interested in getting this new iteration of my newsletter, I will take no offense if you unsubscribe.
There are many more updates than those, but you’ll find them below in their usual sections.
I’ve missed you all! Leave a comment about what you’ve been up to in the past sixteen months! Also, if you have any tips for getting toddlers to eat vegetables, for the love of God please tell me.
xoxo,
E.B.
Hope Notes & News:
This is the part of the newsletter where I would talk up an important cause (née “People & Places to Support”) but I am so overwhelmed these days by all the many, many issues to keep track of and all the people and places that need support right now that the idea of choosing just one thing to promote here felt insane. How to choose? But I started to think about it less in terms of all the places and people we should support right now (which is, basically, everyone and everything) and more of what is one organization or person who is doing good work to keep giving us all a little hope. Obviously there are a million great causes out there (and I hope you please tell me about your favorite ones in the comments section) but I figure each month if I can write a bit about one that I love, that is a little something I can do at least. At the very least, it will give me a little hope.
To start, this month, I’d like to highlight several newsletters that I get that do a really excellent job of breaking down and explaining all the really chaotic and overwhelming headlines. I’m trying to not let myself doom scroll 24/7 and I appreciate that these smart writers and analysts go through the news for me so I can stay informed but also not completely lose my mind:
Abortion, Every Day by Jessica Valenti
Matt Davis Reads the Newspaper So That You Don't Have To by Matt Davis
Law Dork by Chris Geidner
What The Fuck Just Happened Today? by Matt Kiser
Writing Notes & News:
So since I have been busy, you know, keeping Luca alive or whatever, I have not been writing or publishing much. I had this essay (“Wolf Nerds”) published in Pangyrus in May 2024, but I wrote that a long, long, long time before Luca was born — before I was pregnant even! — it just took a while to find a home in the world.
And I have been writing for Wellesley, of course, since returning to my senior editorial writer job at the end of May last year. Some of my favorite pieces I’ve written for the College since then have been this one and this one about exhibits at the Davis Museum on campus, this one about the silliness the dorm House Councils bring to campus, and I am especially proud of this magazine feature about playwright Mfoniso Udofia (Wellesley ’06) which I started reporting on back in June 2024 and which was finally published as the cover story of the winter issue of Wellesley magazine in February of this year! Mfoniso is incredible, and her nine play series The Ufot Family Cycle is unreal.
My biggest writing news though is that Good Grief is finally coming out in paperback! It was an absolutely wild turn of events — one week HarperCollins was telling me they were going to let Good Grief go out of print and oh well, what can you do, and then the next week after my amazing editor Ivy Givens fought like hell, HarperCollins was like JK we think we should try giving you a paperback after all! So save the date: 11/11/25 is the pub date for the paperback, and I will definitely be planning a fun launch party and other events, so stay tuned for more on that. And, in the meantime, please preorder it at your local independent bookstore, from Bookshop.org, from Barnes & Noble, or even from Amazon. Thank you!!
Reading Notes & News:
As anyone with young children knows, reading is a very fraught situation for me right now. I am trying really hard to not bring my phone into bed with me at night to a) prevent losing hours of sleep to doomscrolling and b) to encourage myself to read a book instead of sadly keep looking at the news but even when I am good about doing that I’m usually so exhausted that I just pass out without reading.
But!!!! I have been listening to a lot of audiobooks in the car while driving Luca around, plus Richie started a tradition of reading a chapter book out loud to me and Luca as I fed him before bed, so I’ve read some books that way at least this past year-plus. Oh and obviously I am super well-versed now on all the best board books and picture books and reading those definitely counts, right?
In no particular order, here are a few favorites that I’ve read in one form or another over the past sixteen months — see if you can guess which ones are kids’ books by the title alone:
The Uptown Local by Cory Leadbeater
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Peggy the Always Sorry Pigeon by Wendy Meddour
Bear by Julia Phillips
Dogland by Tommy Tomlinson
Rouge by Mona Awad
Your Island, Your Forest, and Your Farm by Jon Klassen
Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott
Great With Child by Beth Ann Fennelly
True Biz by Sara Novic
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
Doggies, Fifteen Animals, and Moo, Baa, La La La! by Sandra Boynton
The Blue Maiden by Anna Noyes
Ahoy! by Sophie Blackall
I Believe In You by Elias Bark
Hush Now, Banshee! by Kyle Sullivan
Little Witch Hazel and Sonya’s Chickens by Phoebe Wahl
Peek-a-Who? by Nina Laden
Ask Not by Maureen Sullivan
I’ll Show Myself Out by Jessi Klein
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr.
