E.B.'s Notes & News: Tax Day Edition 🌸📚📝🐢💸
Did you finish filing yet?
Happy Tax Day!
I like the idea of tying each edition of this newsletter to a holiday, though sometimes it takes a little creativity to figure out which holiday to highlight if I am trying to send this newsletter on a specific day.
For example, I went with Tax Day because I wanted to get this email out in time to you to let you know about my event happening this Friday 4/17 with the Wellesley College English and creative writing department. Therefore waiting until an April holiday I like better, such as Marathon Monday (a.k.a. Patriots’ Day a.k.a. the holiday that I did not know was a Massachusetts-only holiday until I was in college) or Independent Bookstore Day 2026 (my absolute favorite April holiday! This year it’s on 4/25), was not an option.
So, yeah, I hope you got your taxes done… or maybe not if you are refusing to pay your federal taxes in protest!!!
xoxo,
E.B.
Hope Notes & News:
The headline of this Boston Globe article says it all: “Looking for hope in hopeless times? You’ll find it in an office park in Burlington.”
I am so impressed by the people who keep showing up every week outside this ICE facility in Burlington (just steps away from the mall!) and protesting what is going on there. In particular, there is a core group from my church, The Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, that is there every Wednesday, and I am so proud of them.
“I would rather say I don’t know whether we’re making a difference, than we’re not making any difference at all,” said Jared Berezin, who started the Bearing Witness @ ICE protests a year ago with his wife Laurie. “It’s the attempt that is critical.”
Writing Notes & News:
In my continuing goal of meeting other animal/dog writer people on this platform, I connected with Cindy Ojczyk of the Substack “Like People, Like Pets” and Cindy kindly asked me to contribute to her “PetStack” series, reflecting on life lessons I’ve learned from having pets. You can read what I wrote via the link above, but the short version is that reactive rescue dogs and toddlers are not all that different.
As for Wellesley, I got to see the proof of the spring issue of the magazine and I am even MORE excited about my forthcoming feature on Wellesley alums who work with non-human primates (it will be out the end of May) — the piece is illustrated with photos by Jill Greenberg and they are extraordinary. And for the Wellesley website, I just published a spotlight story about the new Alum-in-Residence program on campus.
That’s all I’ve got for now, but shout out to my Shay’s Writing Group (Kelly J. Ford, Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne, Michele Ferrari, and Rachel Barenbaum) who are holding me accountable to daily writing blocks! It’s making a huge difference to have to get my butt in the chair and log into Google Meet. I highly recommend you try it! If you won’t keep up your creative practice for you, maybe being guilt-tripped by your friends will help? It works for me!
Events Notes & News:
• THIS 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:
Did you know that my favorite picture book guys Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett (of Looking At Picture Books fame) have four new board books out? I love them.
I finally finished reading Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America by Beth Macy. It took me so long because 1) I have a toddler and 2) I had to stop a couple times because it was so hard to read some of the parts about childhood sexual abuse and neglect. But it really is an extraordinary work of reporting and storytelling though, and I highly, highly recommend everyone read it. And if you won’t take my word for it, take Barack Obama’s!
Friend Notes & News:
Go, friends. Go! Proud of you all!
Melissa Weihmayer published an important open access paper on Proactive Local Government: how London borough councils build capacity to respond to asylum. The abstract is above, or here’s how Melissa describes it on LinkedIn: “This paper explores the ways that local authorities adapted to an increase in people seeking #asylum housed in London since 2020. While many officers initially felt on the 'back foot', stuck in a 'reactive mode' and unable to do anything more than crisis management in the early days, some were able to shift towards more strategic and #proactive ways of working… local authority officers were doing political work in defining a role for themselves despite being sidelined by national asylum policy. They were resolving dilemmas and building confidence through knowledge and partnerships. I describe #capacity #building, often a taken-for-granted concept, as a multilayered and non-linear process, showing that it is indeed possible and useful as a problem-solving strategy. I also show that local authorities are demonstrating their suitability to confront emerging urban challenges in asylum, integration, and beyond.”
Kelly J. Ford was featured on a recent episode of The 7am Novelist podcast, talking about finding your genre and not giving up!
Lindsey Kocur currently has work on view at 13FOREST in Arlington, as part of the gallery’s “Material Self” group show. Richie, Luca, and I went to the artist talk event this past Saturday and it was awesome. Go if you’re in the area!
The local indie publisher Nixes Mate Review is hosting a book launch event on Sunday, April 19, 2026 at 2pm at the Menino Arts Center in Hyde Park to celebrate To Eve by Sarah Dickenson Snyder and Keeping Room by Ann E. Wallace! Maybe I’ll see you there?
My friend Allison Sargent is very proud of the fact that her son John Sargent wrote a feature for National Geographic about giant trees!
I was excited to read this interview with Emilie Louise Gossiaux in general because it had to do with dog heaven / pet death, and then I saw the interviewer was none other than Sarah Faux!
Lauren Markham writes for The New Yorker about seeking a second passport.
Melanie D.G. Kaplan of Lab Dog fame writes about adopting retired lab animals for National Geographic!
Nina MacLaughlin has a book coming out this summer with the painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, who recently died at the age of 46. Consider preordering this beautiful book in memory of Celeste.
Menagerie Notes & News:
Speaking of adopting retired lab animals, we have a new member of the Bartels-Corrado Menagerie! A biology class at Wellesley that studies animal behavior does a lab each semester where the students study male betta fish. At the end of the unit, the bettas are then adopted out by students in the class and other members of the Wellesley community. Well, who had a beautiful planted fish tank just waiting to take in a betta in need of a home? We did!
Meet Big Fish! Yes, we let Luca name him. What gave it away? (As Luca’s teacher said, “They’re very literal at this age.”)
Omg counting down the days until that feature on non-human primates—will I be able to read it virtually from afar?!
Wow. So much good stuff in this newsletter! Thanks for elevating your guest post in the monthly Like People, Like Pets "PetStack" feature. Perfect pairing of pets and toddlers.