Further down the page: live UK dates • the next online retreat • June Book Club
Hello,
I was absolutely gleeful to interview Samantha Irby last week. When I’m in need of a lift, hers is the voice I reach for. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve loaded up her audiobooks and let her wry, laconic voice drift over me as I go about my day. She is very, very funny, but also just fantastically honest about being a human in a human body. That shouldn’t be a rare thing, but somehow it is. She talks to us about our own personhood.
I won’t lie: I’m still reeling from learning about her writing process, which I’m pretty sure is the literary equivalent of white water rafting. Did I have to email my editor afterwards in all-caps to say ‘WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY TIME??’ Maybe. Couldn’t possibly say. But there we have it: some people (like Sam) are just born to do this. Other people (like me) are incapable of getting anything done without an existential crisis.
Other things we talked about: realising you have a body again after lockdown, dogs that don’t love us enough/love us too much, writing about the darkest parts of our life, and terrorising Sex and the City fans by writing on And Just Like That… If you haven’t read it already, do check out her latest essay collection, Quietly Hostile.
You can listen in the podcast feed, and also now watch us on YouTube, in case that’s more convenient. There’s a transcript below.
Take care,
Katherine
✵ My next UK live appearances:
Wednesday 5th June: Dulwich Books with Alice Vincent
Monday 15th July: Margate Book Shop with Dan Richards for his Climbing Days tour (no booking link yet but put it in your diary!).
✵ Our next online retreat is on Saturday 8th June, 4 - 7pm UK/11am - 2pm ET / 8am - 11am PT. If you’d like to join us for four soothing gatherings a year, please upgrade to the Retreat Tier.
✵ Next month’s True Stories Book Club takes place on 25th June at 6pm UK, and it’s a bit unusual: a novel! I realise that’s a strange choice for a non-fiction book club, but I couldn’t resist making an exception for this one. Tom Newlands’ debut, Only Here, Only Now is a brilliantly-voiced coming-of-age story, told by a neurodivergent teenage girl in 1990s Scotland. I think you’re going to love it; I certainly did. Pre-order here. We’ll be sending out full details in a reading guide next week.
If you think a friend or loved one would enjoy The Clearing by Katherine May, gift subscriptions are available here | Website | Buy: Enchantment UK /US | Buy: Wintering UK / US | Buy: The Electricity of Every Living Thing UK / US
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