Hi friends. A week or two ago, a member of one of the families we’ve been supporting this year shared something with me. She’d been writing; it was helping her get through this time. She read a piece to me, and I asked if I could help her get it published. This morning it ran in Racket, a writer-owned, reader-funded news outlet in Minnesota.

I’ve shared a bit of her piece below, though I hope you’ll head to Racket to read the full thing. After that, I hope you’ll visit our fundraiser at neighborrelieffund.org to support families like the author’s. You may have heard that Operation Metro Surge was ending. That has so far proven to be entirely untrue. Minnesotans still need your help. Please don’t look away.

SM, an immigrant from Mexico, is currently sheltering as the Trump administration's cruel immigration operation continues. She writes the piece below from the Twin Cities-area home where she has been hiding for the last several months.

I didn’t ask to come to this country. My mother brought me here when I was six years old. Since then, this has been my life. I grew up here, I learned to navigate the world here, my memories are here, my relationships, my work, and my dreams. I don’t know any other home in the same way.

From a very young age, I understood that even though it wasn’t my decision to come here, it was my responsibility to do things right. That’s why, since I was 15 years old, I’ve done everything possible to follow the legal channels. I had DACA, which allowed me to study and work, but it also meant living with the constant need to renew it every two years, paying fees, waiting, always with the uncertainty of whether I would be rejected this time. Living with that constant fear becomes part of your life, even if you try not to normalize it.

Today, I’m still in a legal process with a U visa. I have a work permit. I’m doing things correctly. Even so, l am trapped here. Not because I’m running from the law, but because I’ve seen how the system often doesn’t even respect its own laws, deporting people who are in active legal processes and keeping entire families living in fear. That contradiction is very hard to bear.

These last few months have been especially difficult. The confinement isn’t only physical; it’s also emotional and mental. There are days of anxiety, of frustration, of feeling that everything is on hold while the world keeps moving forward outside. Even doing everything correctly, there’s a real possibility that everything I’ve built with years of effort could be taken away from me. My stability, my projects, even my company.

Continue reading at Racket.

First, thank you so much to everyone who made the mutual aid fundraiser my Minneapolis neighbors and I put together earlier this month such an incredible success. Thanks to you, we raised more than $50,000 in just a couple days. It was so much more than we expected, which has allowed us to help the families we’re supporting through February, and work on getting resources to others we’ve heard from since. We’re so grateful to all of you who made this possible.

Our fundraiser was just one of many in Minnesota this month. I’ve worked on and shared a number of additional fundraisers, and there have been countless others. This January has seen an outpouring of mutual aid in Minnesota, in so many different forms. From money to help impacted people pay rent, medical bills, and other living expenses, to grocery delivery for folks who can’t leave their homes, a stunning number of Minnesotans have come together to support those most directly impacted by Operation Metro Surge.

I’ve seen a lot of this mutual aid up close. A week ago, for example, I helped a friend get their video game system to a family with kids who aren’t able to go outside. The next day, a teacher reached out and asked me to help them find someone to walk another kid, one who couldn’t stay home, to and from their bus stop each day. Like so many here in Minneapolis, I’m in groups full of people bringing food to their neighbors, of street medics caring for injured observers, of retirees showing up at schools day after day to make sure children get out safely, of neighbors on patrol. Minnesotans have come together to take care of one another in an astonishing way. It’s been the bright spot in an otherwise very dark month.

This absolutely incredible outpouring of mutual aid and community care during Operation Metro Surge got me thinking: I don’t want these stories to be forgotten. We need to learn the lessons of this time and remember its stories.

In 2025 my podcast studio Good Judy Productions launched a call-in hotline to collect stories of queer and trans mutual aid in Minnesota called We Help Us. Given the immensity of the present moment and the outpouring of mutual aid that has occurred in Minnesota in January 2026, we have decided to reopen the line to help document and preserve lessons from this time.

If you live in MN, please call 1-844-WE-HLP-US (1-844-934-5787) to leave a message about how you’ve engaged in mutual aid during Operation Metro Surge. How have you helped your neighbors? If you’ve needed support, how have others shown up for you? What have you learned by participating in mutual aid right now?

Stories show us what is possible and teach us how to live. Share yours so that future generations can learn how our community took care of one another during this crisis.

Note: Please be careful not to include identifying information about anyone you’ve helped or who has helped you, unless you’ve been given explicit permission to do so. Any messages that fail to respect others’ privacy will be deleted. By leaving a message, you consent for this audio to be archived at the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota and made available for potential use in a forthcoming narrative audio project about mutual aid in MN.

To learn more, including how you can support ongoing mutual aid efforts, visit wehelpusmn.com.

Update (2/4/26): A group of neighbors and I are working on another fund to support those in need in our city right now. Please consider contributing here if you can.

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently helped my mom as she put together a funeral service for my stepdad Charlie after he died on Christmas day.

Years ago, as his Alzheimer’s was getting worse, my mom asked if I would one day write and present Charlie’s eulogy when he eventually passed. I have experience writing and speaking, and she thought it might be too difficult to do it herself. When the time came a few weeks ago, I was of course happy to help.

Together, she and I worked on a number of versions of the eulogy. In the end we decided on the following structure: I opened with a biographical overview, shared a bit about his impact on our family specifically, and then invited his kids to come up and share a personal reflection each. Finally, my mom shared a reflection of her own. I was tremendously moved by the pieces my siblings and mom shared, and very glad we ended up going about his eulogy in this way.

I don’t want to share his entire eulogy here, as that was for his family and friends. But I’ve been reflecting a lot this week on the forces in American life seeking to drive us apart, and as I have, my thoughts have returned to my stepdad. So I want to share a little piece of his eulogy.

What follows is the portion I wrote for the part where my siblings and I each shared a personal reflection about our stepdad:

My first impression of Charlie was that he was very different from me. He was from North Dakota, lived on a hobby farm, did a lot of manual labor, and loved motorcycles. I didn’t really care about any of those things and wasn’t sure what to make of him.

My uncertainty turned to skepticism when I was asked to help out on the farm. I made no secret of my disinterest, but everyone was expected to pitch in, and I was no exception. One time I nicked my finger collecting brush and made it out to be a catastrophic injury; I was given a Band-Aid and told to continue. It was clear the farm life didn’t agree with me. I wasn’t sure Charlie did either.

Not long after Charlie came into my life, I came out to my mom as gay. She was supportive and started looking into resources for me, but I never imagined that one of those resources would end up being Charlie. I had some assumptions about what he might think of my being gay, and was trepidatious about her telling him. But I was wrong to assume. Charlie had a brother in California, Jerry, who was gay, and he quickly invited Jerry and his longtime partner Bob to come visit us in Minnesota. I didn’t really know any gay people, and Charlie knew I needed role models to look up to who could help me imagine a future for myself.

Of course, while I was grateful to have gay role models at a time I really needed some, Charlie himself became an even more significant role model for me over the years, in ways I never would have imagined as an adolescent.

On paper, Charlie and I may not have seemed the most natural compatriots. We had few shared interests and occupied very different worlds. We disagreed on some things, and neither of us was shy about saying so. But while I may have had my suspicions about how much we would get along when he first entered my life, Charlie never made me feel like he wished we were more alike.

He challenged me, yes, and introduced me to things he thought were important, like driving a manual transmission, or finishing a project even after you cut your finger. But he always made me feel valued and appreciated for who I was in spite of our differences. In fact, it seemed to me that he found our differences interesting, meaningful, and sometimes even fun. I think the world would be a lot better off if we had more people who shared Charlie’s approach to difference.

As I learned after I came out, Charlie defied conventions. You could never put him in a box. He was a biker from North Dakota, but also a lawyer serving the working class of Saint Paul’s East Side, a founding member of an Alano club, and a lutefisk-loving Lutheran. I’ve tried to emulate his unconventionality as I’ve lived my own very different life, thanks in part to the way he never made me feel I was wrong for not being more like him. I’m grateful for his example of embracing difference in our family, and for the way he trusted me to help take care of him after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, just as he had cared for me in my adolescence. I will carry his sense of humility, curiosity, and appreciation for difference with me for the rest of my life.

The night of Charlie’s funeral — the same day Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent in my city — I gathered with neighbors to reflect and talk about our next steps. I was particularly moved by what one of my neighbors, a white woman in her 80s, shared. She explained that she had moved to Minneapolis a few years ago after living in a small town in northern Minnesota for many years. That town had been very Scandinavian, very Lutheran, very white. She liked her life there but, to the surprise of friends back home, she loves it here. She relishes the chance to connect with people from so many different backgrounds. It makes her life richer and more interesting.

This is the gift of life in the city. It presents you with the opportunity to live alongside people who challenge you, expand your horizons, and show you other ways of being human. People who are significantly different from you. Of course, in order to receive the city’s gift, you have to actually embrace this opportunity — by getting to know your neighbors, accepting and appreciating their differences, and stepping up for them in their time of need. (All things my stepdad did for me.)

In that regard, I’d like to share something I’ve been working on with neighbors over the last week.

