E.B.'s Notes & News: St. Patrick's Day Edition 🍀🌈🐍✨💚
The world is a fucking mess so here are some fun facts about snakes.
Guess I’m doing this newsletter every other month now? Or maybe just sending it out when I feel like I have some updates to share? TBD!
I felt like sending one this month in honor of St. Patrick’s Day and to take a moment to appreciate the poor snakes that St. Patrick allegedly drove out of Ireland. (Fun fact: Evolutionarily there were just never any snakes on the island thanks to the last ice age, and the only reptile native to Ireland is the common lizard.) As you all know, I am a big reptile fan, and I think that snakes are SO cool, and honestly I would get one for Luca tomorrow if he asked, so here are some of my favorite snake facts:
There are fourteen species of snakes found in Massachusetts.
Snakes smell with their tongues.
The Burmese pythons that dominate the Everglades only exist there because of the accidental or intentional release of captive pet animals.
Nicolas Cage has had multiple pet snakes, including two king cobras named Moby and Sheba and a rare two-headed gopher snake named Harvey, whom Cage later donated to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.
Slash of Guns N’ Roses is also famous for having pet snakes.
21 of the 25 most toxic snakes in the world are found in Australia.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Britney Spears’s iconic “I’m a Slave 4 U” performance at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, featuring a giant amelanistic Burmese python.
Salma Hayek was so terrified of snakes she had to be hypnotized to perform the famous snake dance scene in From Dusk Till Dawn. (Also, my friend Melissa Weihmayer absolutely hates snakes and is going to be very upset with me for this newsletter. Sorry, Melissa!)
Stay safe out there.
xoxo,
E.B.
Hope Notes & News:
On Sunday, April 26, Richie, Luca, and I will be participating in Wellesley’s first-ever Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk. The College’s Office of Student Wellness and Active Minds student organization are partnering with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) to raise awareness about suicide prevention resources and to fundraise in support of AFSP’s education, research, and advocacy efforts.
Our team is Friends of Community Bike, in honor of Richie’s friend and mentor, Rich Coombs, who died in 2024. I’m also walking in memory of a Nobles student, Jane Song, who died in 2016.
I know there are a lot of worthy causes to support right now, and I also know that money is tight for many people with the tanking economy and the illegal tariffs and the multiple wars, but if you can throw a few dollars in support of our team, Richie, Luca, and I would all really appreciate it.
And remember:
You are loved.
You are not alone.
Writing Notes & News:
A goal of mine for 2026 is to connect with more pet/death/grief writers on this platform and collaborate on newsletters and posts, and I’m honored that Liz Scott, author of the forthcoming You’re Going To Die But Not Me!, reached out to see if I wanted to be part of a Substack post she was writing about pet death. Liz asked me some really thoughtful questions that you can read via the link above. (Also, for a throwback, check out when I interviewed Liz for my Non-Fiction by Non-Men series back in 2020. Can’t believe that was six years ago???)
Writing is still slow-going these days, except for my stuff for Wellesley because, you know, that’s my full-time job. This past month I got to write about recently published faculty books and a short piece about the joy of “traying” — plus the winter issue of Wellesley magazine has a profile I wrote of English professor Dan Chiasson and his new book Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People’s Politician. And stay tuned for the spring issue of Wellesley magazine — I wrote a feature for it about Wellesley alums who work with non-human primates. That will be out in May!
Events Notes & News:
• Wednesday 3/25/26, 6:00pm-7:30pm EDT: The Medway Public Library is hosting a “From Paws to Prose” authors event featuring Ellen Finnie (author of The Ten Perfections), Karen Fine (author of The Other Family Doctor), and yours truly. Books will be available for sale courtesy of the independent bookshop Aesop’s Fable in Holliston! (You can preorder copies of the books from Aesop's Fable too!) For more info, visit the Medway Public Library website.
• Friday 4/17/26, 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT: The Wellesley College English department asked me to be part of their “Fridays@4” series, and this event will be celebrating the Good Grief paperback! Come on by the English department common room on the first floor of Founders — the first ten people at the event will get a free copy of Good Grief, courtesy of the English department and Wellesley Books! A bookseller from Wellesley Books will also be on hand selling additional copies.
Plus forthcoming events this summer/fall include appearances at the Pioneer Valley Kennel Club Summer All-Breed Show, the Pet Rock Festival, and Dog Mountain!
