I saw an interview with Kane Parsons, the 20-year-old director of Backrooms. He was responding to the use of AI in the industry (barf), something we had an entire Writers Guild strike about in 2023, but now have greats like Scorsese saying he loves the stuff, so I guess it’s a legitimate talking point again. Parsons is anti-AI, and his explanation as to why really struck a chord with me.

“Art is a way of processing life…I don’t see the value of outsourcing any element of that.”

It’s so simple, but so true. It made me realize that I need to reconnect with my own philosophy for making. I can get so clouded in my process. I spend too long wondering if something is good enough for a crowd, trying to edit it into the most digestible version of itself instead of following the feeling that sat me down in the first place. I agree with Parsons, the reason I create is to make sense of the world. I do it because I have to, because I can’t do anything else. Because I find the world to be so inexplicably beautiful yet so deeply unfair, and I want to attempt to reflect that. The measure of worthwhile art can’t be how many likes it has or how many other people saw it, it has to be the act of actually creating it.

This June is all about perspective, either finding your own again or spending some time in someone else’s. I’ve been increasing my media diet with books and magazines that let me into other worlds. The algorithmic machine of social media, even/especially places like Substack, can make it seem like everyone has the same thing to say. Physical media can help disrupt that echo chamber. When I have writer’s block I find it much easier to overcome when I look past my own navel.

Pen Pal Prompt

After reintroducing sensory diaries in June’s intentions post, I’m challenging you to send some senses to your pen pal. What are the touch, taste, smells of your month? What are you feeling? How many different sounds can you collect from where you sit right now if you really focus?

Bonus: draw a little illustration to hold the senses in. For example, a list of things you’ve seen out your window can be written in a drawing of an eyeball.

If you’re a paid subscriber submit to the form here to be matched in the next batch!1

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2026 has been my year of physical media. I’m as attuned to the blue light of my phone as the next person, but sometimes I need to get tactile. I like when my purse is heavy because I’m carting around a hardcover book. I like going to the post office and buying a fresh sheet of stamps because I’ve sent too many letters and I want to send even more. I like accidentally spilling coffee on the magazine I’m reading because I’m balancing breakfast with the crossword on my couch. What can I say, I’m an analog girl.

Analog for me has always meant resetting my relationship with tech, not getting rid of it completely. There are so many distractions on the internet, so many shiny things fighting for our attention. The constant trough of content keeps me in endless decision paralysis, but with physical media the options are deliciously limited. When I consume slowly, intentionally, I’m always happy I savored the bite.

And so, I present to you my favorite bites of spring. If you’re good and eat your dinner you can even get a little digital counterpart for dessert.

Keepsake’s Spring Physical Media Diet

I’ve been making 10 lists as a way to add some whimsy to my life. Instead of doing a numeric reading goal I like to challenge myself in a way that’s vibe-based. In March when I read Lázár I wanted to read a translated book, and in May I wanted to read a book that’s older than I am. My roommate lent me Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker and the writing is so pretty!

My translated read? Lázár: A Novel by Nelio Biedermann - I really loved how sprawling and generational this book was. Beautifully written, and Biedermann takes you 100% out of your modern brain. The book follows an aristocratic family in Hungary in the 20th century, and it was written by, you won’t believe this, a 22-year-old.

Digital dessert: Nelio talks the inspo behind the novel on IG

One of my favorite things about physical media is it can be collected. I remember exactly how it felt to get my own subscription to Vogue magazine. I was in my early twenties, and for the first time I was decorating beyond my childhood bedroom. I collected Vinyl and command stripped the album covers to my walls. I revelled in magazine subscriptions, both as a marker of adulthood (hello Carrie Bradshaw vibes) and a low-cost way to receive lots of mail with my first apartment address on it.

Carrie Bradshaw though, if I’m honest, can sometimes be a problem for me. I first knew I needed to go analog back in September, when I was double fisting a Sex and the City rewatch with a mindless phone scroll. Carrie Bradshaw was not the problem, oh God no, she was perfect just as she was. I could watch her make questionable choices in a loop for infinity. That was the problem actually, the infinite loop. The fact that I was turning on the television not to engage in something new, but to be comforted by the balm of familiarity. Movies were the answer. I love movies so much, whether on the silver screen or in the living room.

Before you say to me ‘but how is watching movies analog’ I need you to follow my specific thread of logic. Obviously the analog version of watching TikToks for five hours is streaming a TV show, and the analog version of streaming a TV show is going to the movies. Watching movies, when done correctly, is like reading a book. Which is kind of like thinking, just with someone else’s thoughts along for the ride.

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Movies help me think. A really great film can give my brain a tuneup. I solemnly swore to spend an entire autumn avoiding the binge watch, and only consume new-to-me movies. My roommate and I were committed to the regimen. We streamed the classics, we rented indies, we went to art house cinemas and sampled french new wave. I had an appetite for narrative film and it couldn’t be satiated. Once I ate my way through the paranoia trilogy I had some Hitchcock blondes as a snack. I cannot believe it took me so long to see Vertigo.

MUBI kindly sent me the latest edition of NOTEBOOK magazine, their annual publication that brings onscreen in paper. I was thrilled to find out more about Hitchcock’s taste in “The Alfred Hitchcock Dinner Hour, Revisited.”

The piece moves through favorites like quiche lorraine and frozen vanilla soufflé, accompanied by a spread of objects inspired by iconic Hitchcock films. The knife for Psycho, the rope for Rope, a single feather for Birds. I saw the latter two as part of my movie sprint, and now I’m wishing I paired them with one of his recipes. I also loved Elissa Suh’s piece ‘Against Nature: Feral Eating and Feminist Performance’. So much about character can be communicated through food.

Digital dessert: Find out more and subscribe to NOTEBOOK at mubi.com/magazine and treat yourself to 30 days free of MUBI at mubi.com/keepsake

One of my favorite forms of physical media is of course some good old snail mail. You may know I run a pen pal program here on keepsake, and it is the greatest honor of my lifetime to have connected 300+ people over paper and pen. This spring I also sent out my very first seasonal send! A collection of notes and arty bits went out to a select group of paid subs last week.

I prepared for this by visiting all my favorite stationery stores last month. Greenwich Letterpress in the West Village, The Analog Stationer in Prospect Heights, Measure Twice in Cobble Hill. All April, whenever I went out, I perused the sticker section and bought a few of whatever I could find to tuck into envelopes.

Paper ephemera is something that cannot be beat. I will post to my Instagram story, I will curate an aesthetic Pinterest board, but nothing will ever hit like the items pinned to my actual board.

I already have several scrapbooks filled with meaningful notes and beautiful paper. The pin board is a place for all the extras in between, the items that I’m not ready to glue down or hide away in my keepsake box. When my friends send me letters I stick them to my fridge or give them a spot there. It’s nice to have physical reminders of friendship when you’re loved ones are farther away. I save every birthday card, every ‘thinking of you’, I will keep my name card if you invite me to a dinner party. The hunger knows no bounds.

Digital dessert: If you’re into digital curation but looking for a community aspect you can join club keepsake. We have a shared Pinterest board and it always makes me smile to see what’s on everyone’s mind all these miles apart.

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Seconds, Please:

I’ve already talked too much about Famesick by Lena Dunham, I also had a book swap with my friend Claudia and she lent me new favorite The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. I’m not finished yet, but Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert is shaping up to be one of the most bummer-yet-fascinating things I’ve ever read. I’ve never taken a gender studies class before, and this feels like a crash course for the online generation. Analog style I went to three different bookstores to try and find Cake Zine’s new edition, Steak Zine, and ended up ordering it directly from their website when I came up empty. C’est la vie! They get the direct order extra bucks! I was hypnotized by Hudson Williams’ Wonderland cover and have my very own copy now. It’s on my bookshelf, but I think it needs a glass display case. My roommate has a subscription to New York Magazine and when she’s done I read them and if I’m feeling fancy do the crossword. Bonus: all unused magazines are eventually collage materials. Except for you Hudson, I’d never do that to you.

More Dessert Please:

I’m scared and obsessed with Widow’s Bay, the new Apple TV horror-edy. You probably also need this stretching video by izzygartner on IG because my hands are going numb from computer time. This sweet short film by Patrick Linehan on IG. I’ve been watching Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej since Buzzfeed days, but their videos have only gotten better since starting their own channel. Everytime I go on Watcher I learn something! This time it’s an art heist that kind of reminded me of The Mastermind, coincidentally a MUBI movie and my fave Josh O’Connor vehicle of 2025. That’s saying a lot, the man was in four films! Maybe go stream it on MUBI :)

xo,

Julianna

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June is the ‘girl who is going to be okay’ of months, so it makes sense that I’ve reached epiphany at the beginning of it. Everyone around me has gone through some sort of collective unwinding. The increased humidity is shortening everyone’s skirts and expanding their capacity for joy. Sure, let’s make plans on a work night! Let’s book a 2028 Eurotrip! Let’s let ourselves remember that we are more than just what we do for money! That last part is really important, and a special reminder for me in particular. When I’m at the office I want to be writing, and when I’m writing I’m wondering what life would be like if I devoted my 9-5 to myself instead of my day job. Then come the questions: am I good enough to leave my day job? Am I doing enough to grow? How long can I exist as two halves of a self, and what will it take to find a self that sticks? I can get stuck in cycles of all or nothing thinking, and so much of life is actually lived in the grey area. You can let that make you feel like you’re broken into parts, or you can consider yourself to be whole, even when your attention is divided.