I’ve heard from many friends outside of Minneapolis who want to help but aren’t sure how. There are of course many ways — though I recently removed Instagram from my phone, I’ve been logging on to my account via my iPad this week to share opportunities to help to my stories as they arise, and will continue to do so as I am able — but this one hits especially close to home. A few people in my neighborhood and I are raising funds for beloved neighbors in our neighborhood of Longfellow who desperately need support right now. Here is the description from our Gofundme page:

We are a small group of Longfellow neighbors, and we have created this fund to administer individual support to meet the urgent needs of families in crisis. We are asking for your donations to meet the following:

• Rent support

• Purchasing groceries and essentials

• Delivering groceries and essentials

• Transportation services

• Legal support services

For the sake of privacy and safety, these families must remain anonymous. If you would like updates or confirmations of what your donation has generally gone toward, we can share them with you privately.

We believe that hyper-local action is a powerful way to support those in need right now, and we are starting right where we live. Your financial support, no matter where you live, is saving lives of people that we know, love, and will fight to protect.

Please give if you can. Again, our campaign is just one of many, but that is what is needed right now: lots of people stepping up for their neighbors all over.

[Update: After just a couple days, our fundraiser had raised more than $50,000, which was beyond our wildest hopes. At this point, we closed the fundraiser to protect the privacy of our group and those we’re supporting. You can donate to our second Longfellow fundraiser here, and find other ways to help out folks in Minnesota here: standwithminnesota.com]

Powerful forces wish to see us divided, to see neighbor turn on neighbor. We can and should refuse their noxious call to put up walls and close our hearts. But we should also go a step further. It’s not enough to simply not harm your neighbor. You also need to come to their aid. I have been so heartened to see Minneapolis choose neighborliness in recent days, whether it’s my neighbors sharing information with one another and looking out for those in Longfellow who need our support, or the thousands of Minnesotans who turned out on Saturday — despite the single digit wind chill temperatures — to protest. (We were there all afternoon, and while it was cold, it was also so heartening and beautiful.)

I have also been moved by you, our national and global neighbors, reaching out arms of love from afar. We are ultimately all neighbors, and I’m so grateful for those who see the importance of stepping up for others and paying back the gift of difference.

Thanks for reading, and take good care.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has offered support to me and my family over the last few weeks. For more on my stepdad, I invite you to consider checking out the final chapter of my last book IRL. I wrote it while helping my mom take care of him following his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. That was a very fraught time, and I tried to honor the impact that taking care of him had on me as I wrote about it.

Yesterday afternoon I emerged from my stepdad’s funeral, the planning of which had been my focus for the last couple weeks, to the news that one of my Minneapolis neighbors, Renee Good, had been shot and killed by an ICE officer while serving as a legal bystander during an ICE raid.

I didn’t know Renee, who was apparently pretty new to the city, but I know people who knew her and her wife. I know they were part of our local queer community. I know she was a writer and mother. I know she mattered to the people who loved her, just as my stepdad did to me and my family, and those targeted by ICE do to theirs.

I also know our city, which has been through so much in recent years, is once again hurting and afraid. Of course, the fear and violence didn’t begin with Renee’s tragic death yesterday. Augsburg University, where I teach and research, isn’t quiet about our commitment to pluralism, and in the last few months alone we have been subjected to ICE raids, bomb threats, and hateful anti-gay and anti-Somali graffiti. Our schools and neighborhoods here in South Minneapolis have been turned into places of terror and violence for our immigrant communities and others. When will it end?

The only way forward will be found in coming together to look out for one another, as Renee did. I am newly renewed in this commitment to showing up for one another thanks to two of my neighbors, who hosted a beautiful gathering last night where we mourned and despaired but also hoped and committed. Despite the many differences among those gathered, we found promise and resilience in one another. On a day of fear and uncertainty, we showed up as neighbors to remind ourselves that none of us are alone. That we choose to live in this city and this neighborhood because we believe in being responsible to those who share our streets.

If you feel helpless and afraid, as I did yesterday, I advise you to simply show up for your community. You are needed. Even if you don’t think you can make a difference on a large scale, you can absolutely do so in the lives of those around you. If you don’t already know your neighbors, now is the time. Modern society encourages us to view our neighbors with suspicion or annoyance, but we don’t have to go along with that. We can choose neighborliness instead.

This photo was taken in summer 2020 at George Floyd Square, just blocks from my home and from where Renee was killed yesterday. My sister and her kids came with me that day, and we talked with the kids about what had happened there: the killing, and how people came together to care for one another and our city after.

That response of neighborliness — of showing up for, not turning against, one another — is why I love Minneapolis. It’s also why Minneapolis is a target for those who wish to see us divided. Don’t let them win. Show up for your neighbors, whoever they might be. In the words of Nazi resister and Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbor or not. We must get into action.”

Every person in this city, no matter how different they may be from you, is your neighbor. It’s time to act like it. Turn to your neighbors now, whether you’re in Minneapolis or elsewhere. You need them, and they need you.

Update (1/9/26): Read this beautiful statement from Renee’s wife via MPR, which confirms she and Renee were indeed trying to help their neighbors, despite false reports that suggested otherwise.

It’s the end of the year, often a time for recaps and reflections. I have nothing to “show” for 2025, in the sense that I’m still working on the same projects I was when the year began, which I was also working on the year before that. What follows is a short progress report — what I’ve been doing, and where I’m at with it — followed by a long reflection on inefficiency and why I’m ending the year where I started, in the middle of works in progress. Also: rants on various idols of efficiency, such as AI, social media, Spotify, and the smartphone.

Several times this year, in conversations about the states of our various projects, writer friends I admire have asked if I use this writing software (Scrivener) or that podcast scripting program (Descript).1 After listening to them describe its usefulness, I admit that I still write in a word processor.2 It always makes me feel terribly old-fashioned, but it’s the truth, and recently I’ve been considering why that is.

I’ve spent a lot of this year thinking about writing, because that’s mostly what I’ve been doing. I’m currently working on two massive writing projects, a book and a podcast series. Writing two things at once is new for me. It’s been difficult, but also invigorating. I initially thought I’d finish the book, then start work on the podcast, but a couple years ago I began to feel that my work on the book might help shape my work on the podcast and vice versa. Since then, I’ve been going back and forth between them, re-approaching each with new perspective after I’ve spent some time working on the other. I’ve found it exhausting, and a total blast.

Mostly, though, it has felt extremely slow.

For one thing, both of these projects represent distinct new challenges on their own. The book is the most research-intensive project I’ve ever attempted; a colleague in the religion and philosophy department where I teach keeps joking that I’ve been doing a self-directed PhD3, which feels less like a joke the longer it stretches on. This research has been slow going, largely for reasons of my own design. I’ve read hundreds of books and hundreds articles for this project, most not once but twice — the first time to understand and the second to understand some more, as well as to underline, tab, and take notes. I’ve even gone through many of them a third time, to transcribe notes and quotes into a working doc. I’ve also conducted more interviews for this book than I did my last and have had regular meetings with advisers, all of which has been wonderful and also incredibly time-consuming.

Speaking of interviews: I’ve also been working on a podcast series, and it too has required a heavy research lift. I’ve read a number of books and articles, and have so far conducted more than thirty long-form interviews, with many more still ahead of me.4 Additionally, I’ve spent several days sifting through archives at the Minnesota Historical Society’s Gale Family Library, and I dedicated much of this past summer to getting the word out about a hotline I established to collect additional stories for the series. (You can learn more about it from this MPR story if you’re interested.) I also collected stories at a couple community events, and am hoping to do more events next year. All of this has also taken a lot of time.

While I’ve used research and interviews in previous writing projects, I’ve never done anywhere near this much of it, nor taken as much time to go through the assembled materials. Digging deeper and deeper into research and interviews, I’ve found myself outlining, revising, re-outlining, re-re-outlining, and revising once more. As I continue to incorporate new information and new thinking, and cast out ideas that no longer quite fit, the book and podcast series change, expand, and come into greater focus. It has been fun and meaningful — but, again, above all else it has felt slow.

I’m sharing all of this not to say look at everything I’m doing, though it is nice to step back and take stock, as well as share an update with friends, readers, and listeners. Rather, I’ve been reflecting on why I’m doing all of this in the way that I am — why I’m going about these projects in ways that cause me to go so slowly, despite the incessant pull I feel to go faster.

When I signed my first book contract in my early twenties, I felt an immense sense of pressure (not from my publisher, which was full of lovely and supportive people, but mostly self-imposed) to write that book as quickly as possible. My contract had come about because I’d started a blog that found an audience, and I got the sense that internet audiences were fickle and fleeting. My audience could move on at any moment, so I’d better get the book out while they were still paying attention.

That book was released in late 2012, and in 2013 I began writing a column of the same name for a news wire. I was expected to write three pieces a week, and I was already working a very demanding job at the time. Once again I got the sense that I needed to work quickly, and many of my columns ended up feeling rushed and half-formed. Eventually I couldn’t sustain that pace, and a year later I quit writing that column.

After years of rushing, I mostly stopped writing altogether. When asked by a friend in 2015 if I’d ever write another book, I said with confidence that no, I probably wouldn’t. I was tired of going quickly.

In 2017 I moved back to Minnesota. I wanted to be closer to family, and to catch my breath after a busy decade. Once home, I started spending a lot of time with my stepdad, who needed to go slowly due to his Alzheimer’s. As a result of our time together, and some health issues of my own, I found myself slowing down even more than I’d imagined I would. Unsurprisingly, as life slowed, I found myself writing again.

