What to watch this weekend
Buckets of screen time, a book about bodies, plus a request for your help
**First, I need your help! I'm working on a piece about sex and marriage, and I’m looking to speak with a diverse group of married women (and any willing male partners) about their experiences not having sex with their spouses— so, married people who identify as having a platonic marriage, or those who are taking (or have taken) an extended break from marital sex for any reason, whether it's been intentional, agreed upon, contentious, accidental, medical, postpartum/parenting or trauma related, you're in therapy about it, totally happy with how things are, or otherwise. The piece is primarily tracing trends in cis hetero monogamous marriage, and I’m especially interested in talking to those from diverse racial and financial backgrounds. If this is you, or if you want to know more before sharing your story, reach out!
Please also feel free to share this call with your networks or with anyone you think might be interested in talking with me. You can reply to this newsletter if you get it in your inbox or DM me on Instagram or email amandemontei@gmail.com.
In other news, Touched Out is in this thoughtful essay at Electric Literature.
I’ll be in conversation with the brilliant writer Margo Steines, author of Brutalities, in person at Green Apple Books in San Francisco (9th Ave location) this Monday, January 8 at 7pm! Margo’s new book is a gorgeous and tender rendering of the history of her body and her movement toward love, consent, and motherhood. We will be talking about touch, pain, work, writing, and lots more. You can stream the live conversation if you’re not local. I will also publish an interview with Margo next week.
Very fun for the writers among us: I’ve just launched a new subscription option, previously called the “Madwoman” founding tier. I’m calling it our Writing Club to reduce confusion with the regular paid subscription and because, yes, it’s a cool club for writers (and artists and other creatives) that you should join. It’s also like a loose, year-long class. You can read all about it here and here. Also here. The cost, for now, is just $150 for the whole year. You get access to two virtual retreats a year, monthly craft lessons with a reading list and writing prompt, and weekly chats with our supportive community. I’m really trying to offer sliding scale options to increase accessibility (any new thing is not without kinks, especially this close to the first of the year), as well as monthly subscriptions (rather than just annual) for this, but it’s proving annoyingly difficult given Substack’s currently nonsensical subscription limitations. Just know I’m running things up the flagpole asking for more options and will let you know when I have more on that front.
Regular paid subscribers still get lots of other treats including the post you are previewing here (which I’m moving to Fridays), and they support all the essays you read here, basically everything I do as a writer. I am so very grateful for you/them!
I am also very aware that Substack is hosting Nazis, and not at all okay with this, obviously. I am having many discussions with writers who I trust about staying on this platform to advocate versus just leaving, as well as the double standards here and how this is not really about free speech, given that sex workers have been censored on this platform. I am also following
on Notes— she is sharing her conversations with Substack leadership. If it comes time to move platforms, I will, and of course your subscriptions will be honored, but I hope it doesn’t come to that because I really do love what we’ve built here.On the heels of the holiday break, I have been reading about authors disappearing. I found this interview with Rachel Cusk, about the aftermath of writing her book Aftermath— a period when she retreated from public view, from books and writing, and later, when she did return to her work, how she retreated from the page, disappearing into fiction. The interviewer’s characterizations of Cusk are irksome and telling of the year in which the interview took place (2014), but Cusk’s words are revelations, provocations in the best way. She says in one part of the interview, of the connection between a writer’s style and self:
Just as a person, don't you sometimes get sick of being yourself and want to be the thing you aren't? But you are the thing you are – to me, that is style. It is relatively bonded to self and there is not a lot you can do about it.
Over the past few weeks, as work let up a little, I found myself sleeping at night for 12+ hours, still exhausted when I woke up. Like many, I’m constantly thinking about the pain and violence in the world. I’m trying to figure out how not be sick of myself and also the world. I have slowly started to look ahead to new projects after the launch of my last book, often daydreaming about taking myself out of the writing, or trying— I’ll never write nonfiction again, I’ve said to friends and other authors, but ideas keep coming, the kind that require a level of exposure I’m not sure I’m ready to undertake again.
At the same time, I am longing to write about and toward myself as a method for getting to know my life and self and style and tiny recent personal tragedies better. It’s funny to see everyone so clearly sum up their years and what’s next for them. I’m resisting doing that here—that pretending I’m clear-eyed, talking about resolutions or even anti-resolutions. This is the time of year that I want to retreat and look inward. Or get excited about new projects. Or hole up with my kids playing card games with confusing rules, reorganizing my desk, cleaning something I’ve neglected for months, making notes about every aspect of my life. It just feels like this year is a slower start, like I’m dragging my feet, like I’m still stuck in the mud of recent months.