I’ve been doing something really good for your mental health called Watching Instagram Stories. You only have to tap a few times until you see someone is in Portugal, or engaged, or getting engaged while on vacation in Portugal. I feel happy for them until I don’t. I’m unbothered until I’m bitter. I have to put the bitter somewhere, so I put it in a drink. Iced coffee, cold martinis, anything to buzz or jolt. Sometimes, to wear it down I try journaling about the bitter, but then that icky feeling is immortalized on the page, leaving me to feel silly and trite. Everytime I get struck by an awful glumness I accept it like it’s fate. Here it is, and it’s forever. Even when everything is going well for me. Even when my roads and doors are open. I still get these yucky pinpricks of doubt, and until recently I’ve considered that a moral failing on my part.

I am a present, careful, and grateful person. Then a cloudy day appears and I’m the opposite of that. This makes me feel split, like I should either be punished or praised, but can’t both things be true? Isn’t that what’s most human? We all have our moments of joy and disaster, but the story of who we are is told by how we ride those waves. Charli xcx came to me as she often does, a beacon of reason in a cluttered newsfeed. She shared a notes app post of hers from 2019 where she unloads all the cloudy thoughts she has about herself, her art, and her career.

The note goes on to say “the highs are high and the lows are punishing. Is this just human behavior? Are extreme feelings common to us all?” This was written seven years ago, but she says she feels exactly the same way today. BRAT undoubtedly changed her career, but it didn’t change the core instinct that drives her artistry. The unsureness, the swings, they all inform what she creates, and at the end of the day that matters much more than any external validation.

I realized I’ve been weighing my self worth and my writing on a capitalist scale when I should be using an artistic one. Your relationship with your art is never a complete picture, and it’s not something that should be measured the way we measure commercial success. Capitalism is all about constant growth, scaling a lot and then scaling some more. If you think of yourself or your art as little points on a graph you are setting yourself up for failure.

Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, but all of this is part of the same beautiful process. You’re more of an ocean tide than a spreadsheet.

⟡ feeling the sun ⟡ shifting your mindset ⟡ indulging in earthly pleasures

This June, I’m looking for some much needed perspective. Is the glass only either half-empty or half-full? What if it just depends on the way you look at it?

• Listen to mother nature. The sunshine is calling me, and I plan to heed it. There’s a great slowing to summer, a planned laziness. The earth is asking you to sit in the grass, feel sun on your face, take a little break from it all. It’s also growing all sorts of beautiful flowers for smelling and produce for tasting. Lean in to the impermanence of the season by taking in all the signs of summer you can.

• Work on your penmanship. Ohhh the convenience of the digital notebook. I love you so, but absolutely nothing feels as good as a really glidey pen on paper. If you’re having writer’s block, or just want to switch up your process, try spending the next month going paper first with your ideas. Write the cursive alphabet, rework your signature in case you get famous one day, address a bunch of letters to friends in curly-q script with hearts on the ‘i’.

• Seek media outside your scope. Watch a foreign film from a country you know little about, read a book that puts you in the shoes of someone whose life is entirely unlike yours. Take a chance on an album you wouldn’t normally listen to. It feels good to stretch your legs and get out of your orbit every once in a while!

• Say your affirmations. I used to find affirmations to be biiig cheesy, but what could be better than cheese? One of my favorite ones to keep in my back pocket is a version of something said on an episode of So True. ‘I love the world, and the world loves me’.

• Zoom out. Nothing stays the same for too long, not the good and not the bad either. You might be having a bad day/week/year, but that does not make a bad life. Things are larger than yourself, you are stronger than you know, and every time the sun comes out it’s because there used to be clouds.

Bonus: This bonus is only for NYC keepsakers! If you’re local to the city and you’re free on June 28th I would love to have a little meetup in Prospect Park with you. The agenda? Literally hanging out and chilling, but also a little bit of a book swap. Bring a book you’d like to share with someone, a picnic blanket, and whatever other keepsakes you keep on your person! Journaling, knitting, crafting encouraged.

More details to come 🫶🏼

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I’ve been finding these videos on Instagram lately, belonging to a category that can only be described as sensory exploration. One of my favorite finds has been Solvofficial, a musician that creates the most ethereal sound design with a deep sense of whimsy. She sits above a video clip of a humpback whale breaching, or a deer having some cherry blossoms as a snack, and adds a little synth to soundtrack the scene.

I’ll never view petals the same way again. Liking these has connected me to more sensory exploration, like the sea organ in Croatia and Kyle Brier, who uses rays of sunlight for sheet music. How cool are humans sometimes? I can’t think of a better collaborator than the sea and the sun. I’m so thankful I’ve trained my algorithm to bring me these little feats of humanity instead of AI cat videos. It’s this outside-of-the-usual thinking that I’m after this June. Listening to the water, playing with light, creating some kind of synchronicity between my senses. It’s this shift in perspective that brings about the best thoughts and feelings of all.

I’ve talked about keeping a sensory diary before, but just in case you’re new let me go over a few points.

How to Keep a Sensory Diary

A sensory diary is a little list that caters to your senses. Any little moments that call to you, any feelings you’d like to linger longer. I started keeping them after going for a walk on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. If you’ve been you know it’s an excellent place to find a bench and listen.

I zoomed in on each of my five senses, trying my best to keep track of what was grounding me to the moment. Things like the feeling of sun touching my skin, warming the tops of my shoulders. The sound of people chattering, and wind rustling trees. Each of these are little gifts that can sometimes go unnoticed in the broader scope of your day.

Sensory walks are a great way to hang onto the quiet moments in life, but here are a few other types of sensory diaries you can keep.

Steal these Sensory Diary Prompts

Nostalgic scents, Tastes from vacation, Sights of my neighborhood, Clothes that feel good on me, Sounds of morning.

Or, try these that I journaled about earlier:

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Last month’s highlights: I sold my book (!!!)

Last month’s terrors: I broke a glass in my kitchen and even though I swept like a million times there are still tiny shards finding their way into my foot.

Things I noticed: We’re captivated by the mystique of the OnlyFans girl, from “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” to “Euphoria.” Could write a whole piece about the Ghislaine-ification of Maddie Perez and Yasmin from “Industry.”

Books I read: It was on my 10 list for April to book swap with a friend, and Claudia gave me The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden. So well-written, I love anything where the house is as big a character as the people. Next was Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker, because it was on my 10 list for May to read a book older than I am. I then went for Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert which was a bummer, but necessary. The Stalker by Paula Bomer was a bummer, but not necessary, and now I’m partway through the iconic Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro which could be one of the most important things I do all summer.

Movies and Shows: I saw 95% of “Blue Heron” before the fire alarm went off at BAM and we were escorted out of the theater. Really can’t wait to see that last 5% because it was gorgeous. I’m so scared and so in love with “Widow’s Bay” on Apple TV wowowow. The line of horror and comedy is so close and this show walks it perfectly. I cannot get on the “Off Campus” train, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.

Hey why is nobody talking about: Widow’s Bay

To get a head start on all my perspective shifting I am not going to second guess this post, nor will I go through and comb for typos. You’re getting it straight off the dome, folks. HAPPY JUNE! See things with new eyes :)

xo, Julianna

Thank you for reading keepsake! If you liked this post please consider supporting my work further and becoming a paid subscriber. You get even more posts, the ability to submit to the pen pal program, and it helps me do more of what I love which is writing for all of you <3

Stay in touch by following me or club keepsake on instagram, and drop a comment below.

Welcome to Dinner Party Gossip, a monthly feature on interesting stories and well-researched topics that could earn you a gold star at your next conversational hang.

Today’s edition is about the birth of the music video, and how the way a song looks became as important as the way it sounds. Hope you learn something new, and if you loved it be sure to let me know in the comments below!

On August 1st, 1981, MTV aired its very first music video. It was a new concept at the time, combining music and television. The broadcast begins like a nature documentary, scenes of the ocean and forest play serenely as a pleasant voice describes the dawn of time. This was all building up to the evolution of music. The earth always had a version of it, but the more it became populated with people the more demand there was. We invented radio, and home stereo systems. Music had come a long way you see, but there was still room for improvement.