You Are New by Lucy Knisley
Now That You’re Here, It Had to Be You, and For Your Smile by Loryn Brantz
Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley
The Nursery by Szilvia Molnar
The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers
Buffalo Fluffalo and Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb
Hot Dog by Doug Salati
Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus
The Friend Ship by Kat Yeh
Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery
Noodles on a Bicycle by Kyo Maclear
Lessons for Survival by Emily Raboteau
Meet the Neighbors by Brandon Keim
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Matrescence by Lucy Jones
Nose to Nose by Thyra Heder
The Imposter by Kelly Collier
Thinking Like a Wolf by Rick McIntyre (currently reading!)
It’s an eclectic list, no?
Events Notes & News:
So, again, because of the aforementioned baby, I have not been getting out much, so the three events I did do in 2024 were all virtual, but I am proud to say that I finally got out there and not only did I do a real live in-person event this past month for the first time since November 2023, but I read BRAND NEW MATERIAL for the first time since…. 2018??? 2017??? It was wild. On 3/11/25 I participated in Two Page Tuesday at Charlie’s Kitchen, which is a really fun reading series where you can 1) only read two pages of work and 2) it has to be new work you’ve never previously read in front of anyone before. Man, I was so nervous, but what a thrill! Thank you to Maggie Cooper for turning me on to the series, and thank you to Danny Elfanbaum for running the show, and thank you to the cheering squad who came out to support me: Lauren Scovel, Georgie Nink, Grace Ramsdell, and Grace’s BFF Bryn. It was such a fun night. I can’t wait to go back to another TPT event, and if you are at all interested in participating, you totally should! Low stakes, not at all scary, super supportive crowd, and a lot of fun. I felt very loved and cared for which is exactly what I needed to get back in the saddle.
Anyway, no other events planned for now, but plan on some Good Grief paperback events this fall!
Teaching Notes & News:
My newsletter may be back, but I am still on a teaching and consulting hiatus indefinitely. Please don’t take it personally! It’s just too much to take on right now. Currently I am focusing all my teaching energy on teaching Luca to love books and animals (and, in particular, books about animals).
Friend Notes & News:
I cannot even BEGIN to cover all the amazing things that people I love and admire have accomplished in the past sixteen months!!! Please add comments to this newsletter about awesome things you are proud of that you want people to know about! I will include as many of them as I can in next month’s email. In the meantime, here are a few highlights:
Shout out to all of my friends who also had a baby since the last time I sent a newsletter! You are all CRUSHING IT!!!! Looking at you Hayley, MC, Bruynell, Elizabeth, EKG (who had two), Liz, Melissa, Kelly, and my neighbor Katrina. Luca is so lucky to have so many cool pals his age!
Congrats to Nida Sophasarun (fellow Wellesley alum!) on her poetry collection Novice which was published yesterday by Sewanee Poetry!
I am so thrilled that my former GrubStreet student Kimm Topping’s book Generation Queer: Stories of Youth Organizers, Artists, and Educators is finally (!!!!) getting published (out on 5/27) and just got a sweet review in Kirkus!
Okay but also I am so thrilled about SO many books that are coming out this year!!!! A few that I have already preordered from Newtonville Books: The Road to Tender Hearts: A Novel by Annie Hartnett (out on 4/29), Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West by Kelly Ramsey (out on 6/17), The Perils of Girlhood: A Memoir in Essays by Melissa Fraterrigo (out 9/1), The True and Lucky Life of a Turtle by Sy Montgomery and illustrated by Matt Patterson (out 9/9), Lab Dog: A Beagle and His Human Investigate the Surprising World of Animal Research by Melanie D.G. Kaplan (out 10/14), Joyride: A Memoir by Susan Orlean (out 10/14), and Governing Bodies: A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed by Sangamithra Iyer (out on 11/4).
My friend and colleague Shannon O’Brien just had a photography show at her local bookstore Booklovers’ Gourmet! While the exhibit is no longer up, you can read about it in the bookstore’s newsletter and enjoy Shannon’s photos here.
Be prepared to get a LOT of Substack recommendations from me now (so many newsletters I love are on here!) but one in particular I want to shout-out is New England Literary News by Nina MacLaughlin. Nina used to write this column for The Boston Globe but it got cut when they had to eliminate some of their books coverage––I am so glad it continues to live just now on Substack! Subscribe to keep tabs on everything awesome going on in New England literary world.
Okay that’s it for now, though I know I am missing a bajillion other great things. Don’t forget to add comments with other excellent stuff you all are doing!!!
Menagerie Notes & News:
So… this is the section that is hard to write, that really was the whole reason why I was putting off restarting this newsletter. Our menagerie looks very different now than it did in December 2023.