Today I try to approach my work slowly, though I don’t think I was aware how much I facilitate this slowness through very practical means until this year. I hand-write my book outlines and significant chunks of first drafts. I manually transcribe many of the quotes I use from articles I’ve printed and physical books, rather than copying and pasting quotes from an ebook. I do citations myself, rather than using a writing software that integrates them for you. This fall, needing perspective, I put big sheets of paper on the wall and began covering them with scribbled post-its containing various ideas I wanted to include in the book. In so many ways, I’ve realized, I am trying to slow myself down.

Going slowly has become so central to my process that when people suggest I use a writing software or something else designed to increase my efficiency and productivity, I never quite know what to say. I’m sincerely glad they’ve been useful for others; I have no doubt these programs have made writing more accessible for some, especially people who are even busier than me. I also try to interrogate my motives and be skeptical of the narratives I construct around my own behaviors, and I’m sure that part of why I reject writing software is because it feels easier to stick to what’s familiar. Using a new software meaning learning new skills, and that feels daunting.

But I do think it’s more than that. Setting aside various writing tools themselves and whether or not they’re helpful to specific individuals, I think they generally represent a cultural obsession with efficiency — one that, for me at least, is an obstacle to original thinking and careful writing.

Many facets of our lives today are shaped by ideals of efficiency. It seems, to pick a glaring example, to be the guiding logic of the massive push to get everyone on board with AI. These tools will save you the time and energy of having to look things up yourself. Of needing to do things “the hard way.” Of needing to remember anything, or even know it to begin with. Just think of how efficient your life could be!

It seems obvious to me that we should question this line of thinking. That we shouldn’t just swallow whole the logic of cutting corners for the sake of going faster, or accept modern life’s orientation toward efficiency.

It’s not that we shouldn’t try to lessen the burdens many people live with today. For most of us, there’s always too much to do and no time to do it. The tech enthusiasts say this is the promise of AI: it will liberate us from busy work and free our time for leisure or creative pursuits. It’ll make everything easier, including writing. No longer mired in the trivial tasks of research or revision, we can all write more, faster.

But we’ve been fed this line with every technology preceding AI, and it never works out the way the optimists say it will. Technological advancements haven’t made us all artists, philosophers, and writers; they’ve actually made many of us even busier, turning even our down time into “playbor,” or time spent making money for companies by scrolling social media and viewing their ads. This isn’t an accident; new technologies inevitably end up extracting as much labor as possible from the working class and enriching the already wealthy. Those with power, influence, and means are able to determine the path a new technology takes, always in their favor, not ours.5

They obviously need us to go along with it, so we get sold a story. Imagine how efficient your life could be if you just used this new tool! Every other advertisement I see seems to be for one AI tool or another that promises us the ability to do more more more.

There are certainly much more efficient ways to do a lot of what I’ve been doing this year, with or without AI. I imagine that writing software could have saved me the time of organizing folders of drafts, copying and pasting between them, and manually checking what’s changed from one version to the next. I could have read ebooks instead of physical ones, made my notes digitally, and used an integrated program to transfer them into my drafts. Taking the logic of efficiency a step further, if I had the money, I could have paid someone to do my research for me instead of doing it all myself. Hell, I could even have asked AI to read some of the longer and potentially less relevant texts for me and then summarize them, or pull passages from them that are related to what I’m writing on. But why stop there? Why not ask AI to summarize my entire reading list and construct a set of arguments using them?

My inefficiencies aren’t limited to how I approach reading and writing. I could have had other people post my story-collection flyers around town, so that I could focus on less “menial” tasks related to my podcast. I could have had someone else dig through historical archives for me, or conduct my interviews using questions I provided.

But in doing the slow work of research — in reading something myself, or sitting down and having an extended conversation with someone — I come across an unexpected piece of information that challenges what I thought at the beginning of the process. In posting flyers, or reaching out to organizations and asking them to share information or collaborate on a story-collecting event, I spend time in and with my community, learning and connecting along the way. The more time I dedicate to any one aspect of a project, the more I come to understand it and see it from multiple angles. Cutting corners on these processes would just lead to a shallower end result.

I don’t believe in work for work’s sake or think there’s valor in struggle.6 But I do think many projects are better for taking the long way.

Personally, selfishly, I want to go slowly. These days, I want my work to take longer; to spend more time stewing, thinking, wondering, questioning. I want to go maddeningly, frustratingly slow — even when that feels difficult or annoying, as it usually does. I don’t want my first idea or instinct to set the path; often my earliest ideas are wrong, are rooted in biased or status quo thinking. But at my best, with time, I can move beyond these imperfect starting points. It usually just takes a while.

It’s not simply that things that have simmered longer are often better. I’ve also come to recognize that certain things only happen when a process drags on.

In Twitter and Teargas, sociologist and writer Zeynep Tufekci explains why, within just a few years of the Arab Spring, she lost her optimism about the promises of online organizing and movement-building. While the internet allows movements to grow quickly, that growth happens “without prior building of formal or informal organizational and other collective capacities that could prepare [participants] for the inevitable challenges they will face and give them the ability to respond to what comes next,” Tufekci explains. Such capacity-building is difficult if not impossible in the fragmented, roiling current of digital space.

When people connect and organize online, ties are looser and more ephemeral, and things happen much more quickly. At first glance, this can look like a win. Online organizing is accessible to a wider range of people, eliminating the barriers of geography and limitations of physical space.7 It’s also faster. Online meetings don’t require you to leave your home, and they often go quicker, as fewer people speak up (many participants are multitasking, have their cameras off, or are otherwise less present).8 Virtual gatherings feel more efficient and convenient, which is why they’ve remained such a fixture in the years after covid lockdowns. I’ve attended virtual meetings where all participants were a mere block or two apart, but doing it over Zoom just seemed easier for everyone on an already busy day.

It’s true: we might not have to sacrifice the time it takes to get to and from a meeting when things go online for the sake of efficiency. But it isn’t all gain. “The tedious work performed during the pre-internet era served other purposes,” writes Tufekci. “Perhaps most importantly, it acclimated people to the process of collective decision making and helped create the resilience all movements need to survive and thrive in the long term.” It shouldn’t be surprising that actually being together helps us learn how to be together. But that requires a tolerance for inconvenience and annoyance — a tolerance many of us have inadvertently atrophied in our quest for efficiency.

Zoom meetings full of people in the same city is of course just one example of our solving a problem that’s not actually a problem in the pursuit of efficiency. The main point I’m trying to make is that there are often benefits to doing things the hard way or, more simply, that efficiency isn’t always a problem to be solved. Certain things can only be accomplished when you engage in slow, sticky, messy work. Meta overlord Mark Zuckerberg’s mantra to “move fast and break things” reveals the priorities of our age: efficiency at all costs. But most important tasks need to be handled with care.

Sure enough, it isn’t just that a slow approach has benefits. There are consequences to elevating efficiency. In Twitter and Teargas, Tufekci explains that “tactical maneuvering” — the ability in movement-building to pivot between different kinds of approaches, depending on the specifics of the moment or target — has been critical to the long-term success of social change movements past.

Digital movements, on the other hand, frequently struggle with this. “Having arisen so suddenly and grown so quickly,” writes Tufekci, “they hit their first curve requiring agile tactical shifts at great speeds, with little or no prior experience in collective decision making and little resistance.” Trouble strikes, things get hard, no one can agree on what to do next, the movement fractures, and people bail. Primed to seek convenience, our tolerance for struggle shrivels up or never develops at all. Less invested, less entangled, it’s harder to keep going when the going gets hard.

In short, there are consequences to moving fast and breaking things. Once ruptured, certain things can’t be fixed. At the very least, you may have to spend the time you were trying to save through convenience measures attending to the new problems they’ve created.

Of course, going slowly has its own consequences in the modern world.

For one thing, taking your time often seems like a luxury, especially in an age when it can feel like speed is necessary to survival. Only certain people can afford to take their time, and going slowly is often punished. These years I’ve been working on this next book and podcast series have been financially challenging. I feel the pressure to speed up any time I have to pay a bill — or not pay it, as the case may be.9

You also risk getting left behind or pushed aside by those moving faster. You’re seen as resisting progress, or rejecting things that could improve your situation (as might be the case with the writing software suggestions I reject any time someone offers one, often in response to my own complaining about how long my process is taking).

Truthfully, the only reason I’m able to only go slowly at all is because of the support I’ve gotten from individuals who pitched in to back my podcast project, as well as a couple grants I’ve received (though I’m using much of those grant funds to pay my podcast production collaborators).10 Even still, even with this support, it’s been difficult. I find myself having to actively choose to go slowly, to resist the cultural forces dragging me in the direction of productivity. This resistance requires me to make significant financial, career, and personal sacrifices.

But what’s the alternative? Going quickly means embracing the cycle of urgency, immediacy, punishment and reward that defines so much of modern life, and which finds particular expression in digital spaces. The demands of efficiency make us feel like we need to be always plugged in, and this constant stream of information — as well as the near-indistinguishability between information that’s useful and that which is numbing or harmful — changes how we think.

All the way back in 2008, journalist Nicholas Carr wrote a piece for the Atlantic entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”11 In it, he explains that media “are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” The more time we spend online, the more we begin to think like the internet. Carr continues:

What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.

We’ve all felt this, I think. I know I have. Reading a book has become much harder than it used to be. As a child, I could lose myself in one for hours. Now I have to make an active effort to focus for more than a couple paragraphs, and I find myself re-reading sections because my attention started drifting. My ability to focus has diminished considerably, and I have to swim upstream in order to do things I have always loved (read, write, etc).

