A stimulating group meditation on the grungy yet joyous craft of wordsmithing.
Writers recount slogging through obscurity, low pay, addictions, and self-doubt on their way to fame and book deals in these scintillating interviews.
Author Small reprints portions of 31 conversations from his Write About Now podcast with novelists, journalists, critics, playwrights, screenwriters, cartoonists, and the odd rock star and fashion designer on their early careers. From this raucous variety, some themes emerge—juvenile literary yens, the influence of great teachers, lucky breaks (and the hard work that makes them possible), the disruptions of the internet (which crushed the well-paying print media that used to sustain professional writers but also let talented unknowns self-publish and find an audience), and the importance of taking risks, being pushy, and just going for it. Interviewees include Amy Morin, who cranked out internet content at $15 per piece until her article about bad mental habits went viral; Lori Majewski, who parlayed her teenage Duran Duran fanzine into a music-writing career; Andy Weir, who spent 25 years as a software engineer before posting his SF novel The Martian on Amazon (it eventually reached orbit as a Matt Damon movie); Sue Monk Kidd, who was 53 when she published her first novel—the mega-seller The Secret Life of Bees; and Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz, who recalls the band’s big break at CBGB’s: “I heard Johnny Ramone say…‘They can open for us because they suck. They’re gonna make us look good.’” The interviews are warm, free-flowing, and evocative, as when New York Times journalist Dan Barry recollects his Irish-born mother’s storytelling: “She would go to the ShopRite to buy a quart of milk, and then come home and spin this Homeric epic out of having bought a quart of milk….what the checkout clerk was doing; what kind of gum she was snapping; what kind of mother was the woman in front of her because she was buying Lucky Charms cereal, and we all know that’s not good cereal.” The result is an engrossing read and a reassuring prod to aspiring scribes.
A stimulating group meditation on the grungy yet joyous craft of wordsmithing.Pub Date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781964377193
Page Count: 198
Publisher: Legacy Launch Pad Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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