First: all of the fish (a.k.a. The Miltons) died during a colony collapse last January when Richie and I were in the hospital having Luca. Even though my parents (shout out to Karen and Rich!) diligently fed the cichlids while we were becoming parents, something happened (they got too cold? there was a fish pandemic?) and they did not make it.
Then: there was a lot of pigeon death. Bert was the first to go, in June 2024. One morning I went out to feed the four pigeons and only Bob, Linda, and Lucille were in the loft, along with a pile of blood and feathers. We couldn’t find any new holes or forced entry but we suspected maybe a weasel dug its way in and assumed Bert was eaten. Next, throughout spring and summer 2024 Bob and Linda had (at least???) five babies, none of whom made it, which was a bummer. Then maybe that got to be too traumatic for Linda, because she flew off in October 2024 and did not come back. We adopted two more pigeons in November 2024, Jennifer and Kevin (both female despite their names), and things seemed to be going pretty well in the loft… Bob and Jennifer had paired up, and Kevin and Lucille had paired up (remember, Lucille was a male), and everyone seemed to be thriving and then in February of this year we had a lot of snow and ice and the door to the loft didn’t close as tightly as it used to and then… a raccoon got in. We saw the paw prints. All four remaining pigeons were killed (it was pretty graphic) and now Richie and I are taking a little break from having pigeons for a while.
And, finally: Seymour is gone. This one is still really difficult for me to write about. You know from my last newsletter that I was worried about whether Seymour’s history of anxiety and fear-based aggression would be compatible with a new baby. Well, the first month with Luca and Seymour was great. I have so many pictures from that first month of Seymour sleeping on my legs while Luca was sleeping in my arms. I felt so hopeful and full; I would often cry because I was so grateful for my little family of four — me, Richie, Luca, and Seymour. And then everything changed the last weekend of February 2024. Something shifted, maybe Seymour suddenly got more comfortable around Luca, or less comfortable? Maybe he started to register him as another little animal and not just a blob? Maybe he was having some unrelated mental or physical health crisis and happened to take it out on Luca? I don’t know. I will never know. But that Sunday morning Seymour bit five-week-old Luca in the face, and my whole world changed.
Luckily Luca was fine — not even a scar — but we moved Seymour into my parents’ house the same day. We tried more/different anti-anxiety drugs. We tried new training methods. We tried to find a different home for him without babies or other dogs. I would go to my parents’ house and take him for long walks while my parents fawned over Luca. And then one day in June 2024, I was at my parents’ house, lying on the rug next to Seymour, petting his face, just like I had done almost every day since we adopted him in October 2020 and… he attacked me. He went for my head, my ear, my hair, and only let up when I physically pushed him off. We were both shaking, and that’s when I knew that no matter how much I loved — still love — this dog, he wasn’t well, and now, as a mom, I couldn’t risk getting hurt. The stakes were too high. We euthanized Seymour on June 22, 2024. I am still full of sorrow and guilt and shame, and one day I will write more about it, but right now I will just hold these memories close as I try to make sense of them.
So, yeah. It’s been a really rough year for the Bartels-Corrado Menagerie. Not going to lie, many times in the past months I have questioned my own evangelizing that having pets is always worth it, despite the heartache they put us through. Our pets put us through a lot, maybe too much, heartache this past year. But now that I’ve had a little time to reflect and heal, I know I still believe that. I miss Seymour so much every damn day, but I wouldn’t trade the 3.5 years I had with him for anything. I love to tell Luca about his late “Uncle Seymour” especially when Luca does some of the same things Seymour used to (lean on the back of the couch to look out the window, rush into the kitchen to get a Cheez-It from Richie, wake us up in the middle of the night, etc.) and I know we will get a dog again one day — another rescue, too, probably even another blue nose pit mix — once Luca is older. Just because the end sucks doesn’t mean the rest of it isn’t worth it. Love you forever, Seymour Asses Bartels-Corrado.
At least Terrence and Twyla (a.k.a. Mr. and Mrs. T) are still going strong and probably chuckling to themselves about how they’re going to outlive all of us. Now that they are my only pets at the moment, I promise to be better about updating their Instagram.
Can I just say - mom— you read a LOT of books!! Love you being on Substack now ( with Nina!🤸🏿♀️📚) and no pressure… write when you want… it will be a treat to open up Substack and find you. Another great Jess that I love ( Substack.. like valenti and craven) is Jess Piper .. ❣️
Seymour. Damn .. sorrow.. so sorry… but thank you for sharing it in your comeback newsletter.. you’re c amazing
Love this so much, and glad to have you back on the airwaves E.B.!!