“Soon television came along, and gave us the gift of sight,” The voice says as tiny television sets dot stack across the screen. At this point the narrator becomes more triumphant, energized by the presence of them. “but it was cable that gave us the freedom of choice. Announcing the latest achievement in home entertainment: the power of sight, the power of sound. MTV— Music Television.”

Before MTV was the place I can sometimes stream new episodes of Drag Race, it was the epicenter of what’s now in music. On that first 24-hour broadcast it showed 116 unique music videos, starting with the aptly named hit “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. If you’re thinking that sounds a bit like The Beatles, that’s no coincidence.

“It was an interesting time, you could feel something was coming in the eighties,” bassist Trevor Horn recounted in a 2012 interview. “We had this idea that at some future point there'd be a record label that didn't really have any artists—just a computer in the basement and some mad Vincent Price-like figure making the records ... One of the groups this computer would make would be the Buggles, which was obviously a corruption of the Beatles, who would just be this inconsequential bunch of people with a hit song that the computer had written.”

I always thought I was too smart to be duped by computer-generated music. If you’re active on TikTok, you get used to hearing the same trending audios every couple of scrolls. There was this song I kept coming across that sounded, if you weren’t paying too close attention, like a doo-wop band from the 50s. “A Million Colors” by Vinhi Pray, was the first known AI song to hit the TikTok charts, but how many others have passed under our noses since then? When The Buggles wrote “They took the credit for your second symphony rewritten by machine on new technology” were they envisioning a timeline as hellish as this?

“Video Killed the Radio Star” was a hit single in 1979, and accurately spoke to the shifting culture of the time. MTV couldn’t have found a better video to launch their broadcast with if they cooked it up in a lab. Here was a song that shared their vision for the future of music, and that future would be televised.

Music videos didn’t just change our relationship to music, it changed our access to celebrity. In 1966, The Beatles recorded promotional videos for “Paperback Writer” and “Rain” with director Michael-Lindsay Hogg, creating what has largely been credited as the first modern music videos. For The Beatles, these videos offered a way of performing music that was less tiring than touring, with less screaming fans interrupting the sound system. These clips acted as promotional material for the networks, and had an artistic lean to them that hadn’t been seen before.

“I suppose, in a way, we invented MTV.” George Harrison stated in a 1995 interview. It was convenient for the band, and the fans saw the appeal. These short films differ from live performances, they are both more acted and more intimate. As someone who lived through One Direction infection, I watch “Paperback Writer” with a particularly sentimental eye. The video opens with closeups of the boys, full color and warm sunlight washing their faces. The four of them bop around a garden with unplugged electric guitars, Ringo sans drums as he nods his head to the beat. You can see Paul’s got a chipped tooth. It’s playful and disarming, the biggest act in the world, and you could join them for a romp in the garden from the comfort of your telly.

It’s this access to celebrity that drives our thirst for footage.

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It was the first mildly pleasant Sunday in Brooklyn, and I decided to walk to the park. The people there were euphoric at the sprinkling of sunlight, shedding their jackets with glee. Fort Greene Park is one of my favorite places to people watch. There are less children than Prospect, more people with tiny tattoos. I think it has something to do with its proximity to small plates wine bars, but that’s not why I was there. I was there to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes: spying on men who read.

My eyes scanned a small hill speckled with them, their wired headphones blowing in the wind. It’s so delicious to catch them in the act. Some lying against their lover, flipping through the pages of a classic novel. Others on their own, brow furrowed as they peer into a paperback. Each of them in a thrifted outfit as meticulously curated as their used fiction. Do the men know they’re being watched? Are they filtering their reading list with the female gaze in mind? How many of them are genuinely enjoying some Didion, and how many are frantically waving a green flag?

It’s easy to conjure an image of the performative male. Tiny hoop earrings, unisex fragrance, tote bag dangling from his shoulder. Tousled hair that can only be achieved with two different types of product, even though the aim is to look like you just rolled out of bed that morning. He’s in a chore coat and experimenting with shaving a mustache again. He just messaged a girl on Feeld about how much he loves Emily Brontë. For whatever reason, we can’t imagine that this man has pure intentions. It has to be an act. He is a replication of a blurry photo of Jacob Elordi carrying three books in one giant hand as he strolls through an airport, he is a mirage.

Maybe one of the reasons we don’t believe men are reading is because hardly anyone is reading these days. Reading for pleasure has dropped by 40% since 20031, and 54% of adults in the United States read below a sixth grade level.2 Although we see this decline across the board, the drop off is steeper for men than women in the gender divide. We may be in the middle of a literacy crisis, but we’re also experiencing the rise of the literary it girl.

Women are writing more books, buying more books, and starting more book clubs. Books have become a statement accessory in their own right, gracing the runway at New York Fashion Week3 and ornamenting Dua Lipa’s vacation pics. In The Ultimate Celebrity Pap Walk Reading List, writer Hannah Jackson says “It makes sense, after all: Books carry a social and intellectual cachet. What people read (or, at the very least, appear to be reading) conveys far more than a regular paparazzi shot…With that, we ask: Are celebrities actually, genuinely poring over the books they tote around? And does it matter?”

Celebrity or not, people notice when you’re reading in public. I’m especially nosy on the subway. Most riders are holding their little black rectangles, or staring vacantly into the abyss with their AirPods on full blast, but someone reading on the train? They’re putting on a little show for you. They’re telling you something personal about themselves, and if you’re reading too you’re giving them a performance in return.

There’s that old saying that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I think we need to update it for the modern age. Covers need to be judged. We consume media in more and more intangible mediums— you can no longer go to someone’s apartment and see their taste in music and film decorating their bookshelves. Every movie I love is logged in Letterboxd and stored in the cloud. When you do have the opportunity to peek into someone’s taste, to make assumptions about their politics or their interests with the flash of a book jacket, you absolutely have to take it.

When I spy a man reading in public I simply must know what it is. I crane my neck on the subway to confirm title and author. I take note of the genre, how weathered the pages are, if his clothing gives any hints that might reflect his reading choices. For a while this was my favorite way to pass the time between stations, and I kept these observations in a note on my phone. I felt like an anthropologist on boy safari.

“Mustache, earring, big pants.

Dark Age by Pierce Brown (science fiction)

Uptown 6 train”

“Business-y 30 something, cropped haircut.

The Strength of the Few by James Islington (fantasy)

Downtown F train”

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When you do this for a few weeks you start to see trends. Self improvement, fantasy, political science. Every so often a book about psychedelics enhancing human consciousness. There were repeat titles, series from apparent well-known authors I had never heard of, and that’s when I realized just how segregated the literary world seemed. I could shout Strangers or Yesteryear at any woman within my demographic, and she would understand what I meant at once. Was the same true for these men? Were there underground fraternities quietly celebrating their version of Sally Rooney?4 As far as I could tell, the men in my life were not bonding over coffee with their favorite novels. They were not communing with their brethren to discuss their feelings on their latest read.

There is data to suggest that men don’t read fiction, and that may be true for a portion of the population. Most of the fiction I saw on the subway was science fiction or fantasy, and nonfiction books spanned topics like neuroscience and nutrition. When I read fiction I revel in the opportunity to escape to another world, to inhabit bodies that can reach farther than my physical form allows. I love living inside someone else’s brain for a while. It has been posited that women enjoy fiction more because they feel more empathy, a requirement for putting yourself in the shoes of another person for 300 or so pages. This hypothesis is built on the expectations we put on women. That women have a natural inclination for nurturing and caregiving roles, but a more recent study suggests this is evidence of how society conditions women, not their inherent ability to feel more.

“Women tend to display empathetic traits more, not because they are innate, but because girls and women are socialized to act on their emotions and to prioritize the needs of others from an extremely young age.”5 Empathy isn’t a feminine trait, women are just rewarded for it.

Since the rise of the hipster there has been a shift in performed masculinity, at least in certain metropolitan cities and places that sell band tees. More sensitive, more nuanced, more capable of vegetarianism. Sometime in the mid-2010s a new term emerged, and we entered the age of the softboi. A 2019 article for vice describes the softboi as “a younger cousin of the fuckboy, only less genuine, someone who weaponises his ability to appropriate the right kind of emotional language and some thoughtful references to Sartre and Camus to get what he wants – which is you, into his bed, and then out of it.”

This might be the reason we get so suspicious when men view genres that have historically been written off as ‘chick lit’ with genuine interest. For the last decade or so we have cultivated a subsection of the culture where men are in a position to appeal to the interests of women, not the other way around, something that was unheard of in previous generations. I spoke with friend David Ryan, a Man Who Reads and holds a degree in Gender Studies to discuss this shift.

“Women have more cultural and social capital,” David ventures, “so orienting yourself towards traditionally feminine pursuits is a lot more accepted and encouraged.”

