the work of a year.

what I got up to in 2025.

coffee in Vienna. December 2025.

Dear friends,

2025, on a collective level, was one of the worst years of all the ones I’ve been alive for. Two ongoing genocides, fires in LA, brutal ICE raids; more AI slop, more annoying internet fights, more cultural shifting rightward. In my own life, I lost my last living grandparent, I navigated persistent chronic pain, I worried a lot, and I grieved (for all of it, for everything). I also had many beautiful experiences that brought me so much joy. It is a trite but true refrain that joy and suffering can co-exist, and I will always keep repeating it.

When I look back on the work of my year, it is clear I did a lot of it. Half of it was spent still on a full-time Visiting Professor line (and a couple of side gigs), and the second half I was part-time teaching with a lot of additional side jobs, and through it all, I was writing my book. I also saw a lot of movies and did a lot of birding. I mention all of these things together because I think all three are examples of coping mechanisms that exist on a spectrum of generative to problematic. I definitely needed to work a lot in order to cobble together a living wage. I definitely needed time in nature. I definitely needed to engage art and storytelling. But I also definitely wanted a distraction from the horrors. Work and time in the woods and the movies nourished me and also they helped me avoid everything else. Some days I think what matters most is the attention we give to our smallest corners of the world, to the relationships we tend to in our closest units, and other times I think that is an excuse not to do more. I still feel torn on this question.

What I do know is that I am grateful for what is clear to me after this cataloging of my labor: I am finding ways to do my art. And in these harrowing times, thank goodness that others are finding ways to do their art too.

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Writing.

I finished another draft of my book, and I think this one is actually pretty stinkin’ close to done (minus copyedits and citations). This book has been a steady mix of intense passion and dreaded slog. I am resolute in the argument I’m making — that the reactionary ghosts of the feminist sex wars are haunting our contemporary movement in troubling ways, that framing sex (and men) as always-already dangerous will ultimately serve Right-wing agendas, that a truly liberatory approach toward sexual freedom must insist on pleasure— but the labor conditions of book writing (read: working for free) have worn on me and I am very ready for it to be off of my plate. I’m also very ready to once again pivot away from more academic writing; the exhaustion I feel is very akin to how I felt after completing my thesis and dissertation, a sort of deep love-hate with the intense research I’d poured myself into for years. With my memoir, I didn’t feel such contempt, because, even when the process was hard, the writing really fed me. I think I’ve hinted at this before, but I’m 98% sure my next project is going to be fiction (!) and I’m so excited. Anyway, I probably shouldn’t speak so ill of the thing I’m going to want you to buy in a year, but I trust very much that this break will help recharge me and I’ll be genuinely stoked to talk about it again when the time comes. Pre-orders will likely begin summer 2026, and the book will be in your hands by the very beginning of 2027.

I published 50 newsletters, which is one more than I sent last year. The top three (most read) included: “a feminist rant in response to feminist rants,” the “anarcho-tradwives” conversation I had with Margaret Killjoy and Hazel Acacia, and “the state is the enemy of care” which is a short bit on the nuances of family abolition. I love the newsletter, though the general state of the newsletter ecosystem has been feeling a bit grim this year. I’m not sure how much longer this platform will be sustainable for anyone who isn’t a celebrity or a brand or willing to generate slop to meet the AI moment, so I’m just going to double-down on my gratitude for the days we have left and for all of you for being here (and for all of the newsletter writers who add so much nourishment to my own life!).

I interviewed Niko Stratis for Xtra about her absolutely beautiful book, The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman. We talked about gender, what it means to make political music, how work and class intersect with music and identity, and more. Niko is one of my favorite people and writers, and I hope you’ll check out her newsletter and this book!

& just in time to include it in 2025, I got a dream byline in Playboy! Digital, but still, I think I can now keep aspiring in the footsteps of James Baldwin (who wrote for them) and my beloved Pamela Anderson. And even better than the byline is the fact that I got to raise awareness about a topic close to my heart: I wrote about International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, the many forms of harm sex workers face today, as well as the powerful organizing and resistance against it.