Concentration isn’t the only issue. Here again, in Carr’s piece, we find the logic of efficiency rearing its head:

“We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. “We are how we read.” Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.”

For a growing number of people, the bulk of what they read consists of social media posts, not books. This is especially true among younger people. Fewer and fewer people read for pleasure.12 For many of us, screen time has spiraled out of control. And all of this is having profound effects on how we think.

“As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our ‘intellectual technologies’—the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities—we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies,” argues Carr. In other words, using smart devices and spending half our day staring at screens that constantly advertise AI and other efficiency tools to us is changing how we see the world.

Much has been written on how this inculcates consumerist and capitalist worldviews, which is true, but perhaps an underappreciated aspect is how we are being trained to think according to the logic of efficiency. For instance, we begin to think that the fastest answer is the best one. Don’t bother looking something up in a book; Google it or ask ChatGPT. Need a recommendation for a new consumer product to buy? Crowdsource: pose the question to your Instagram followers, and go with whoever responds to your Instagram story first (or validates the decision you already wanted to make). Don’t wander a neighborhood looking for a bookstore or restaurant, just pull up Yelp or Google Maps and see which spots other users prefer. Not only does this save time, it also ensures you have the most optimized experience. In each case, you get an answer the moment a question arises — the answer that comes quickest. And if information can’t be accessed quickly, is it really worth the trouble?

Online, we don’t meander; we look for the fastest route, straight to the point. A book might send you down a rabbit hole, which could take forever, and you only have so much time. Forget letting your mind wander, or considering anything other than the most obvious and immediate answer. “In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation,” writes Carr. “Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.” We use the internet because we are slow to process and feel the need to go faster.

Social media has a version of wandering, but it’s often a fun-house mirror version: perpetual, passive clicking. It’s a kind of ambling that leaves you with the sensation that time has been lost, rather than that it has been taken you somewhere unexpected, as is the case when you spend a day roaming a new city without a map. Carr explains why our social media platforms want us to enter this wormhole of time lost:

The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.

There is a massive difference between getting lost in a book, a set of archival materials, or an unfamiliar neighborhood, and time displaced by mindless or anxious social media scrolling. The latter seeks to eradicate boredom, while the former invites it in. A bit more from Carr:

In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.

If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture. In a recent essay, the playwright Richard Foreman eloquently described what’s at stake . . . As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.’”

This piece is from 2008. What was true then is infinitely more so now. Without active resistance, it’s easy to feel as if we become more pancake (and less person) each year. Every hour spent scrolling threatens to flatten us further. The only solution, I suspect, is slowing down, logging off for extended periods, and letting boredom arise.

I first read Carr’s piece while researching my last book, IRL, which wrestles with some of the existential questions that materialize in our online habits. I didn’t reach a point of resolution regarding my fraught relationship with social media by the end of the book, and the relationship has only gotten more tense since I finished. Opting out altogether feels extreme, but what I’m doing now isn’t working, either.

Writing IRL (which also took a very long time) got me thinking a lot more about the impact the internet has had on many facets of my life. One of these is the role the internet has played in influencing not only what I consume — fewer books, more bite-sized content — but also how I consume it — passively, quickly, and often with efficiency as my north star. I have had to actively work against that instinct during these years of research, which has been aided by slowing down in general.

Near the end of writing IRL, I took a three month social media break. I found it both torturous and transformative, like going on a silent meditation retreat (which I’ve also done, while working on my undergraduate thesis, long before I ever had a smartphone — this was harder). I haven’t yet gone fully offline while working on my next book and podcast series, though I’ve tried. I have, however, been bricking13 my phone. Whenever I do so, it’s immediately obvious how much more focused I become.

Along with the focus it facilitates, I also experience boredom with intensified frequency, which I find very uncomfortable. Bricking my phone makes it clear that I simply don’t know how to use these platforms casually; they prey on human vulnerabilities, and I might be particularly vulnerable. It’s clear I fear boredom and discomfort, which is why I love the handheld distraction device that promises to ward off both.

In the era of efficiency, time spent bored or silent feels like a waste. The logic of efficiency guides even moments of leisure today — I better enjoy this movie, otherwise watching it will have been a waste of time I could’ve spent doing one of the other things on my to-do list. Movies also require focus, which make them increasingly difficult for many people to consume. Time spent on TikTok, on the other hand, entertains without demanding more than a couple minutes of your attention. You can check in and out as needed, and the time doesn’t feel wasted because what’s just one more video? (Until you realize you’ve watched fifty of them.)

But just because boredom is hard doesn’t mean we should seek to banish it. In the words of philosopher and social critic Bertrand Russell: “A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men [sic], of men unduly divorced from the slow process of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers as though they were cut flowers in a vase.” Setting aside Russell’s gendered frame, I think there’s a lot of wisdom in this prediction. Leisure, boredom, rest — all of these are things we need. When I allow myself to be bored, rather than trying to fill all my time with doing things (even if one of those things ends up being a lot of doomscrolling), I my mind wanders into uncharted territory, and the world around me suddenly comes alive. I am more interested in life when I allow myself to be bored.

Besides, while we may shut out boredom with the phone, we invite in a host of other things in its place. Most of us have seen and shared this tweet: “hey sorry I missed your text, I am processing a non-stop 24/7 onslaught of information with a brain designed to eat berries in a cave.” On the phone — more specifically, on social media — we’re inundated and overwhelmed. And it’s doing real damage.

Consider one recent study. A team from the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston observed the social media habits of 373 young adults (ages 18 to 24) for two weeks. After the researchers collected this baseline data, the majority of participants then opted into a one-week social media detox. “By the end of that third week,” writes NPR’s Rhitu Chatterjee, “[the] team found a 16% reduction in anxiety symptoms, a 24% decrease in depression symptoms and a 14.5% decrease in insomnia symptoms.”14 Chatterjee continues:

“It usually takes eight to 12 weeks of intensive psychotherapy to see those kinds of reductions in mental health symptoms,” says psychologist Mitch Prinstein, chief of strategy and integration at the American Psychological Association. “So if you can get those with just one week of change in behavior, wow!”

What’s also striking, adds Prinstein, is that as the participants cut back on social media use, their screen time didn’t go down. They were doing other things on their devices.

“So, it really helps us see that it’s not just your screen that’s a problem,” he says. “It might be social media in particular.”

The same is true when I brick my phone. I still end up using it, but my relationship to it is transformed. It becomes what it once was — a device with very specific functions, rather than an everything portal. I can use it for things I enjoy, like playing puzzle games, taking photos of research materials, or looking for new music to enjoy. But I’m not spending it on platforms like Instagram, which are designed to keep me stuck in a perpetual scroll.

The social internet we have today is not the same one we had when I wrote IRL (RIP Twitter), let alone the one we had when my old blog found readers on Twitter and eventually led to larger writing platforms and a book contract back in 2010. The stuff I consumed online in the early aughts was a mix of good and bad; today, though there’s still a lot of good to be found online, my experience of social media typically feels more bad than good. Much of this, I think, is due to the moves these platforms have made in profit-driven directions; ones that make me feel that I need to be moving quickly and like I’m constantly losing time. Directions that are ultimately about efficiency: not necessarily for me, but for the companies trying to maximizing the profit they can squeeze out of the time I spend online. This makes it increasingly difficult to go slowly, because taking your time requires focus, and social media is all about disrupting — or redirecting — your attention.

While focus and finances create obstacles to working slowly and carefully, I want a world where we don’t have to work — or think — like this. The old-fashioned ways I write, organize research, and collect narratives for my podcast are a few of the ways I try to resist the cultural pressure to optimize. I want to do work that is slow; to have time to read, re-read, and tab; to think, re-think, and absorb; to write, re-write, and re-write again. In doing so, I am building a tolerance for boredom, for getting lost, for resisting the push to maximize efficiency in every corner of my life.

I still struggle to resist. I spent the month of October as an artist in residence at the Studios of Key West, much of August in residence at Write On, Door County, a week of July at Everwood Farmstead Foundation’s Artist Retreat, and a couple weeks in March at New York Mills Cultural Center’s Artist Retreat Residency. With the exception of an invited residency a couple years ago at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, 2025 was my first year doing residencies, and each felt like such a special opportunity to truly focus on the work of organizing research and writing. These opportunities felt so precious that I began to impose the pressures of efficiency upon myself. Early in my residencies, it was easy to beat myself up any time I had a day I decided wasn’t “productive” enough. Capitalism’s grip on our imaginations is fierce.

But the whole point of a residency, to me, is stepping outside the routines and pressures of everyday life and letting yourself exist differently. Some of the best writing occurs when one is able to ditch routine and enter into a transformed, imaginative state. While I initially found it hard to shake the logic of efficiency during my residencies, eventually I would enter into this kind of set-apart space.

At one of these residencies, for example, I found myself taking naps. I typically cannot bring myself to nap; it feels like time wasted. But there, in the slowness and quiet of a solo residency, I stopped asking myself what the value of a nap was, and allowed my body to do what it needed. Sure enough, the days I napped ended up being some of my best writing days. I was reminded of this bit from How to Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson:

I count it as an absolute certainty that in paradise, everyone naps. A nap is a perfect pleasure and it’s useful, too. It splits the day into two halves, making each half more manageable and enjoyable. How much easier it is to work in the morning if we know we have a nap to look forward to after lunch; and how much more pleasant the late afternoon and evening become after a little sleep. If you know there is a nap to come later in the day, then you can banish forever that terrible sense of doom one feels at 9 A.M. with eight hours of straight toil ahead. Not only that, but a nap can offer a glimpse into a twilight nether world where gods play and dreams happen.