This is of course dependent on your particular demographic, and your particular location. In New York City there seems to be an epidemic. There was a time when the lower east side boys wouldn’t dare put that they love Taylor Swift and Heated Rivalry on their Hinge profiles, but our current culture demands it. There is no denying the marketability of women’s taste in things. We crash websites for concert tickets, and get movies like Barbie to gross over a billion.6 The amount of social capital women have has always been tied to their purchasing power, and our purchasing power has never been greater.

So yes, women are finally in the conversation as arbiters of culture, but that doesn’t mean we solved the patriarchy or anything. David was quick to note that men don’t face the same obstacles women do when they dabble in these interests.

“Kind of no matter what if something’s popular with teen girls it’ll be considered frivolous, or consumerist, or whatever nonsense by some section of society, and that simply isn’t the case when men are into something.”

It makes you wonder if the ick we get from the guy reading Otessa Moshfegh is because we see it as stolen valor. It might be the same ick this older man at my gym had for me, when at nineteen I dared to wear an Urban Outfitters shirt with Kurt Cobain’s face on it. He walked up to my exercise machine and demanded I name four Nirvana songs, and even seemed kind of pissed off when I easily named five. I don’t want to be this type of gatekeeper for girls. I don’t want to make a guy with a Pleasing tote name One Direction b-sides. There are surely men out there with genuine interest in Harry Styles, and they’re living in fear of the performative male accusations. I can’t lie though, it feels good to make them sweat.

Gender is inherently some sort of performance, even when no one is around. In the internet age this is underscored by the forced curation of our personalities into profiles. Now is a time when everyone across the gender spectrum is forced to play by these rules. Women have long been trained to filter themselves for the comfort of others. This type of self reporting keeps women from being too slutty or too prudish, too vapid or too pretentious. These boundaries are contradictory by design. To correctly perform woman is to juggle extremes, and always end up falling short.

We all curate, from our social media apps to dating apps, and we all strive to present the best version of ourselves. There are voyeurs on the street with cameras in their pockets, ready to record you if you misstep. The voyeurs can flood your comment section, poke fun at the interests you define yourself by. The amount of surveillance we are under as a society is counterproductive to any expression of self, and while I find it particularly barbed for women we are not the only ones suffering from it.

“I think the threat of being made fun of or thought of as disingenuous at the front, is intimidating people out of being creative and playful with their presentation.” Lucy Dacus says on the pop culture podcast Las Culturistas. Lucy was referencing the perceived cishet men who wear dangly earrings, and the eyerolling we respond to them with, but it tracks for men reading fiction too. If we delineate certain clothing, certain books to one specific group of people and shut the others out, we are reinforcing the gender boundaries a good leftist seeks to destroy. It isn’t fair of me to assume every man who reads is only interested in World War 2 books, and only pretends to enjoy Lost Lambs. Even if he only picked it up to seem like a guy who gets it, isn’t that better than never picking it up at all?

“Dudes do be reading a ton of history politics and science shit for sure,” Says Lorenzo, a landscape architect in San Francisco. Lorenzo is an enjoyer of fiction and non-fiction himself, and he understands the stereotypes about men who read to be generally true. “I think it’s early onset dad syndrome, and also dudes love knowing facts and sharing them with people whether you ask for it or not.”

Lorenzo used to have a rule where he only read books by dead people, but has since expanded his interests. Currently, he reads books that some of his favorite movies were adapted from, like Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid. He finds community in reading, as most of his male friends are also avid readers and enjoyers of fiction. “If you surround yourself with sweeties, you’ll always have something new to learn.”

In 2023, male loneliness was classified as an epidemic, but in reality men and women experience loneliness on a similar scale. Women are more likely to report general feelings of loneliness, while men are more likely to report “feelings of disconnection or irrelevance.”7 This difference in language is key. Words like ‘irrelevance’ and ‘disconnection’ imply a group you’ve been removed from, and loneliness acts alone. How does our perception of our own loneliness change when we view it as something that’s been thrust upon us, versus something that is a result of our own behavior?8

“Men are the colorful birds of the cisgender binary,” Lorenzo continues. “It drives me up a wall when I see fools reading in loud ass bars…But when I see a babe reading in public, I feel differently. I see a woman who’s balls deep in a book she’s enjoying and wants to escape reality for a bit and be left alone.”

Tyler, a Man Who Reads, told me the books he sees in public sometimes sway his reading list. “I will say that I did read Dune because of interactions I saw on the subway.”

Tyler works in Biotech and lives in New York City. He recs Another Country by James Baldwin, and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. He finds reading to enhance his social life, citing it as “the perfect way to learn about other people (both from reading stories about different people and experiences in this world, but also from getting to know what those in your circle are reading.”

When he spotted Dune on the subway he was new to the city, and looking to make friends. Timothée Chalamet had yet to grace our screens as Paul Atreides, but the book was picking up some new buzz in anticipation of the remake. On two separate occasions he saw someone reading Dune interrupted by someone else asking them about it.

“[They] started chatting about it, talking about how amazing the book was…I wanted that to happen to me! But also, I assumed it must be a good book, so I picked up a copy. I was keen on reading it on the subway in case any stranger wanted to chat…Is that performative?” Performance is used derogatorily in the performative male debacle. It implies inauthenticity, but trying something on as a ways to seek connection is something humans come by honestly. Like Lucy Dacus preached on Las Culturistas, don’t you have to wear the costume first before you can wear the clothes?

Of course, feeling like you’re wearing a costume is a fate worse than death. We have all experienced this when we wear a new hat for the first time and it’s like, ‘can everyone tell this is my first time wearing this hat?’ Performance is best done in secret, lest our rendition seem contrived. David was reminded of the Italian Book of Courtier, an etiquette book from 1528 by Baldassare Castiglione. In it, Castiglione shares the concept of sprezzatura, ‘effortless perfection or studied nonchalance.’ The best courtiers, David notes, were the ones who put in an enormous yet imperceptible amount of effort. When we see the seams of someone trying they are susceptible to attack.

I have the terrible instinct to hide in my phone when I seek cover from the world, and carrying a book with me has definitely quelled it. Now when I’m alone in public I don’t need to scroll my way into another world, I can just hop into a good book. If someone were to glance over they wouldn’t see me awkwardly wandering Instagram with my thumb, they’d see a woman engrossed in her novel. It’s a more flattering portrait, but it’s also an accurate one.

“The whole performative male reading in public thing actually has been making me self conscious about reading in public.” Shane is a Man Who Reads and a legal analyst in Toronto. He recently read All Fours by Miranda July, and is thinking of dabbling in Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin next. “I love reading on the subway, or before a screening, or while I'm waiting for an appointment, but now when I see someone my age or younger I just automatically assume that those performative male tiktoks are playing in their heads. It takes the enjoyment out of reading.”

I boarded a crowded F train on tuesday morning, already running late for work and annoyed I couldn’t find a seat. I’ve been reading on my commute more than usual lately, perhaps because work has been feeling more stressful. I’m grateful to start the day at a bit of a distance, to have my slack notifications buried deep in my bag. Right now I’m reading Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker, a recommendation from my roommate Paige when I asked for an old book. It’s funny and thoughtful, and she said I’d like it.

A woman is watching me, our hands nearly overlapping on the congested pole. “How is that? I’ve been meaning to read Dorothy Baker.”

I’m wearing my sunglasses, which is a stupid look if you’re reading a book underground, but they’re my protective shell. My hope is they act as an invisibility cloak on the busy train, but this woman is talking to me and smiling and she wanted to know what I think. I feel caught— I literally just started Cassandra at the Wedding. Something feels humiliating about this. I need to be at least 50 pages in before I tote a book out in public, I have nothing to say about it yet.

“I’m literally 8 pages in, but so far so good!”

The woman tells me she works in publishing, and she’s always fascinated by what people are reading on the train. “How did you decide to read that? I’m so interested to know.”

I explain that my friend lent it to me. I explain that I do this thing called monthly 10 lists, and it’s on my list for May to read something older than I am. Next month, I tease, I’m going to read a book of poetry. She’s delighted at the idea. She asks if I work in publishing too, since I read so much, and I get to say no I’m a writer. I bite back telling her that my agent and I have been working for months and it paid off, that in infinitely more months there will be a book. There will be a book, and it will be printed with my name on it. She gets off halfway through my ride and we say it was nice to meet each other.

Would I have enjoyed Cassandra as much as I did if it hadn’t been an extension of Paige? If she didn’t tell me she thought I would like it, would I have related as much to the writing style? What if I waited to start it in secret, and never brought it on the train? Maybe I wouldn’t have associated it with publishing, and a not-so-distant career in literature. I wouldn’t know that my neighbor had been meaning to read Dorothy Baker. For all I know, because of me, she could be reading some right now.

