Dude Week

I'm not really sure how it started, but I wound up guest-editing the mommy-blog Kveller.com, where I work, this week. We're calling it Dude Week. Let me try that again: We're calling it

And among our guest columnists are an Orthodox rabbi's husband, my boss, and Mayim Bialik interviewing her husband, since we love her at work and her man is, like, lovable squared. And he has what might be the best line of the week, which I can't repeat due to POSSIBLE SPOILERS, but you'll see soon.

Anyway, this morning I kicked it off:

We don’t write about our kids. We write about ourselves. I’m not saying this to be offensive, and I’m definitely not complaining: Look, babies sleep 18 hours a day. Most of their waking hours are spent doing slight variations on very simple tasks: feeding, peeing, vomiting, crapping, and crying. Just mention the phrase “the miracle of birth” around a new parent and they’re likely to pelt you with any one of the above-mentioned substances. 

Mommy-blogging isn’t about learning how to take care of your child. Despite what diaper companies and daytime TV commercials would like to convince you, you are born knowing how to care for your baby. Neanderthals raised babies successfully. Sloths sleep 18 hours a day, and they raise children successfully. Freaking Libertarians raise babies successfully.
Read the rest > 

Thank G-d I Didn't Name This Book "Kosher Jesus"

Okay, this is a big time for Jupiter. Next week, there's a new Jupiter story coming out -- chapter two of Enemies, the sequel to Losers, if you're keeping track. (If you aren't keeping track, Enemies is sort of a scavenger-hunt novel, where each chapter shows up in a different place -- chapter one is in this anthology, for instance.)

So I just got asked for a biography, and I wanted to include the title of the first story. I know I should really have it memorized, since I wrote it and everything, but you know that's not how these things always play out. Plus, the editor was British, and I'd originally titled it "Girl Jesus on the Uptown Train" and she didn't know what uptown meant, or that trains are what we call aboveground subways in Philadelphia (actually, we call it The El, but I knew nobody would have any clue what I was talking about if I wrote that)....anyway, we called it something like "Girl Jesus on the Inbound Subway," or maybe it was originally "Inbound Train" and we switched it to "Uptown Subway," and I'm not even sure if "uptown" should be capitalized in the title since it's sort of a preposition--

(And this is the way anxious people think. And I am an anxious person.)

(And there really is a reason I used "Jesus" in the title. You'll find out, eventually. But I can't spoil all the stories at once.)

So I turned to Google. Basically just searched my name + Jesus, and to my great surprise and immense pleasure, found a bunch of reviews about it. Which I didn't know existed at all for maybe almost a year, and  which I incredibly apologize for not blogging about sooner.

• This one is just awesome, in which my story is called "swift" and "beautifully written" and "with a stinging twisty bit at the end," and that's not even the nicest thing she says about it. (Spoiler: I now have a couch to crash upon in London any time I want to.)
  
• And I freaking got picked for Short Story Saturday! I wish I could say it was just because it was Shabbos and I was off the Internet, but, no, this was months ago. "I love how troubled and prone to fantasy he was." I think they're talking about Jupiter but I know they're really talking about me.

Okay, sit tight. The next chapter hits soon in Apiary magazine, which will be (a) online and (b) free, and which will (c) feature Bates, who is Jupiter's gay death-metal best friend/antagonist/confidante. I'll let you know exactly when it's up. And if you haven't read "Girl Jesus," I'm pretty sure there's at least part of it in the preview on Amazon.

And, bonus, double update: This is the cover of Cornered, which will have the next Jupiter story! Okay, end of excitement. Yeah, right.

Patrick Aleph Rocks My Religion

For someone whose life is writing on the Internet, Patrick Aleph still has a lot of secrets.
Aside from running the alterna-Torah site PunkTorah, the "online minyan" OneShul, the collection The G-d Project, and a bunch of other sites, Aleph is an astoundingly prolific blogger and YouTube video-maker. As a convert, his perspective on Judaism -- and on Jews -- is that of both an insider and outsider, and his observations on Jewish life and belief are often reflective of that. The things he loves, he loves. And the things he finds disquieting or hard to swallow -- well, he doesn't have any hesitation about making note of that, either.


If you've never encountered Aleph before, or if there's too much of his stuff out in the universe for you to know where to start, here's a great place. He's just released -- for free -- an e-book collection of his writings, titled, appropriately,PunkTorah, named after both his punk do-it-yourself principles and his website. The two dozen or so essays touch on everything from the actual nuts-and-bolts of Jewish practice to the more aesthetic and eschatological wtf-nesses of belief (how weird is it that we believe in an intangible, invisible G-d who doesn't actively interact with humanity, anyway?). And he really isn't afraid to break boundaries or mess around with tradition: In one piece, Patrick talks about working with queer Jews, self-proclaimed Jews who've neither traditionally converted nor been born into the religion. And the next piece is titled "Everything I Needed To Know I Learned From Chabad."