I’m glad my first residency was at Collegeville (where the image at the top of this post comes from), as it was the presence of monastics that first got me thinking about the value of slowness as it relates to the work I’m trying to do. At Collegeville and in the other residencies since, I thought about why we need to retreat. I’m not interested in being a full-time monastic, but I want to experience what they do at least some of the time. I want the space and time to venture into boredom, creativity, and wonder. And on these residencies I was able to do just that. Yes, I worked. But I also walked (a lot).

We all deserve to live life at a pace that works for us, and to devote our lives to things that feel worthwhile. The answer, of course, isn’t AI, just as it hasn’t been any of the supposedly salvific technologies that preceded it. As Martin Hägglund argues so effectively in This Life, our salvation will come from one another — from restructuring society away from capitalism’s logic of perpetual growth and expansion, away from notions of productivity and efficiency, and toward a vision of life guided by other values, ones that allow us to spend our time and take our time doing that which enriches our lives, individually and collectively.

Though it didn’t start intentionally, I’ve realized this year that I purposefully use writing and research methods that take longer, because it’s in the mess and the muck that I change my thinking or come to see things from another angle. I resist tools designed to make me more efficient because I don’t want to rush to conclusions. I’ve come to understand that I work in a way that is about tripping myself up and purposefully taking longer. It’s a way of protecting me from my more basic instincts and seeking something more complex. Like the monastics, in a way, though I’m seeking human complexity, not divine. Stepping out of the rush of modern life, in retreat or in everyday slowness, is a way of resisting the brutal, permeating logic of capitalist efficiency. Of freeing myself from the prisons I make for myself by following the inhumane cultural blueprints I’ve inherited.

This week music platforms released their year-end stats to users — Spotify, which is the most popular music streaming platform, unleashed their annual Wrapped reports, though other streaming services like Apple Music and Tidal provided their own recaps as well. Setting aside Spotify’s many other much more serious issues, these reports offer subscribers nothing more than a statistical mirror.

Numbers can be interesting, but we need to be careful not to conflate consumption with preference. There may be a lot of overlap between my most-played music and my favorite music of the year, but let’s not pretend it’s 1:1. Just because some songs or albums had less “replay value” (which, in an age of music designed to gamify algorithms, could simply be an indication that, for example, they were more than 2 minutes long) than others doesn’t necessarily mean they’re less important to me.15

My primary point here is that your Wrapped is raw data (presented in bright colors and sexy designs), which has its value, but in a world that constantly affirms efficiency, it’s easy to read too much meaning into that data. The music that resonates most deeply isn’t necessarily that which we’ve consumed the most, and the music list of least resistance — the one created for you by the massive corporation — isn’t necessarily definitive. We need to make sure we don’t let it shape our self-understanding. In a world that primes us to see our identity in terms of consumption, Wrapped has actually come to feel like another attack on human complexity, the latest in a long line of algorithmic propaganda seeking to reflect a consumptive, ever-narrowing self-image back at us — one that entrenches our sense of self in what we have consumed rather than in how we might surprise ourselves.

It might be easier, more convenient and efficient, to have your music streaming software pull together a list of the music you played each year, but it’s also misleading. When you look back on 2025 ten years from now, which songs will you be thinking of? Which albums are going to give you a rush (or pang, as the case may be) of nostalgia? It’s not necessarily the ones in your auto-populated Spotify Wrapped playlist. But if that’s all you have to go off of ten years from now, it might be.

This is why I take the time to make my own music list each year, rather than relying on the lists created for me by a streaming platform. For me, it’s worth the extra time and effort. This is also why I increasingly enjoy listening to music on vinyl, even though it’s slower and more clumsy than just tapping play on my phone. I fear many of us have become far too casual about our consumption, guided by the logic of efficiency to primarily seek that which is already within reach — whether it’s our phone over the arm of a record player, or a playlist of songs Spotify says we’d like based on what we’ve already played.

Could I have made these various points about resisting efficiency more… efficiently? Almost surely. But writing this piece has felt like an exercise in inefficiency. My hope is that there’s something in this long meander, these notes on going slowly, that might be useful to you. If not, and you made it this far, at least you got to practice wasting some time.

One quick story to wrap up.16 A few weeks ago, one of the strongest solar storms since 1989 resulted in much of the U.S. experiencing aurora. I didn’t really plan ahead, but once I started hearing from friends on that Tuesday evening about the intensity of what they were seeing in the sky, I got in a car and drove 20 minutes outside the city, where I saw my first ever northern lights. It was a stunning display, and when I learned there would be another chance to see them the next night, I made a plan.

The next evening I got out earlier and drove further, this time about 45 minutes outside the city. At first I wasn’t seeing anything, so I got back in the car and drove to a different site. There I saw the faintest hint of color in the sky, though it was nothing compared to the night before. I entertained going home; it was cold out, and I’d finished my hot chocolate from Qamaria Yemeni Coffee (a favorite if I’m passing through the northern suburbs). But I decided to wait a bit longer. The sky remained empty. I grew colder and even more bored. Still, I stayed. Finally, just as it got dangerously close to bed time and I grew ready to pack it in, the sky exploded in a burst of reds and greens, an even more brilliant display than the night prior.

There are certain things you can’t rush, no matter how much you plan and optimize, and no matter what software or other tool you use. In fact, making the choice not to seek efficiency incurs its own benefits. New songs, different ideas, previously undiscovered interests. The longer this next book and podcast series take, the tighter I hold to my faith that taking my time is worth it. With a new year on the horizon, I encourage you to think about ways you might slow down next year. And if — when — you catch me rushing again, I invite you to remind me to slow down and look up.

It’s the Monday after Pride weekend, which really ought to be a national queer holiday for rest and recovery. I hope that, if you celebrated Pride this weekend, you’re at least feeling the good kind of tired today, the afterglow of time well spent. I know I am.

My Pride weekend was the best kind of whirlwind, jam-packed with community gatherings and opportunities to be around queer friends and family. Though I couldn’t get to everything (one year I’ll make it to the queer beach takeover!) I did manage to attend Minneapolis People’s Pride on Saturday and Autonomous Zine Fest on Sunday, two of my favorite events of the year, both in beautiful Powderhorn Park. Also on Sunday, I went to the Twin Cities Pride festival in Loring Park, which I’ve taken my nephews and niece to every summer since I moved back to Minnesota in 2017.

This year, Twin Cities Pride kicked Minnesota-based retailer Target out over their cowardly capitulation on DEI, and I could definitely feel the company’s absence (complimentary). Still, while Twin Cities Pride only had about half as much in corporate sponsorship dollars this year as compared to 2024, it felt a lot more corporate than I’d like it to. (If you feel the same, check out People’s Pride.)

That said, I love taking my nephews and niece to Pride each year. They’re growing up in such a different world than I did, and while on some days it seems like that world is a worse one, the future feels full of possibility and hope when I take in Pride through their eyes each June. They’re seeing so many stories and lives that were invisible to me when I was growing up as a lonely and isolated queer child, and it helps them imagine an even brighter and more loving world still to come.

As you know, I’m trying to collect stories of LGBTQIA mutual aid in Minnesota via a story hotline called We Help Us. In a time of polarization, atomization, and fear, I want to shine a light on stories of how we have always come together to care for one another. These stories are instructive; they show us the mutuality of queerness, and point the way toward that better world.

In the days leading up to Pride weekend, I was given a few opportunities to express in greater detail why I’m doing this project, and I figured I’d share those with you here.

First, I gathered a group of friends and activists to help me post flyers around Loring Park. We shot a little video, which you can watch below. I also asked them to share a few words about why mutual aid matters, as well as a personal experience of community care. I compiled their responses in a story for one of my favorite local publications, Racket, which you can read here if you’d like. I hope you will.

Additionally, Minnesota Public Radio invited me on the air to talk about the project. I was very grateful for the chance to say a bit more about why stories of queer and trans community care matter, and shout out some of the many vital mutual aid resources we’re fortunate to have in Minnesota. If you want to listen to that conversation, you can do so here. I always find live radio interviews a little challenging—there’s so much to say, and so little time!—but I hope you’ll take something meaningful from the conversation if you choose to listen.

If you or someone you know has a story about an experience of queer and trans mutual aid—a time when the LGBTQIA community has shown up for you, you’ve shown up for others, or both—I hope you’ll call 1-844-WE-HLP-US (1-844-934-5787) and leave a short message. These recordings will be archived at the Tretter Collection, the largest LGBTQIA archive in the Upper Midwest and one of the biggest in the country, and some may be utilized in my next narrative podcast project.

Speaking of the Tretter Collection, they were at Twin Cities Pride again this year with the wonderful traveling exhibit they premiered at last year’s Pride, “We Always Find Each Other: LGBTQ Histories of Community Building in Minnesota.” This exhibit has so many powerful stories like those I’m looking to collect, stories of how queer and trans Minnesotans have showed up for one another. There’s actually a little section about my work included in this exhibit, which is probably one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me. Yesterday, one of my nephews asked if we could take a picture next to that section, and I can’t tell you how special that felt.

