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I’ve been dealing with unexpected health problems this month, which has thrown me for a loop. A bright spot comes curtesy of my four-year-old, who will be my five-year-old tomorrow. He has begun commandeering my sticky notes to publish his own writing around the house. I love that he meets his readers right where they’re at. The makings of a great journalist, this kid.
New Writing From Me
Is My Kid’s Therapy Helping? Plus 7 Steps to Take if It’s Not is the first piece I’ve written for Everyday Health. I have a shiny new contributor bio! Yay!
As someone who lives with multiple sleep disorders, I can’t tell you how excited I was to have an excuse to dig into what research and experts have to say about alarm clocks. What I learned honestly surprised me and, I think, could be helpful even if you’re not looking to buy a new alarm clock. You can read the roundup, Best Alarm Clocks for All Types of Sleepers, on Health.com. By the way, this piece is the first time I’ve written for this publication, too! Another shiny new bio! Double yay!
To make sure my stroller reviews really do reflect the best right now, I am going to continue to test strollers we know people love. Here’s my honest review of the celebrity-favorite the Nuna Mixx Next for Reviewed.
Books I Think You’ll Like
This was such a weird little novel about an office worker who fakes a pregnancy. The narrator was so strange that I blew through Diary of a Void: A Novel by Emi Yagi, translated by David Boyd and Lucy North.
Back in August, I told you I loved Sea of Tranquility: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel. I kept craving a return to its pages, so I decided to pick up The Glass Hotel, which I will now tell you I love as well. The book follows in full one of the side characters in Sea of Tranquility. There’s something about St. John Mandel’s world and characters that I just love. Her writing is the kind that I want to dissect to figure out why it works so I can magpie some techniques for my own work.
If you’re interested in mental health and how society responds to it, like I am, Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv is an essential read. A reported nonfiction book, it profiles six people’s experience of mental illness. The book explores how and why mental illness symptoms appear and resolve (or don’t), how communities and care systems respond, and what it all means for the individuals impacted. It’s a book that lives in the gray and is more about asking questions than offering pithy answers.
Let’s Connect!
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