Hi! I’m back! And so is I Love What You’re Doing!
Did you miss me/this newsletter?
What’s that? You didn’t notice that I took a break for the summer?
I didn’t announce the break! I didn’t write a heads-up post letting you know that I’d be gone for a bit but also assuring you that I’d definitely be coming back! I didn’t even leave you a note. I just…stopped. I felt mildly guilty about it (all these paid subscribers! What if they’re mad at me?! Also, to my paid subscribers: Wow, thank you for that!) but at some point I decided to get over myself and release that, and I reminded myself that, let’s be honest, no one is mad about one less thing in their inbox. Literally no one has texted or written me to be like WHEN IS THE NEXT NEWSLETTER COMING! I NEED MORE EMAILS FROM YOU!
And for that, I am so glad.
When you’re a person who has spent some time (years) sharing your words and images and selves and opinions on the internet in a semi-regular way, it’s a very good and necessarily humbling experience to kind of disappear for a while and be reminded that the world is juuuuust fine without your content for a while. I figured I’d return at my own pace, and tadaaa! here I am again, in your inbox.
Since you asked (hahaha, again, no one is asking, but that’s the beauty of this uni-directional format), I’ll fill you in on What I Did This Summer. I parented and did fun stuff with the kids including birthday celebrations for my July babies! I decompressed from our wedding! I finally watched and completely obsessed over “The Bear!” I went to As games and up to the mountains and I convinced my kids to go on one really excellent hike with me!
I watched an enormous amount of World Cup soccer! I saw (and loved) Barbie! And to complete that particular holy shit trinity of Summer 2023: I got on an airplane with my wife and two teenagers and we flew to Los Angeles to drape ourselves in sequins and glitter and behold the spectacle that is Taylor Swift. And what a spectacle it was.
I also went to Mexico with my brand new wife for magical romantic honeymoon purposes, and to Kauai with my family for the purpose of cheering on my badass sister who ran her first full goddamn marathon.
Before we went to Kauai, I mourned for the devastation of Lahaina and West Maui. I obsessively followed the efforts of many Maui-based mutual aid orgs and Venmo’ed lots of money to individual families—something you can still absolutely do. I recommend this IG page as well as this vetted and continually updated spreadsheet.
And we sent our boys off to school to be big 5th graders, and—GASP!—the teen started high school.
(I am retroactively exhausted just reading all of that).
I spent time with kids and pets and neighbors and friends and my wife and myself. I read and I wrote and I read and wrote some more. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I have been deep in the throes of revision and “final edits” on a novel that has been in the works for many many many years. And W. Kamau Bell and I are in the throes of adapting Do the Work, our antiracist activity book for adults, into a book for young readers. Deep in the throes! Really in the weeds! Writing writing writing, reading reading reading.
I’ve also been reminding people that in addition to being someone whose work entails writing books I am also someone whose work entails leaving the house to do school visits and other public speaking events. (Yes, I also do these things virtually, from the comfort of my dining room table). I genuinely love doing author visits to schools and libraries, and I love talking to grown-ups as well. I’m excited for some cool events I have coming up, from college campus visits to 3rd grade classrooms to corporate keynotes. Just a note to you, dear reader/s, that I’m available for this kind of stuff, and still have some spots in my Fall/Winter schedule. Get in touch via email or my website or IG or any of these various online spaces where I can pretty easily be located.
As for this newsletter, aka I Love What You’re Doing: Good news! Despite this gross sociopolitical hellscape of a moment we’re slogging through, there continue to be so many people doing big brave beautiful things that I love, and I continue to want to talk to them, and tell you about them.
I’ve got some good conversations on tap, so stay tuned to hear about why Kate (not me!) is running for school board; why Aya is publishing radical antiracist YA spy thrillers; why Judd uses his public platform as a beloved comics creator to speak on the rights of (gasp!) humans who happen to be trans; why Yanique didn’t think about the tender feelings of white women at all while writing her memoir; and what Jess and Layshia have to share about sports and the WNBA and queer parenting.
More soon!
Kate
p.s. I’m really loving this book, as well as its follow-up friend The Book of More Delights. We got to see Ross Gay in person a few weeks ago and he’s just, well, pure delight! Do yourselves a favor: read Ross Gay.