This picture tells a story I could never have imagined as a child. When I was his age, it was truly unthinkable that my queerness—something I thought would only cause my family and friends to turn away from me in shame—could instead be something that connects us, something my loved ones take pride in. There’s so much work still to be done, but we really have come such a long way in my short lifetime, and that’s worth celebrating, even just for a weekend. We celebrate, we love, we tell our stories, and the work continues.

Please, if you can spare a few minutes, help me in this work by calling the hotline and sharing a story that might challenge and encouage us to keep going, and ask those you know to do the same. It would mean a lot to me, and to future generations seeking narratives that inspire. Our stories can light the way for others on the long walk toward a more just future, remind us why we walk in the first place, and invite us to reach out to each other in love and care along the way.

Yours in pride,

Chris

My next narrative podcast series will tell a story about how queer people and allies have taken care of one another when the systems that are supposed to help us fail to do so. As I started work on it, I found myself wanting to collect other such stories—to document as many stories of mutual aid efforts by and for LGBTQIA Minnesotans as possible. But I’m just one person. So, inspired by queer help lines, which have long connected us, I decided to make a phone line where people could record stories of their experiences with LGBTQIA mutual aid.

While some of these recordings may end up in my next project, they all matter—which is why I’m thrilled that the wonderful folks at the University of Minnesota’s Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, the biggest LGBTQIA archive in the upper Midwest and one of the largest in the country, have agreed to archive these stories in their collection, so that they will be available for future generations to learn from.

Additionally, for those who don’t want to call the line, the amazing Quatrefoil Library—the second oldest circulating LGBTQIA library in the United States—will be hosting an in-person story recording session in August, which I’d love to see you at.

Finally, a number of vital local mutual aid resources have agreed to let us highlight them as a part of this project. They all do such important work, and I hope you will give them your support as we lift them up this summer.

You can learn about all of this and more by visiting wehelpusmn.com, and following @goodjudypods on Instagram for updates. And of course, I hope you’ll call the line! 1-844-WE-HLP-US (1-844-934-5787)

Last but not least, I want to thank Jared Maire for their incredible work on the 15 (!) different flyer designs you will be seeing around the state this summer, all inspired by different eras of mutual aid. We’d love your help getting them up across Minnesota—you can actually print your own, or download social media versions, by visiting the website.

That’s all for now. Much more to come! And remember, even if no one else has our backs, we’ve got us.

Hi!

First, a huge thank you to everyone who came out to the events I was part of in January and February. It was great to see so many people! The Good Judy Productions launch event was particularly meaningful to me, and I truly appreciate all of your support.

I’m going to keep this brief, as I’m in the second week of a two week residency, where I am working on my next book, Nothing in Particular. I have been doing a lot of sifting through years of research notes, but I’ve been able to do some writing, too. I’m really excited to share more about this book with you as it continues to progress.

Anyway, I’d love to see you at one of the following events I’m doing this April!

Magers & Quinn Presents: Bronson Lemer + Chris Stedman

Tuesday, April 8th @ 7 PM

Magers & Quinn

3038 Hennepin Avenue

Minneapolis, MN 55408

Join me for a conversation with Bronson Lemer at the launch event for his new book, The Lonely Veteran’s Guide to Companionship! Registration required.

Milkweed Books Presents: Sarah Jones + Chris Stedman

Thursday, April 10th @ 6 PM

Milkweed Books @ Open Book

1011 Washington Avenue South

Minneapolis, MN 55415

Unfortunately, Sarah had to reschedule February’s Minneapolis visit in support of her new book, Disposable: America’s Contempt for the Underclass. We ended up having a wonderful time doing that “Writers Go to the Movies” event even without Sarah, but I’m thrilled that she was able to reschedule her visit for April 10th! More info here.

Moon Palace Books Presents: Shannon T. L. Kearns, Chris Stedman, and Kyle Tran Myhre (aka Guante)

Monday, April 14th @ 6 PM

Moon Palace Books

3032 Minnehaha Avenue

Minneapolis, MN 55406

Join me at the launch event for No One Taught Me How to Be a Man: What a Trans Man’s Experience Reveals About Masculinity. I’ll be in conversation with author Shannon T. L. Kearns, as well as poet Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre. Learn more about the event here.

Susquehanna University Scholar-in-Residence Events

April 23-24th

Susquehanna University

514 University Avenue

Selinsgrove, PA 17870

I’m honored and excited to be the 2025 Scholar-in-Residence at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA. As part of my visit, I will be giving a talk and doing a few other events, some of which will be open to the public. If you’re in the area, check out Susquehanna’s events calendar, which should have details soon!

All right, I’ve gotta get back to this residency. I hope you’re hanging in there.

In love and solidarity,

Chris

Hi everyone! I do events pretty regularly, and I’m trying to get better about sending out information about them here instead of only posting it on social media (especially since our social media platforms are crumbling in real time). So I’m reaching out to tell you about a few events I have coming up in the next couple months.

First, a reminder that this Thursday I’m co-hosting a special event to celebrate the launch of my new podcast studio Good Judy Productions and the second season of my friend Celisia Stanton’s podcast Truer Crime, which takes a justice-oriented approach to telling true crime stories. In addition to a conversation between me and Celisia about who gets to tell a story and how they tell it, there will be a pop-up shop from our friends at Black Garnet Books, a book drive for Women’s Prison Book Project, an information table from Queermunity, and refreshments (including cupcakes generously donated by Sift). And while I’d encourage you to come if you can (cupcakes can’t be consumed remotely!) there will also be a livestream on YouTube for those who aren’t local or can’t make it. I hope you’ll join us for this evening of storytelling and community at 7 PM this Thursday, January 23rd at the Conn Theater in Plymouth Congregational Church (1900 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403). I think it’s going to be a really special night and I’d be honored to see you there.

In addition to Thursday’s event, I’m going to be facilitating a couple other conversations with visiting authors in Minneapolis in February. One of the events does include a virtual option (see below for more), but mostly this is for folks in Minnesota. For those who live elsewhere, stay tuned: I’ve got some other things in the works for this spring. In the meantime, if you are local, I hope to see you at one or more of the events below!

Magers & Quinn and Queermunity Present: Ira Madison III

Wednesday, February 12th @ 7 PM

Queermunity (second floor, above Magers & Quinn)

3036 Hennepin Avenue

Minneapolis, MN 55408

Perhaps you know Ira Madison III from his popular podcast Keep It. Maybe you know him from his writing at various outlets, or you follow him here on Substack. Or maybe know him from the time Twitter banned him for impersonating Beto O'Rourke. Regardless, I bet you know him. If you do, you won’t want to miss the Minneapolis stop of his upcoming book tour for his debut essay collection Pure Innocent Fun. I’ll be joining him for a conversation hosted by Magers & Quinn and held in their new upstairs neighbor Queermunity. Tickets, which come with a copy of the book, are available here. It should be a really fun evening and I’d love to see you there.

Augsburg University Presents: Valarie Kaur

Thursday, February 27th @ 11 AM

Hoversten Chapel at Augsburg University

2211 Riverside Avenue

Minneapolis, MN 55454

If you missed author and activist Valarie Kaur’s Minneapolis stop on her 40+ city Revolutionary Love tour last fall, you have a chance to make up for it next month at Augsburg University’s annual Interfaith Spring Symposium. Valarie is one of the most amazing speakers I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been honored to call her a friend and co-conspirator for more than 15 years now. I was lucky enough to be a guest speaker at her Minneapolis tour stop last fall, and it was a truly special event. This symposium, organized by Augsburg’s Interfaith Institute (where I currently serve as a research fellow), promises to be just as meaningful. I’ll be introducing Valarie at the event, and I hope to see you there. Register to attend in-person or via Zoom for free here.

Writers Go to the Movies and Milkweed Books Present: “Pride” with Sarah Jones

Friday, February 28th @ 6 PM

Target Performance Hall at Open Book (second floor)

1011 Washington Avenue South

Minneapolis, MN 55415

Join me for the latest installment of the “Writers Go to the Movies” series, which pairs a free film screening with a conversation between writers. We will be watching the 2014 movie Pride, which is one of my all-time favorite films. The event will be hosted by Milkweed Books in Minneapolis on Friday, February 28. Doors are at 6 PM, and the movie starts at 7. I believe there will even be free popcorn and candy!

Following the screening of Pride, I’ll be chatting with visiting author and just all-around wonderful person Sarah Jones, who wrote the new book Disposable: America’s Contempt for the Underclass, and who is visiting Minneapolis just for this event. The book is a must-read, and the movie is newly revelatory each time I watch it, so you should come whether or not you’ve already seen it. Learn more about the event and RSVP here.

Also, a fun fact before I wrap up: Sarah and I go way, way back, and I even officiated her wedding! Here’s a shot from that beautiful day:

That’s all for now. I hope you’re taking good care.

In love and solidarity,

Chris

-Chris

Podcasting “From Below” — A Conversation with Celisia Stanton and Chris Stedman

Celebrating the release of Truer Crime S2 and the launch of Good Judy Productions

Thursday, January 23rd
Doors at 7 PM, conversation at 7:30

The Conn Theater in Plymouth Congregational Church
1900 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403

Who gets to tell the story, and how do they tell it? Join us for a conversation between two Minneapolis podcast creators driven by a mission to tell stories that center justice and equity.

Celisia Stanton is the creator of Truer Crime, a podcast that goes beyond the headlines to uncover untold details and hidden layers in real-life crime stories. Each episode offers a fresh perspective, exploring both well-known and lesser-known cases to reveal surprising truths about justice in America. The show’s eagerly anticipated second season launches in January 2025.