Reading Notes & News:
I am ecstatic to report that I actually read a whole physical book! As in I turned every page and read each one with my own eyeballs!!! (Not that listening to audiobooks doesn’t count, but it just feels different, you know?) The book was an advanced reader copy of the memoir Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I’ve Cried About by Isabel Klee of the Instagram account @simonsits (see above), and I loved it and I flew through it. 10/10, 100% recommend if you love dogs and also if you’ve ever been a twentysomething woman living in NYC. It brought me right back to living with Erin Greene in Hell’s Kitchen while I was in grad school at Columbia. It also made me want to get into fostering dogs, but I don’t think I can pull that off with a toddler. But maybe one day!
I also finished listening to three audiobooks: Lone Women by Victor LaValle, Flashlight by Susan Choi, and One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. Three VERY different books, but all of them were excellent in their own way.
Also, some picture books I’ve enjoyed reading to Luca the past few weeks: Bearsuit Turtle Makes a Friend by Bob Shea, the shapes trilogy series by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, and Your Truck by Jon Klassen. (I just found out that Your Horse by Jon Klassen is coming out this fall!)
Friend Notes & News:
Good job, people!!! You continue to amaze me!
Naomi Goldsmith is one of Boston Magazine’s top doctors of 2026! So if you need a colon/rectal surgeon, hit her up at Winchester Hospital! Also, fun fact: Steph Larsen took the photograph on the cover!
Mariel Novas started her own Substack and, like Mariel herself, it’s incredible: “Despite the degrees and titles and seats of so-called power that I have held, it all never quite seemed to quell the fire in my soul. That fire that burns because I so badly want us all to have love, peace, and joy in our hearts. That’s really it, y’all — that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
T Kira Māhealani Madden’s novel Whidbey came out March 10th and you can read an excerpt of it on Electric Literature! (Never forget that T Kira blurbed Good Grief and I will be forever grateful to her for that!)
Liz Sherman is always writing great stuff for Parents magazine! I loved her piece about her cats’ relationship with her daughter, and her latest story is about Punch the monkey: “I would lie down in traffic for a baby monkey living at a zoo in Japan whose best friend is a stuffed orangutan.”
Nina MacLaughlin had a beautiful meditation on fungi and music featured on Orion.
Sarah Dickenson Snyder has a new poetry collection out! It’s called To Eve and it’s available from Nixes Mate Review.
Deborah Sosin was featured in the Memoir Land Author Questionnaire series!
Jude Goldman reached out to tell me about her friend Nadia Prescott, who is terminally ill and just self-published a memoir in the voice of her recently deceased rescue cockatiel. The book is called Jack’s Journey (cover is pictured above) and Jude kindly sent me a copy that I can’t wait to dig into! Jude says that if you’d like to pre-order the book, the price is $25.75 plus $4.95 for shipping and handling and you can email your request, with snail mail, email, and phone info, to jacksjourneymemoir@gmail. Books will get mailed out in May, and every penny above production costs is donated to either Mickaboo or Foster Parrots.
I helped Virginia McGee Richards with some editing projects six (!!!) years ago now and I’m so excited to see her work finally coming out in book form: The Inner Passage: An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway will be published by MIT Press on April 7th!
I already loved Ann Friedman’s newsletter but now I love it even more considering she recently quoted Hailey Huget in it: “I cosign Hailey Huget's point that we are all depleted by this particular stage of capitalism and era of politics. "[T]he blanket claim that 'tech smoothes out friction' — even when it is stated as a critique of tech — gives the tech industry too much credit," Huget writes. Anyone who has repeatedly declined to use an app's "exciting" new AI tool understands this. Ease is how they sell you something that's actually better for them.”
Menagerie Notes & News:
RIP Honey Bartels (2/28/13 - 2/7/26)
Good girl Honey almost made it to thirteen. My parents adopted her in 2018, and they gave her eight incredible years. Spoiled with all the treats and home-cooked chicken, Honey lived in well-deserved luxury after spending the first five years of her confined as a puppy mill breeder. The first time Richie and I took her for a walk, she startled at the sound of birdsong. She grew more confident in her time with my parents, though I don’t think she ever fully understood she was a dog. (I’d never met a terrier with absolutely zero prey drive until I met Honey.) She was gentle and sweet, she loved sniffing and following around Terrence (and later Twyla), she was stoic every time my dad cleaned gunk out of her eyes or administered the many drops for her chronic dry eye, and, even at the very end when she was feeling very tired and sick, she was patient with Luca and all his toddler energy and enthusiasm. Thanks to her, Luca will forever point at any photo of a blonde terrier and shout, “Honey!”
Thanks for stating the obvious about the snakes in Ireland. I never thought about it until now. Makes complete sense. Boy, was I gullible. PS. Sorry to hear about Honey but oh, so happy she found a good home.
I am so sorry to hear about Honey, and am sending love to you all. The pictures are so dear- and tell such a touching love story.💓