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Thank you so much to the many men I corresponded with through this, and thank you all for reading keepsake! If you liked this post please consider supporting my work further and becoming a paid subscriber. You get even more posts, the ability to submit to the pen pal program, and it helps me do more of what I love which is writing for all of you <3

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xo, Julianna

I was a senior in high school when it was decided I should not go to college. It was early in the morning, and all my teachers had gathered for a discussion in the round. This type of discussion was not so irregular— My ADD allowed me to have extra time on tests, but it also meant there were monthly checkins about my performance. Every few weeks my mother and I would sit in the administrative office at a large oval table while a group of educators tried to make sense of me.

I was a stilted student. Even the subjects I was interested in, English and History, were a slog. It was hard for me to focus, and I had a tendency to fall asleep in class. Who I was as a person felt completely separate to who I was as a student. The notes teachers left on my report cards felt like words for someone else, someone who didn’t care to try. Everything I’ve ever done in life I have tried very hard.

I liked learning, but classroom learning didn’t have the same feeling outside learning did. There was no discovery, no surprise, just monologues performed at me while my mind drifted elsewhere. My parents were always looking for a solve, some kind of solution that could get my grades from bad to okay. Psychiatrists, therapists, tutors, a fleet of professionals all took their crack at it. As someone who failed 8th grade math, there were never any great expectations for my academic career. All anyone wanted, myself included, was for me to keep my head above water. And so: these morning meetings.

On this morning in particular the agenda more exact. Each of my teachers were asked to prepare an assessment on if I was ready for college. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would be attending. I’m from a shiny suburban bubble in Southern Connecticut. It was never a question of if you went, only where you’d go. So it felt impossible when one by one they went around in a circle and concluded that I wasn’t ready.

The reasoning was variations on the same. I would not be able to keep up with the course load that college demands, I was not responsible enough to manage myself. My Spanish teacher Señor Fernandez seemed particularly annoyed with me as he said his piece, which cut even deeper as his class was one of my favorites. Sitting in front of a teacher has always filled me with white-hot fear. I was never one to act out in class, but I never accumulated much good will either. As a whole, they found me to be bright but lazy, my behavior somewhat bizarre. I received a zero several times in creative writing, even when I’d completed the work, because I failed to place it in the bin to be graded.

The evidence was damning, and we were forced to reconsider. Okay, college eventually, but does college have to be now? I was still on team yes it has to. My parents suggested I take a gap year, mature into a version of me that could tackle this. It was a sweet sentiment, but it wasn’t what was normal. Everyone I knew was attending college in the fall, and if I didn’t it would be another thing that made me strange. I wanted very deeply to be average because I felt so far removed from it. I was always falling behind, missing the mark. To be extraordinary was too big an ask, unreachable, but if I could somehow saddle up to ordinary I figured I’d be okay. Taking a year off would be admitting defeat, and my GPA was strong enough to shirk all advice and attend. I wanted my life to look like all those college movies, so I set my sights on big campuses I could get lost in.

“I don’t get why you’re not applying to some graphic design program in a major city.” My friend Alex questioned. Alex was always telling me things about myself before I was able to decipher them. Every time I thought I was being aloof or mysterious he identified my feelings outright. The best example of this was one time in the school cafeteria. We were sitting with our friends and I floated out of the conversation, overcome with this profound sadness I would sometimes get. It was something invisible to the naked eye, a shift change in my mind, but of course Alex noticed.

“You just had one of your episodes,” He said casually when it ended. “Where you go somewhere else for a bit.”

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Alex was right about college, like he was right about everything. I would have been much happier trying to make art in a little apartment building. If I chose that though I would be forced to confront who I was in the face of great opportunity, and great opportunity wasn’t something I was very careful with. Besides that, wasn’t everyone at art school exponentially cooler than I ever could be? More talented? More disciplined? No, I couldn’t do something like that. Instead I attended Marist College for exactly one year before spectacularly, prolifically, failing out.

I’ve talked about this on Substack before, but it still feels like a secret to confess. Like a stain in constant need of blotting, like being academically challenged is a disease I have to continually disclose. College was a while ago, but it always comes up. You’re at a party where seemingly everyone went to NYU at the same time, a coworker asks where you went out of curiosity. When I say I didn’t go to school reactions range from shock to an overly enthusiastic good for you girl!, but I let the reactions bounce. I felt, for a period of time, like I was an unsolvable equation. It still surprises me when I’m able to achieve things as an adult. The fact that people are paying me to write a book right now feels like fantasy. I must have tricked all these nice people into thinking I’m a good writer and a smart person when I’m actually the opposite of that.

I may have been born feeling like I was in trouble. As a child I would hide behind my hands, or my louder older sister, for fear of being seen. As an adult I still have the instinct to duck and cover, even when so much of my life is posting my vulnerable thoughts online. There’s a guilt that cuts through, a heat that rises whenever things move to smoothly for me. Reading Famesick by reminded me just how deep the root of that is.

When I read her writing I know that we are the same kind of person— the kind that is so in love with the world yet always in fear of disappointing it.

When you’re a kid, and you realize you’re different from other people, all you really want to be to be the same. It would be so much easier to have none of these hurdles, none of my demerits. It might be easier, yes, but if I lost those then what would I be left with? Would something good remain? Or is the good about me so inextricably linked to the wonky that you’d scoop out everything worth saving entirely? I don’t feel the compulsion to be normal anymore, to streamline and simplify my existence. It’s exhausting to whittle yourself down into a shape that doesn’t suit you. I’d much rather focus my time on being extraordinary, and let the ordinary be someone else’s problem.

What to do instead of college

First consider college. Maybe even attend some of it. Wake up too late, fall asleep in the early morning, and always wear a little too much eyeshadow. Go to class only if absolutely necessary. Promise to be a better person tomorrow. Realize the things you used to find interesting are unable to hold your attention anymore. Hold no one’s attention at all.

When you fail out of college, fail incredibly. Leave a wake of destruction behind you. Cry so hard you lose the ability to produce tears. Lose the ability to produce altogether, just crawl your way from one place to another and watch as everyone around you is able to skip.

Move back home and spend hours in your bedroom. Dye your hair three different shades of purple and then dye it black again. Start letting yourself feel things, but this time very slowly. Consider it a magic trick when you can turn it into writing.

When you’re twenty decide you’d like to try San Francisco. California doesn’t know you like New England does, and so you get on a plane. Go to Golden Gate Park and think the plants look strange, like oversized succulents made out of clay. Notice how nice it is that every mistake is off the coast of another ocean.

Start a band, write music, and do every type of job the staffing agency allows you to try. Be rejected while canvassing, be yelled at while catering, fall in love with performing, don’t mind working retail, make some very good friends.

If you can manage all that then realize you can manage New York. Return home and build a life in a different color. Make enough money, rent enough apartment. Adopt a cat because you can care for more than just yourself now. Write. Write anything. Keep writing, and when you’re finished write some more. Open your mouth wider. Wider. Eat the world.

xo,

Julianna

Thank you for reading keepsake! If you liked this post please consider supporting my work further and becoming a paid subscriber. You get even more posts, the ability to submit to the pen pal program, and it helps me do more of what I love which is writing for all of you <3

Stay in touch by following me or club keepsake on instagram, and drop a comment below.

Hello my little trinkets. I’ve had the most wonderful month in the world and we’re only a week and a half in! After months of work I am the proud recipient of (1) book deal :’) there’s no way to say that without sounding insane, and I’m not quiiite ready to talk details yet, but just know I am over the damn moon. Like it has been my biggest and most secret dream for years, and keepsake has helped that hidden dream float to the surface. Life feels so silly and serious all at once, two things I always hope to be perceived as. I love you all majorly <3

I also finally got to put together all my spring sends! If you dmed me asking for one it should hit your mailbox soon! If you feel like posting it please tag me because I would love to see my little sends safely in their new homes :)

Oh, wait…do you like sending letters too? Did you know I have a pen pal club?

Currently, the Pen Pal Club is available to paid subscribers only. Submissions are open on a rolling basis, with new matches pairing up on the 15th of every month.

Feel free to submit multiple times, or indicate you’re okay with multiple matches! The PPC is open to people from all over the world! My goal is create one big never-ending snail mail chain of keepsakers on every continent (Antarctica you’re next).

If you’re a paid subscriber submit to the form here to be matched in the next batch!

Now onto the good stuff. Perhaps you’ve heard that May is about play, so this edition of club keepsake has some extra playful prompts.

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Welcome to May! In this post: intentions for the month, a springy playlist, 10 ways to play, and more. If you like what you see consider becoming a paid subscriber for even more prompts + inspo in your inbox!! okay bye xoxo Julianna

When I was little I wanted an imaginary friend so badly. It didn’t seem fair that there were other kids walking around with full-fledged apparitions to keep them company. It’s not like I wasn’t an ideal candidate for one— I had a big imagination and claimed my dolls could speak to each other when I wasn’t in the room— so it seemed to me that whoever was assigning them had accidentally skipped me.