Chris Stedman is the creator of the podcast Unread, an exploration of minority stress, suicide loss, and LGBTQIA community that was named one of the best shows of 2021 by outlets like the Guardian, HuffPost, and Vulture. Chris is also the founder of Good Judy Productions, a new podcast studio based in Minneapolis committed to telling stories that, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, take the “view from below,” or “the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering.”

In addition to a conversation between Celisia and Chris with time for audience questions, Black Garnet Books will be on site hosting a pop-up bookstore beginning when doors open at 7 PM. Attendees are encouraged to purchase books from Black Garnet to donate to the Women’s Prison Book Project (WPBP). People can also bring books they already have to donate, or give money at the event to go toward the purchase of additional books from WPBP’s Black Garnet wish list. Additionally, Queermunity, a new LGBTQ+ resource center in Minneapolis, will be tabling with information about ways people can get involved and support the local LGBTQ+ community. Refreshments will follow the event, including celebratory cupcakes generously donated by Sift.

Our host for the evening is the Conn Theater in Plymouth Congregational Church (1900 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403). Park free in the church parking lot along Franklin Ave and enter the theater at Door #3 on Nicollet Ave. The event is free and open to the public. Those who cannot or do not wish to participate in person may view remotely on Youtube at youtube.com/@plymouthcongregationalchurch

Join Celisia, Chris, Plymouth, Queermunity, and Black Garnet to celebrate the launch of both Truer Crime Season 2 and Good Judy Productions, and to dive into a conversation about why both the stories we tell—and the way we tell them—matter.

Last week I announced my new podcast studio, Good Judy Productions, and shared a bit about our series currently in development. In that announcement I explained why, in light of the difficulties of making narrative podcasts like my last show Unread work financially in the current podcasting landscape, I’ve decided to self-fund this new series with the help of supporters like you. I truly believe we can make this happen!

One of the reasons I think it’s possible? We’re not the only studio making a narrative show right now, despite the obstacles. There are a number of others making limited series worth hearing, and their examples are a big part of what motivated me to take the leap to create Good Judy and work on our first series. Below are just some of the narrative podcast creators I look up to.

Dan Taberski

Dan Taberski has created some of my favorite podcast series ever, like The Line and 9/12. I obsess over a newly announced podcast from him like I do an album announcement from one of my favorite musicians. His latest series, Hysterical, dropped this year, and it didn’t disappoint. Taberski is as dynamic an interviewer and storyteller as ever in Hysterical, and if you haven’t listened, you really should. He’s been a huge inspiration to me in deciding to launch Good Judy, and I honestly don’t know that I’d be podcasting at all if it weren’t for him. Go listen to everything he’s ever made.

Jamie Loftus

Seriously, what can’t Jamie Loftus do?! Comedian. Author of an acclaimed book about hot dogs. Host of multiple one-of-a-kind podcasts, including two ongoing shows plus her highly acclaimed limited series podcasts like Aack Cast, Lolita Podcast, and Ghost Church (my personal favorite, which probably isn’t surprising given the subject matter). Like Taberski, Loftus is a massive inspiration, and one of the people who makes me think “maybe it really is possible to make this work.” She also has the distinct honor of being name-dropped alongside me in that piece I mentioned in my announcement post, the one on the state of the podcasting industry, as an example of someone who creates the kind of stuff that’s hard to make work financially. And yet she not only makes it work, again and again, but always makes work that’s truly worth listening to. It’s seriously impressive, and I hope she one day tells me her secret.

Sam Robertson

I came across Sam Robertson’s podcast series Birth of a Salesman via this Star Tribune piece and was immediately curious. A podcast about a Bible illustrator turned salesman trekking across Minneapolis that explores “the absurdities and struggles of trying to bring one’s artwork into a seemingly indifferent world”? I live in Minneapolis. I’m a religion professor currently writing a book about indifference. I’m trying to bring art into the world! Look, there was no way I could not listen. I truly had no idea what to expect from it, yet this show still managed to surprise me. The series, a hybrid of reality and fiction, is funny, thoughtful, and it left me intrigued and puzzled. I promise you have never listened to anything quite like Birth of a Salesman before. I’m told a second season is coming, so check out season one before then.

Jonquilyn Hill

Jonquilyn Hill, host of Vox’s The Weeds, is also responsible for one of my favorite limited series narrative podcasts ever: Through the Cracks. It’s about the disappearance of 8-year-old Relisha Rudd from a shelter in Washington, D.C., but it’s also about much more, like the systems that fail so many children. A stunning and tenderly made series, with absolutely beautiful writing and hosting by Hill, Through the Cracks is proof that true crime doesn’t have to be exploitative, and can even be vital and transformative when done this well. Don’t skip it.

Meribah Knight

I was first introduced to Meribah Knight as the host of The Kids of Rutherford County, a co-production of Serial Productions, the New York Times, ProPublica, and WPLN Nashville Public Radio. The first thing I noticed was that, like Unread, it was just four episodes, which is something you don’t see very often. Like Hill, Knight tells a story of kids who are being failed by the very systems that should be looking out for their best interests. The show is another example of a story that centers experiences that so often go untold in media, a show that shares the perspectives of those on society’s margins. Our mission at Good Judy is to do the same, and Knight’s work is a huge inspiration in that regard. (Be sure to check out Knight’s most recent series, NPR’s Embedded: Supermajority, as well as her Peabody Award-winning podcast The Promise.)

Celisia Stanton

Speaking of non-exploitative true crime, Celisia Stanton is another Minneapolis creator doing amazing work. Though each episode of her podcast Truer Crime tells a different story (meaning it’s not a season- or series-long narrative like the projects we’ll be making at Good Judy), I draw so much inspiration from how Stanton has built this show from the ground up. The second season of Truer Crime is out next month, and we’re actually going to be co-hosting a launch celebration for it and Good Judy Productions in Minneapolis on January 23! At the event, Stanton and I will discuss why both the stories we tell—and the way we tell them—seriously matter. Please save the date, and watch for more details soon!

Brian Reed

S-Town is widely regarded as a podcasting classic for a reason. It was the first podcast series to make me cry because it is just so utterly human. When I was making Unread, I knew that if I could do even half as good a job of portraying and honoring someone’s humanity as Brian Reed and his team do in S-Town, I’d be proud of what I had made. As Reed says in Episode VI, “I think trying to understand another person is a worthwhile thing to do.” It’s one of the best and most important things we can do, I think, and this show demonstrates why. (The other series he made for Serial Productions, The Trojan Horse Affair with Hamza Syed, is also well worth your time.)

Amory Sivertson

In addition to co-hosting WBUR’s ongoing series Endless Thread, Amory Sivertson released a new limited series narrative show this year that had me absolutely hooked, Beyond All Repair. As soon as one episode finished, I hit play on the next. Sivertson did an incredible job on this show, and it’s easily one of my favorites of 2024. Also, something really fun happened recently—Sivertson actually selected Unread for a feature for Hark Audio (alongside Jamie Loftus). Anyway, go listen to Beyond All Repair before someone spoils the ending (which Sivertson handles masterfully) for you.

A few more

If you’re looking for another jaw-dropper of a series, Alexi Mostrous’s Sweet Bobby is great, as are both seasons one and two of Jason Moon’s Bear Brook (two totally different stories, both so well told). I also loved Jana Pruden’s In Her Defence, and Jean Lee and Geoff White’s The Lazarus Heist (both seasons one and two) is an all-time favorite. Finally, be sure to check out the series Julie, made by the late Julie Yip-Williams and a team from Pineapple Street Media. There are surely so many others I’m forgetting, but I think you’ve got plenty to get you started here.

Who else should I be listening to? Let me know in the comments!

Though I didn’t know it, the odds were already stacked against me when I set out to make my first podcast a few years ago. I was a writer with a story I felt could only be told in audio, but all I knew of the podcast industry was that I loved listening to them. I began reaching out to the podcasters in my life, and while they were all supportive and encouraging, they (very understandably) weren’t able to help me get a show made.

After months of these conversations, I decided to try something a little different, and slid into the Twitter DMs of a podcast producer at iHeartMedia. It was a total shot in the dark, but to my great surprise (and hers) it actually worked. iHeart decided to take a chance on me, a totally unproven podcaster. They helped me assemble a small but incredibly talented team of folks who believed in my vision, and together we made Unread, a limited series that dropped in summer 2021.

A little over a month after Unread came out, Vulture and New York Magazine podcast critic Nicholas Quah published a beautiful and generous review of the show, in which he called it “a peculiar little puzzle box.” Quah suggested Unread was peculiar for a few reasons, including its subject matter, but also its length. At just four episodes, it was an unusually short series.

Though only a few years have passed since then, the podcast landscape has changed considerably, making short narrative series like Unread even more peculiar. There are a number of reasons for this, but here’s maybe the main one: narrative series can require months or even years of research, writing, and editing, which is a lot of time and resources for something that’s just a few episodes. Meanwhile, conversation-style podcasts (sometimes referred to as “chatcasts”) are often cheaper, faster, and easier to produce. That means you can make a lot more of them, and that means more money for everyone involved.