Readings/Talks.

It was a dream year for live readings and talks. Though I admittedly love the introvert isolation for which a writing life allows, I am also thrilled for opportunities to connect with fellow writers and readers. This year, I was part of such nourishing events, including:

• In March, I read this piece at the Unruly Bodies reading in Los Angeles, organized by the tender and talented Margeaux Feldman as an off-site event for the AWP conference. It was a really special night in a very special week.<3

• In June, I read and talked with the lovely Adam Gnade at Blind Rage Records in Dayton. I was so moved after hearing him read that I binged a bunch of his books immediately after our event. I absolutely love how he sees the world around him with such detail and devotion, and how he tells us about it.

• In July, a real dream came true when I got to open for one of my all-time favorite writers, Hanif Abdurraqib, at the Starlight Elsewhere special event in honor of Joy David’s birthday. I read this piece (and a bit from my book) and Hanif read work from a forthcoming project. He was as magnetic and mesmerizing as ever.

• In October, I was in conversation with the brilliant Dan DiPiero and we had such a generative discussion about his beautiful book Big Feelings: Queer and Feminist Indie Rock After Riot Grrrl. You can listen to it here.

Teaching.

In the spring, I wrapped up my last semester as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin teaching Intro to Feminist Studies, Intro to Queer Theory, and Queer(ing) Media. (My time at Oberlin also put Queer Prison Abolition, Reproductive Justice, and the Feminist Sex Wars classes under my belt…I did a lot of course design and prep!). Though I was ready to go, I am genuinely so grateful for my two years at the school, mainly because it put me in community with incredible students and colleagues. One of my colleagues, Leila Ben-Nasr, a VAP like me and a fierce Palestine solidarity activist, recently unexpectedly passed away. I’d love for you to read what her students wrote about her here; she was a remarkable person.

In the fall I started teaching at the local art school in Cleveland and was delighted to acclimate to the new culture of visual art students. I love how their brains work and I love being around young people so devoted to creativity. I taught two sections of Writing Across Gender and we had a great reading list (if I do say so myself).

Also in the fall: for Lit Cleveland, I taught Intro to Creative Nonfiction. And also in the fall, I facilitated EXCAVATIONS, my six-week memoir container. It was a truly transformative six weeks, digging into style, ethics, dialogue, memory, and so much more. Everyone closed the container with a full essay or memoir chapter, and we all left feeling a bit more sense of writerly community. (The next round of EXCAVATIONS starts February 1st, and there’s an early bird discount until Jan 1. Paid subscribers get an even bigger discount (email me for the code). Payment plans are available & there’s one scholarship spot left. Join us!).

And in August, I started teaching fitness and yoga classes again. I love this kind of teaching and after doing it from 2012-2020, I had a sad five year hiatus. It’s been a joy to get back to making playlists and planning workouts and sequences, and I never tire of the peacefulness of an empty early morning studio.

Miscellaneous

*I was a guest speaker at Tulane (via Zoom) once about my memoir and once to give a workshop on AI and Feminism (in my version of feminism, we do not intentionally engage with ecocidal and soul destroying tools).

*I was a guest speaker at St. Francis Xavier University on the topic of prison abolition and gender/sexuality.

*I mentored two new writing clients and got to witness such impressive accomplishments. (I am shifting my coaching work a bit, so if you’d like to work together, please email me to find out more. I have two folks lined up for 2026, and I’d love to add another 1-3 people for the beginning of the year!)

*I maintained my involvement as a collective member at our local radical social center, though like the year before, my participation was lower than I would have liked. I continue to be inspired by the space that’s created partially by our crew of collective members, but really by the community who makes it its own through shows, reading groups, potlucks, clothes swaps, and so so so much more. Fighting alienation through social gathering without any expectation for money exchange is a beautiful goal that I know this space accomplishes. And even though it also comes with challenges and frustrations (and perhaps truthfully this is why I am including it in the ‘work’ roundup), I am humbled and grateful to play a small role in it.

Tell me in the comments: what work did you get up to this year? Where did you put your time? What do you dream for your time in 2026?