I remember going out to the swing in my backyard and willing one to appear. I stared hard at the wooden seat as it waved in the wind. I told myself that I could see someone sitting there, and eventually I believed I did.

Creating a character comes naturally to me, so the world I built for her was very thorough. Her name was Celeste1, and she was my imaginary friend/guardian angel. She was a cool teenager (still the most admirable type of person to be) and had long blonde hair with sort of a mermaid streak. It came so easily back then, telling yourself a story and watching it come true. In elementary school I was so susceptible to suggestion that I had to stop reading Fever 1973 because I started experiencing flu-like symptoms.

As an adult, we know fake it ‘til you make it as a way to gain confidence. If you pretend you’ve got everything figured out then you do. This is nice advice, but sometimes I wanna fake it in a different way. Not in a way that serves to advance my career or make me more interesting at parties, but in that playing pretend way that used to feel as simple as flipping a switch.

I’m in the middle of some major life changes (positive), and it’s made me more anxious (negative). All I really want to do this spring is find perspective, and I want the perspective to be bouncy and fun. I want to stare very hard at an empty space and watch the pretend-y things to come to life.

⟡ using your imagination ⟡ getting silly with it ⟡ making things up

• Revive a game from your childhood. Particularly fond of some sort of hide and seek for this one. My friends and I were upstate this winter and ended up playing sardines. It was the silliest and sweetest way to end the trip!

• Have dessert first. The warmer it gets, the more likely I am to get Mr. Softee. Feel free to replace soft serve with chocolates, candies, particularly ripe plums.

• Rewrite a fairytale. is kind of the queen of this one. I got to write something for her series on it, Tale Told Twice, where I expanded the universe of The Girl with the Green Ribbon. It was so fun to get my writing brain working in a different direction than it normally does.

• Go for color walks. I’m a big fan of noticing things, and there’s no better way to notice more of the world around you than a color walk! The goal is to try to make your way through the rainbow i.e. look for the color red, and once you find red then you can move on to orange, then yellow, and so forth. Repeat the rainbow until you get bored.

Bonus: Maybe you’re already making a monthly 10 list, but just in case you need a nudge I have a special challenge for it. Pick 9 things yourself and then ask a friend to pick the 10th thing for you. Better yet, if you’re both making 10 lists, you can do this for each other. Don’t have a partner for this IRL? Leave a comment and I’ll pick one for you!

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This is the month of the spring send and I made a little playlist to celebrate. If you’re feeling playful add to your library and we can bop around to the same tunes :)

If the playlist wasn’t enough I also have a play(list) below with 10 more ways to get into the spirit of things.

1. Make some clay magnets. I bought some polymer clay a few years ago and now the ziploc bag I keep the rest in is one of my most treasured items. My friends and I baked little clay eggs, stars, ribbons, etc. and hot glued magnets to the back to make some adorable fridge art. For more inspo check this Pinterest board of mini clay ideas.

2. Play car games. Remember car games? For my family it was things like 20 questions, I’m going on a picnic, and some random improv. My siblings and I used to pass time playing ‘the interview game’, which I’m pretty sure I made up, where one person would create a character on the spot and everyone else would interview them on facts about their life. If you hesitate you lose. Could be a fun way to map out a character for some flash fiction if that’s your vibe too!

3. Invest in a puzzle. I think most of my puzzles have been inherited from game cabinets of yore, or gifted to me at various holidays, but when was the last time I personally bought a puzzle? Not recently enough. There are such cute ones these days from brands like Le Puzz and Piecework. Find what fits your vibe and since you’re choosing a cute one consider getting it framed after. I love framing physical objects (shoutout Framebridge though this is not sponsored they are getting lots of my money these days).

4. Find a fairy spot. As a kid I would envision whole fairy villages in the crooks of trees. Any pile of moss was obviously a fairy mattress waiting for it’s owner to return from a bumblebee race. Look around your environment and find the little tiny respites a fairy might occupy.

5. Learn a dance. I am a sucker for some choreo. You can take a class locally, but I really enjoy taking the time to learn just one perfect sequence on my own. Just last summer I learned Lady Gaga’s Judas dance thanks to a dance tutorial from 14 years ago, and it has served me well on the dance floor ever since. Whenever something catchy goes viral like the Molly Long Pop Muzik video, or Zara Larsson’s dancer intro I go middle school sleepover mode and learn all the steps.

6. Keep whimsy on your person. If you stay ready you don’t have to get ready. I’m seconds away from purchasing this teeny tiny digital camera keychain from Kodak just for the whimsy of it all.

7. Host a show and tell. I’m biased because I did this with some local keepsakers last August , but it’s kind of the best thing in the world. Invite some people over and have them bring one keepsake from their home, something special to them and with a story, and go around in a circle sharing why it’s important to you. Also serve snacks and drinks.

8. Watch a childhood classic. Okay so this isn’t a classic from my childhood because I wasn’t born in 2026, but recently I saw Hoppers in theaters for a friend’s birthday. I forgot how fun it is to see a Pixar movie and be both laughing and crying over an animated beaver. Some movies I loved as a child that would activate the same feeling are: The Princess Bride, WALL-E, Fantasia, and The Parent Trap.

9. Sit on the floor. Is this a weird one? Idk. I find that at my parent’s house I’m 89% more likely to just lie on the floor, maybe because the ground is closer to our 16-year-old westie Leo (it’s his birthday this month, shout out), but also I think it’s just muscle memory because as a child I would collapse where I see fit. Sometimes clearing the cobwebs from your brain is as easy as changing your POV, so next time you’re having a think or just looking to take a break from it all, consider planting yourself on some carpet.

10. Ask yourself ‘what would be the most fun way to do this?’ Instead of what would be the quickest way. Efficiency is the enemy of goofiness.

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Last month’s highlights: Cradling Famesick by like it’s my newborn child on the subway. I finished it hunched over in bed at 2 in the morning and I will keep it in my heart for a very long time.

Last month’s terrors: Without going into too much detail I’m pretty sure I had norovirus for Easter :) So that’s wonderful :)

Things I noticed: Keepsake got a shoutout in the Australian podcast Mamamia Out Loud! So cool to see how far monthly 10 lists have spread :) Listen to the full episode here.

Books I read: You already know about Famesick, but really I had such an amazing time with it. Also read Close Relationships with Strangers by Krista Diamond, an interesting meditation on paparazzi culture and celebrity obsession, He’s the Devil by Toby Coventry, where a man named Simon either has a terrible roommate or a demon possession on his hands, and Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst, a sticky summer amongst a friend group in a shared house.

Movies and Shows: I loved The Drama, for all the ways it irked other people. I need to keep this a spoiler-free zone, but let’s just say Alana Haim’s character is number one on my do not trust list. I’m also really loving Margo’s Got Money Troubles, like I love every Elle Fanning vehicle. Michelle Pfeiffer is doing something so sharp and arresting I am glued to her whenever she’s on screen.

Hey why is nobody talking about: The fact that the F train has not run normally for at least six months and maybe it’s entire existence. Still love you though Zohran xoxo

LOVE!

Julianna

Thank you for reading keepsake! If you liked this post please consider supporting my work further and becoming a paid subscriber. You get even more posts, the ability to submit to the pen pal program, and it helps me do more of what I love which is writing for all of you <3

Stay in touch by following me or club keepsake on instagram, and drop a comment below.

Reading: I had book swapping with a friend on my 10 list this month, so my lovely friend Claudia lent me The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden and I lent her Self-Help by Lorrie Moore.

Watching: Tragically Euphoria. How many times are we going to see Sydney Sweeney in happy baby? I can’t look away though I need to see how it concludes even though I have little hope that it will be anything less than humiliating for all involved.

Listening: Italo disco playlists! Instantly mood boosting + the right amount of background while still being engaging.

Eating: Finally tried Win Son and it was every bit as delicious as I thought it would be. Sleeper hit of the meal was the freshly squeezed orange juice I LOVE A FRESHLY SQUEEZED JUICE!!!!! The mochi donut was also delish!

Wearing: I am a well-documented Nuuly truther and my April shipment has been particularly fruitful. Loved trying this Lisa Says Gah mint!! polka dot!!! dress and I might just have to buy it.

Recommending: Making it out to see peak blooms if they are peak blooming where you live. I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on a rainy friday afternoon and even through the showers it was a magical experience.

April 2nd, 2026

I’m walking home and it’s misting rain so my hair is expanding. I spent maybe 10 minutes half-heartedly blowing it out last night, and all of that work has been wasted by the weather. I just passed a sign for a missing cat named Mimosa that has been taunting me all week, and today someone scrawled the word ‘FOUND’ across it in black marker. The cat is safe, I have 3 drinks in my system, and I feel hugged by each of them as I march home in the dark.