Limited series narrative podcasts, on the other hand, often struggle to find a financial equilibrium. Don’t take it from me. Here’s a telling bit from a very insightful piece Quah wrote in 2022 for New York Magazine on the state of the podcasting industry, which actually cites Unread by name as an example of the kind of show that is hard to make work financially:

Many creators still rely on advertising, an approach that emphasizes pure volume: more seasons, more episodes, more inventory. [Narrative podcasts] are in a losing battle with what are known as “always on” podcasts—the conversation and interview-based shows that are cheaper to make and become more powerful as the long tail of their back catalogues grows.

It’s no secret among creators of all kinds that the industry has changed, and not just in podcasting. I was recently at a wedding where many of the attendees worked in television, and they all said that it is increasingly difficult to fund more “bespoke” projects. In general, across storytelling industries, it is harder and harder to recoup costs (let alone make a profit) on smaller, more labor intensive projects, especially compared to things that are faster to produce. So even though Unread was immensely successful on paper—it’s among the top 1% of the most downloaded podcasts ever, according to data from the 2023 Podcasting Trends Report—it’s a tiny fish when it comes to the big leagues of podcasting.

But regardless of how much money they make, or how many listeners they get, I refuse to give up on the idea that short narrative series like Unread matter.

For one thing, while it wasn’t the most downloaded show of all time (top 1% sounds impressive until you remember there are a lot of podcasts — over 4 million according to Podcast Index), Unread did reach a lot of people. It was written up quite literally around the world, from newspaper coverage in countries like Belgium, Mexico, and Australia, to year-end recognition in places like Canada, the U.K., and even Serbia.

Quah was actually one of the show’s earliest and biggest champions, shouting it out in the aforementioned pieces, as well as in Vulture’s best-of-the-year list in both 2021 and 2023. I’ll always be grateful for the light he and many other journalists, critics, culture writers, and podcast creators shined on Unread, and how their support helped a little series like ours break out at a time when narrative podcasts find it harder and harder to get made, let alone noticed.

Still, while their help was appreciated, it was the response from everyday listeners that made and continues to make the biggest impact on me. I’ve heard from people who said Unread helped them process the death of their mother, a sibling, a close friend, or a lover, even many years after they died. I’ve also heard from listeners who have themselves struggled with suicidal thoughts, who told me the show made them feel seen in a way little media, art, or writing has. Listeners still reach out to say that Unread changed their perspective on suicidality and how to support their loved ones who struggle with it, while others have called it a lifeline, a source of healing, or a wake-up call. To this day, I find myself unable to adequately do justice to just how much these messages from listeners have impacted and stayed with me.

After years of sitting with these responses to Unread, I finally feel ready to make another limited series narrative podcast. Despite the odds set against them at the moment, I believe narrative podcasts offer something singular and necessary—a kind of intimacy that’s unique to the medium, one that makes it easier to capture complex human experiences and emotions. I have also been sitting with another story I’d like to tell, one that I believe requires this particular kind of intimacy.

But how to get it made, given the current podcasting landscape? This time, I’m taking that into my own hands. I’m excited to say that I’ve started my own podcast studio, Good Judy Productions, which I will use to create my next series (and, I hope, maybe even some others). I learned so much while making Unread, and I’m excited to put those skills and experiences to work on the first series from Good Judy Productions.

I’m not going to tell you what that series is about just yet—both because I want to keep it close to the chest for the time being, and because, as was the case when I made Unread, I won’t know exactly what it is or how it ends until I start making it! For the moment, I’ll say that it’s a queer story about love and loss, about how we show up for one another in trying times, and about finding community and meaning in the face of fear and alienation. That may sound a bit like Unread, and in some broad senses, sure. But I assure you this series will be going to some very different places, too.

I’m grateful to say that iHeartPodcasts believes in my vision for this new series, and has agreed to team up with Good Judy Productions to distribute and promote it. While some of the other podcast distributors I talked to asked if I could make the series longer, or if I could re-imagine it as a chatcast instead of a narrative, iHeart supports my plan to keep the series short in length and narrative in style. (Nothing against chatcasts or longer series! I love many. I just think short narratives have a place, too.) Once again, they’ve agreed to take a chance on my vision. In a climate that doesn’t seem particularly hospitable to short narrative series, this feels like a gift.

Before I can make it, however, I need you to take a chance on me, too. I’ve been applying for grant funding to support the creation of this show, but whether or not I’ll get any remains to be seen. There are so many creators who deserve this kind of support, and I will not be even a little surprised if the money I’ve applied for goes to others. Besides, even if I somehow get one or all of these grants, there will be additional costs I need to cover. So I’ve decided to come to you directly, the community of people who have shown me and Unread so much love and support over the last few years, to ask for a little more of it.

You may be asking yourself why I’m raising money to fund this show if iHeart is already on board. Fair question! The answer is that while iHeart is supporting the show by funding distribution and promotion for it, I am still seeking funding for the production costs of the series. This, I hope, is where you come in.

Anything you’re able to pitch in would be massively appreciated, though I’ve got a few specific ways I’d like to thank those who contribute, listed below:

Any amount: your name on our website

$15 or more: a Good Judy sticker and your name on our site

$25 or more: 2 stickers and your name on our site

$50 or more: 3 stickers and your name on our site

$75 or more: a handwritten thank you note, 3 stickers, and your name on our site

$100 or more: your name in the final podcast credits and on our site, plus a thank you note and stickers

$500 or more: a social media and newsletter shoutout (tags included), your name in the credits and on our site, plus a thank you note and stickers

$1000 or more: an early preview of the first episode, and all of the above

$5000 or more: an early preview of the entire series, plus the rest

This series will be free for anyone who wants to listen. Any amount you’re able to offer, no matter its size, will make a tremendous difference toward ensuring that’s possible.

Click here to contribute, then fill out this Google form so that we can make sure you receive proper credit. And if you can’t give personally, please consider spreading the word to those you think might be able to.

You can learn more about Good Judy Productions, its mission, and a few initial members of our amazing team by visiting our beautiful new website designed by Jared Maire. Also, please consider subscribing to this newsletter for updates if you haven’t already.

Thank you so much for your time, consideration, and for all the ways you’ve supported me and my work over the years. I’m so grateful for each and every one of you, and I look forward to keeping you in the loop. Stay tuned for more from me soon, including details about an upcoming Good Judy special event and a list of some podcasters who inspire me to keep creating.

With love and gratitude,

Chris

In my first post, I mentioned that I have a big announcement coming next month. That’s still true, and I’m really excited to share it with you soon. For now, however, I’d like to talk about my last big announcement, which you may remember if you were with me over on my previous newsletter platform.

In case you weren’t: I’ve got a new book coming! Nothing in Particular, which I’ve been working on for a number of years now, is due out in 2027.

That’s a ways off, but I figure it may be time to start sharing a little of what I’ve been up to while working on it. Researching and writing a book is often a very solitary experience, and though I’ve gotten more comfortable with solitude with each book, there comes a time where you need to share something about a work-in-progress with someone or you’ll burst.

So while we wait for next month’s announcement, and 2027, here’s a bit more information about one thing I’ve been up to these last few years of working on Nothing in Particular:

I’ve been collecting memes.

To be fair, mostly I’ve been meeting with advisers, conducting interviews, and doing a lot of reading. In fact, I’ve got an entire bookshelf full of research materials for this project. We’re talking hundreds of books and articles. I’ve jokingly taken to calling it a research library, which resulted in this very cute and funny sign I got as a gift:

Anyway, you can’t just read, research, and report. Well, I can’t. If you read my last book, IRL, you know that mindless internet scrolling is one way I blow off steam. Sometimes, while scrolling, I come across a meme that’s relevant to a current project. Usually I just share it with a friend or keep scrolling, but while working on Nothing in Particular I decided to start saving some. Now I’ve got a whole photo album folder full of them.

For the moment, as an introduction to this project, I want to share just a curated few. Perhaps they’ll give you some hints about where this book is headed.

I’m not sure these memes have cleared anything up, so here’s a very short description of what this book is about: Nothing in Particular explores meaning in the modern age, beginning by looking at the fastest growing segment of the U.S. religious landscape—those who identify as “nothing in particular”—before building to a broader consideration of the forces driving alienation and disconnection in contemporary life. If that sounds heavy, well, it kind of is, but I promise it isn’t just heavy. I’ve learned so much that has challenged, intrigued, and excited me. Plus I’ve got a lot more memes.

Want updates as I continue to work on the book and get closer to sharing what I’ve learned? Stay subscribed here, and follow along on Instagram for more memes from my phone.

If you want to support my work, I invite you to consider pledging a Substack subscription. I’m toying with the idea of enabling them for folks who want to pitch in to help support years of accumulating research materials (and of not being paid for this work). Maybe I’ll even share in-progress material with subscribers? If this is something you might be interested in, or if there are other things you’d enjoy as a paid subscriber, please reach out or let me know in the comments. For now, I hope you enjoyed this preview-via-memes!

Hi friends!

I’ve been having issues with my newsletter host for a while now. Maybe you noticed. The biggest issue: I keep hearing from subscribers that they don’t receive my messages, which is a problem! I haven’t been able to figure out why, and to be honest I already found my old newsletter platform difficult to navigate on the back end.

I’ve been eyeing Substack for a while and, after talking with some friends who use it, I’m making the leap and hoping it will make things easier for all involved.

A big part of what’s motivating me to fix this issue is that I’ve got some pretty exciting news to share next month, and I want to make sure it actually reaches you. So keep an eye out for that soon!

Until then, thanks for following along over here. I hope you’re taking good care.

Yours,

Chris