Actually, his essays are almost all amazingly-titled. OK, let me just give you my five favorites:

* Indie Rock Is My Shacharit Siddur
* Alterna-frum
* Walgreens and Tempeh Reubens Brought Me Closer To God
* Star Wars and Andy Warhol: PunkTorah's Non-Jewish Influences
* Diary of An Angry Convert

Full disclosure: Patrick cites me in a few of the essays. But I didn't remember that until after I was almost finished writing this, and I still think it's a pretty damn great book. And it's free, so you aren't wasting any money -- or any trees, for that matter.

Truant, but truthful

Tons of stuff to update, and I am totally truant. There have been a lot of people saying a lot of really nice things about Automatic, and I should write about them. But first I need to say a really nice thing about someone else: The amazing Ethan Young's first full-length graphic novel, Tails, is finally coming out! You can, and should, order it now. It's about being an artist and a vegetarian and an Asian geek with fantasies about turning into a superhero and living in New York City.

Oh, and I show up occasionally in the book.

And, totally separate, my sometimes-editor David Levithan compiles a best-of music list every year, and polls his coterie. His most recent list was just posted. Here's my entry:

Matthue R Goes Camp 

Weird thing: There's not much punk/loud stuff on here. I mean, Wild Flag, but that might be a vote for my past. I think that the most exciting stuff I'm finding is stuff that I'm just starting to give a second thought to? Also, other thing: A lot of the albums here are free mixtapes that the artists give away online. I mean, I love the hip-hop community.

most essential: Childish Gambino, Camp

and:
2. Wild Flag, Wild Flag
3. Frank Ocean, nostalgia, ultra.
4. Shondes, Searchlights
5. Regina Spektor, Live in London
6. Roots, undun
7. Nicki Minaj, Pink Friday (which I know didn't come out this year)
8. Girls in Trouble, Like You, Like Me
9. The Amy Winehouse uncollected-songs album.
10. House of Balloons, The Weeknd

Just in case you're curious, NONE of my albums made the Top Ten. Am I really cool, or just really out of touch?

HelloGiggles, Automatic-ally

Hey, so HelloGiggles.com featured my new book Automatic as their Item of the Day yesterday!

Besides being (actress-slash-singer-slash-Hitchhiker's Guide wunderkind) Zooey Deschanel and (producer) Sophia Rossi's website, they also feature particularly awesome writers such as Julia Gazdag (who wrote this piece) and Apocalypstick (who's just great), and it's a place that I actually read, which makes it particularly astounding for me to see my book in the same graphic space that I'm used to seeing things that are...well, not my book.

[A]fter blazing through the whole book in one sitting, I sat lost in a puddle of memories I had forgotten I experienced.
I love this book. I also love that even though you can get it for a kindle or as a pdf, you can also get a real life copy that’s handmade. And for $4.99. Including shipping. That’s way more than worth it. I don’t even understand that pricing. I’ve paid $25 for books that didn’t touch me as much as this one did.

Here, read the rest of it!

Automatic, the Real (Well, Paper) Version

So I wrote this book. It's a short book -- 15,000 words, or about a quarter the size of your average novel.

The book's on Kindle and as a pdf for pretty cheap, $1.99. I'm an old-fashioned sort, though -- I really like reading things in my hands. So I handmade a version of Automatic, which you can buy right here, and see photographs of below.

It's called Automatic, and I think it's really amazing. It's about my best friend and I, growing up as nerds in a  rough neighborhood, and falling in love and going crazy and listening to R.E.M., and him dying. (Spoiler, but it happens pretty early.)

The printed version is a little more expensive than the electro one -- it's $4.99, including postage (inside the US). It also includes a free download of the ebook.

You can order it on PayPal right now:

So, it's a good deal, right? But you're asking, is it hot? Because you're like that. And it's okay to ask.

The front features a cutout cover. The inside front and back covers are hand-lettered by me.

Inside, the pages are printed in a font that's easy to read (I could kill some of my favorite books for having ugly chapter headings) and large, but not too large. 

I also play with the text a bunch. You'll see. 

(It's blurry because I'm using the camera on my $25 cellphone, not because the words are. Promise.)

Seriously, just $4.99. And you'll get an ebook to read right now, while you wait.

(By the way, I can only ship to the USA. If you're abroad, drop a note, let me know where you are, and I'll set up a special link.)