Clahe and I met at a bar full of straight men yelling in Patagonia vests. He apologized for this profusely. “Typically this place has like girls and gays, there’s usually more suave boys.”

Suave boys, how absolutely brilliant. Clahe is always saying things I want to write down. This term feels critical to me to in explaining modern man. In 2017 we had the soft boy, but that boy can’t stay soft forever. The world has hardened him, and he had to evolve into something else Just the right clothing, just the right hairstyle, maybe a bit more of an edge to him than his predecessor. I ask Clahe if he himself is a suave boy and he decides that he can be, but not today. Today he is wearing Birkenstocks.

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Last summer, in a fit of sweat, I made a list on my phone. It was the middle of the night and I was agonizingly awake. I couldn’t stop picturing all the things I wanted do. I made a promise to myself then that I would start doing things I’d never done before, just to see if I could. I wanted to host an event for keepsake, I wanted to throw a writing retreat. I wanted to see what was possible if I treated Substack like my full time job.

It isn’t, by the way. I’m two years in and still very much have a day job. Corporate life can be wonderful (health insurance is wonderful), but I wanted more. I could feel it coming into view, this version of life where I didn’t have a 9-5. What would it take to get there?

In my phone I wrote

How to not have a corporate job:

1. Build a social following

2. Strengthen the keepsake brand

3. Cement yourself as an artist/curator

4. Make a website

5. Make a list of people who you’re like oh yeah this is the type of lifestyle/career vibe I want and see how they’re doing it

The thing all those people had in common? They were writers. Hunter Harris being equal parts smart/funny/beautiful, Marisa Meltzer with her Parisian adventures and high-profile profiles. Coco Mellors, whose hair and baby are equally sunny, living my Brooklyn dream life.

I was too scared to say I wanted to be a writer. I’ve always felt funny about attaching myself to that word. A writer is someone who is published somewhere, who graduated from a rigorous English program with honors. A writer isn’t someone that failed out of college and started a blog. It has taken a lot of unlearning to convince myself that none of that is true. A writer is just someone who writes.

It’s been almost a year since I made that list and I’m not quite there yet, but I’m leaps and bounds closer. Nothing ever works like the flipping of a switch, you have to push yourself a teeny bit day by day. In early 2025 I wanted to do freelance work, and by the end of it I was hiring an accountant to manage my weird taxes from additional income. If you’re wondering what it takes to make keepsake float and how to do the same with your own Substack, read on.

In this edition: Q&A from the keepsake chat of how I started + continue keepsake, how I make time for writing, what it looks like to get paid on Substack in 2026

Creating a Brand Identity

After I’d been posting for a bit and realized I wanted to expand, I had my brilliant designer friend Ahliyah Kim create a brand kit. We talked about what feelings keepsake should invoke, and landed on a nostalgic feeling color palette that could’ve been clipped from an old magazine. The initial imagery I had in mind for keepsake was a lock and key, so Ahliyah upgraded that idea into the beautiful locket logo I use today. Having a brand identity like this really helped legitimize keepsake not just as something I liked doing online, but a living and breathing thing that people were a part of. Now keepsake has a recognizable aesthetic, and it’s easier for me to apply it across my many interests.

Working for Yourself

It is both freeing and terrifying that the only thing stopping you from making this your career is you. When it comes to living as a creative,

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Welcome to true spring! I can hardly believe she’s here. This month I’m focusing on expansion, and it comforts me that nature is too. Trees are forming buds, daffodils are popping out of the ground again. Life is becoming lighter. I had my first sit in the park day the other weekend with Sydney, even though it wasn’t quite sit in the park weather. It was Sunday afternoon, I was recovering from jet lag and delighted by the simple task of running errands. First I went to The Center for Fiction to pick up books. I’m a reader for a fiction prize (!!!) and I got to go up to the counter and be like hiiiii I’m a reader for a fiction prize :) and they handed me two new reads.

I’m kind of up to my ears in TBRs right now. Good problem to have. More reasons to go analog on the train instead of refreshing my Instagram even though we’re between stations and there’s no wifi. I’ve really loved having specific reading goals every month via my 10 lists. In March my goal was to read a translated book. I read The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honoré Balzac (old, French, kind of boring) and Lázár by Nelio Biedermann, a recent translation of a 2023 German novel. I really enjoyed it, it’s sort of like a Hungarian One Hundred Years of Solitude (another great translated read!).

For April I’m looking to read three new-to-me authors, and Book of the Month hooked me up with some great picks.

A Good Person is a debut novel from Kirsten King, so she should be a new author for everyone! I was immediately grabbed by the description— “Gone Girl meets Big Swiss”— A Good Person is about a girl named Lillian who places a hex on her situationship Henry. The trouble is it seems to work a bit too well, and Henry winds up dead. I’m only a few pages into this one, but it’s such a ride! I’m excited to read Annie Knows Everything by Rachel Wood next, an NYC romance with a tech backdrop. For their centennial celebration, BOTM have given me the promo code HUNDRED so you can receive your first box for just one hundred cents.

April is iconically when there are showers, but I’ve been seeing some flowers pop out too. Screenshot this flower fortuneteller to find your April fortune :)

if u want to post ur fortune pls tag me bc wow how cute to see!!!!!

write: in honor of girl new years flip to a clean page in your journal and answer a few of these prompts.

1. I’m always getting better at…

2. This time next spring I hope to have…

3. I’m grateful to have moved on from…

4. I will always be kind to myself because…

Earmark the page and come back to it in 2027.

make: a recipe honoring whatever produce is in season where you are. I’ve been craving a good trip to the farmers market, and when I do I’m gonna pick up some ramps. Last spring F&F Pizzeria had a ramp pie that I never got around to ordering and it has haunted me ever since. If ramps are in season near you here is what my amateur chef sister would do with them:

After I’d already been salivating over ramps I saw Justine Doiron aka justine_snacks post some ramp content of her own. Would trust her how to make ramp butter and ramp oil recipe with my life.

do: come unstuck. When you’re stuck on what to write you should read, and when you’re stuck on what to read you should watch a film, and when you’re stuck on what to watch you should leave your house with only your keys and walk until your brain thinks of something.

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a collection of cool, weird, and captivating keepsakes from across the internet.

I found on IG with an amazing carousel on how she sources digital imagery outside of Pinterest. Definitely going to take a few of these tips, and thought this post was also a wonderful way to de-algorithm your thinking!

Popular

3 ways to get your creativity back from the algorithm

I’ve seen Carrie Bradshaw typing at a laptop one too many times for my taste (no pun intended). People of the internet, I implore you: get outside the Pinterest feed. Your feed is full of Carries when you want anything but Carrie…

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3 months ago · 83 likes · 12 comments · Kel Rakowski

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Spending more on candles and fresh flowers than you do on trendy clothing items, pretending it’s warm enough to wear your lighter jacket and then getting really cold on your walk, always eating pistachio gelato when it’s available, opting for tinted sunscreen, being the kind of girl who only reads on the train.

Until next time,

xo Julianna

Thank you for reading club keepsake! Typically this letter is for paid subscribers only, so if you liked what you read please consider becoming a paid subscriber today :)

Keep in touch when you follow club keepsake on instagram, or drop a comment below. Luv you.

In June of 1986 my parents had their first date on a pile of garbage. Well technically this was just after their first date, when they made out on a particularly lush pile of trash outside a steakhouse. I’ve always regarded this story with the same esteem I do a fairytale. After all, it’s what brought them their happy ending. As my father tells it, they were practically rolling around in a pile of smelly lobster shells, unable to keep their hands off one another. My parents, young and in love during a garbage strike, with chemistry so palpable they couldn’t settle for a simple sidewalk kiss. It’s the stuff of legends.

As lovely as this trash story is, it’s also a lot to live up to. I’m lucky enough to come from intergenerational romance, and I’m trying my best not to waste my inheritance. When I go on a first date I examine if he’s marriage material, or at the very least, if he’s make-out-on-old-shellfish material. Whoever I end up with needs to be both. Marriage material is as practical as it is fantastical. A sweeping romance that offers stability and routine. Old shellfish material though is the je ne sais quoi, which feels more important to me the more I date.

In my twenties I approached dating with the intention of winning the other person over. Sure I wanted him to be cute, and I wanted him to be passingly funny (though not quite funnier than me), but most of all I just wanted him to like me. It’s amazing the amount of pressure women feel to be liked. I could spend a whole date thinking only about how I’m coming off, hoping my anecdotes are landing, and by the end of it, realize I forgot to consider if any of his did.

It runs so deep, this desire to be chosen. I’m a perennially single girl, so I’ve had lots of time to worry about my ability to get picked. I’ve agonized over my lack of relationship status in the past, but now that I’m entering a new decade I’m taking a new approach to my dating life too. The truth is I don’t want to have a boyfriend for the sake of having a boyfriend. It is not a prize to be won. I want someone in my life because they actually add something to it. So much can be gleaned from that first encounter, especially when I stop focusing on my performance and turn my attention to his.

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First dates are chemistry tests. Interest is something that can be gauged via dating profile, but chemistry? Chemistry has to be felt in the wild. Back when my parents were dating IRL was the default, but today moving things to an in person meetup feels like a much bigger step. It’s tempting to kick back on the couch and vet someone entirely through the little boxes in my phone, but how can you ever really know unless you take the chance and grab that drink?

If you really want to find the one you have to take things off the app and out into the real world. Prompts are like an appetizer to get to know someone, where sitting across a table from them is the main course. Now that I’m dating to find someone I like instead of someone who likes me I have a more refined palette. When I tap through potential matches I’m looking for spontaneity and wit. I’m looking for dad hats and movie buffs and maybe a thigh tattoo if I’m feeling it.

As I get ready for a date I’m actually getting ready to play detective. Is this person smart and sensitive? Nice to the bartender? Do they actually listen to the stories I’m telling? Are we having a romantic conversation, or simply a pleasant one? When I talk to my single friends I am blown away by how dateable they are. They’re good listeners, and they’re curious about the world. I spend hours pouring my heart out to them, and they make me laugh like no other. The men I go out with should be held to this golden standard, but for the longest time the only requirement was that they be interested in me.

Online dating is the way of the world, but my analog inclinations had me romanticizing the meet cute. I long to trip and fall into the arms of a handsome stranger, brush hands with a cute barista as he passes me my flat white. It is incorrect though, to focus on the way you met instead of what happens when you’re together. My parents were coworkers with a crush, a typical love story for the 1980s. It would be another decade before online dating was even possible, and another two decades for it to become commonplace. Now, most of my friends with partners met theirs on Hinge. My sister met her boyfriend on Hinge the very same week she had a textbook meet cute with a stranger on the subway.

I’m in a coffee shop right now updating my profile. I just got back from a trip to Italy, so there are new pictures of me standing on Venetian bridges to upload. Travel has always been a big part of my life. One of my prompts is that I’ve been to six of seven continents and I bet you can’t guess the last one on my list (please leave your guess in the comments below). It’s a fun ice breaker and usually opens the conversation to where we’ve been, where we’d like to go, what we like to do when we get there.

Another one I’ve found to be fruitful lately is the ‘one thing I’d love to know about you’ prompt. Currently the thing I’d like to know is if I can write about them in my newsletter. Maybe unsurprisingly this gets a lot of responses. Men want to be muses too! At the moment there’s no one special in my life, nobody that I’m inspired to write keepsake essays about, but it’s good to know that there are takers out there. One day, if all parties are very lucky, I’ll be writing about my special someone. Until then, I’m saving the space for someone truly trash-worthy. I wouldn’t settle for anything less than shellfish material.

.・゜゜・✧ ˚ 　· 　　 .

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Thank you for reading keepsake! Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my writing and see more content like this. Right now, annual subscriptions are 30% off. That gives you access to my pen pal program, specialty newsletters, creative prompts, and more.

xo, Julianna

It is not groundbreaking to make little lists of things. People have been doing it for centuries. There are so many iconic variations on the form: pro and con lists, grocery lists, the classic ‘to do’. What makes a 10 list so special though, is that it isn’t something you have to get done. In fact, there are many 10 lists I’ve made where I don’t do very much at all.

Nothing makes me itch more than setting a quantifiable goal. I am of the humanities, I cannot handle numbers and patterns. A 10 list leads with feeling instead of action. It should encompass things that bring a little joy to your life, and yes maybe sometimes there’s a goal attached, but that goal should be playful and malleable. There are enough voices in my head telling me to be more productive. I need more voices telling me to feel things.

What is a 10 List?

A 10 list is 10 things you’d like to do this month with absolutely no consequences if you don’t. The goal is not to get a 10/10. Life is not homework. There is nobody handing out grades for a perfect score. Instead, the goal is to be someone who is always trying things. I’ve always been of the mind that if I inch a little closer every day towards the life I want, eventually I will find myself there.

Mine is in my notes app for ease of access, but a 10 list should exist anywhere you will happen upon it. Write it as a post-it in your medicine cabinet, or fill out a piece of notebook paper and tape it to your bedroom door. Anywhere you can lay eyes on it daily is a good place for it to be.

Choosing Your 10

This is personal to the individual, but I’ve had some people ask me how I think of things to add to it. I do have a bit of a head start because I publish a monthly intentions post on the first of the month here on keepsake. I’ve already done the pre-work of considering what I’d like to move towards. For example, in March my intention was ‘creativity’. As a result my 10 list included things like drawing with colored pencils.

If you’re not sure where to start, think of what you get up to on a perfect day of. Maybe you sleep in, or have a diner breakfast, or have a long phone call with a far away friend. These are the things that make life living, and adding them to your 10 list helps you remember that! This way, you can prioritize those in between the chaos moments instead of happening upon them.

You can also use the seasons to facilitate your 10. In spring that can mean do a spring clean, watch some flowers bloom, go for a bike ride, etc. Do you have a trip coming up? Seeing a concert later? Down to host some friends for a dinner party? All of these are great thought starters to find your 10.

Here are a few you can steal.

• Lie in the grass

• Kiss someone

• Read a magazine cover to cover

• Watch a movie from the 70s

• Make time for doing nothing

• Listen to a new band

• Attempt to organize my bookshelf

• Cook for a friend

• Watch the sun set

• Stretch more

• Be someone who wears hats sometimes

• Pet some dogs

• Buy a fun top

• Wake up earlier

• Talk to a stranger at a bar

• Make bad/weird art

• Call my mom

• Take a class

• Get better at running

Trying is Succeeding

Let’s say I’m interested in knitting. I could write down ‘knit a sock’, but that’s so completionist. Instead, try framing things as attempt to knit a sock, research how to knit socks, knit more often. Then you don’t have to think of a deadline, you can just enjoy the activity at hand.

If you take the time to make a 10 list you’re already a winner! Congratulations on all the thinking and feeling you do!

If you’re in need of more inspo check out more intentions + prompts here, or in my paid exclusive posts club keepsake.

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Thank you for reading keepsake! If you liked this post please consider supporting my work further and becoming a paid subscriber. You get even more posts, the ability to submit to the pen pal program, and it helps me do more of what I love which is writing for all of you <3

follow club keepsake on instagram, or drop a comment below.

Going outside without a jacket on is my favorite thing in the world. When sunlight hits my bare arms it literally hits my veins like a drug. It has been a long and tedious winter, so long and tedious I’m literally tired of talking about it on keepsake. I am writing this as someone who has had an Aperol spritz in the last week, I’m not talking about winter anymore. It’s April now so I finally get to talk about my best subject: spring.

I’m kind of known for loving spring. My passion for it is so strong that people have come to associate me with it. I have several friends that text me pictures of budding flowers, or link me to easter palettes on the basis of them being ‘Julianna coded’.

I’ve seen it said that spring is Girl New Years. It is true that it makes more sense. I don’t know why anyone would want to start a brand new year in the dead of winter, but I guess there is some Ancient Roman and early Christian reason for it. For a long time the new year happened when the spring equinox did. I think the changing of any season calls for new beginnings and fresh starts, but perhaps spring more than most.

It’s finally warm enough to open my windows, allowing the air and energy to circulate out. I’m shedding literal and metaphysical layers. Right when I deemed it too dark to continue on, the sun has come out from its hiding place and the birds have started chirping again. Spring is just magical!

In order to properly celebrate my the start of the season I’ve decided to put together a spring send.

What is a spring send you ask? It’s a little themed mailer from me to you! You can expect a letter from me, some lists to get into the spring of things, bonus stickers, artwork, surprises, and more. At the moment this is for paid subscribers only— if you’re on the paid list and want to receive a spring send please dm me your address before 4/15. These will go out every few months with seasonal themes :)

As a reminder: you can also receive mail from other keepsakers when you join the pen pal program. You receive an email with the link to it when you become a paid subscriber.

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Your intention for April is Expansion . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⟡ asking for seconds ⟡ learning something new ⟡ wondering ‘what if’?

This month more is more. More enjoyment, more relaxation. More discovering new things. I wrinkle my nose at the idea that we must always be ‘optimizing’, but I think it is true that we always need to grow. Grow your appetite, grow your brain, plant some literal seeds and see what blossoms.

• Stay curious. Were you that kid that was always asking adults why? Time to bring it back. Investigate things closer than you usually would, take an unfamiliar path home from work, get to know someone you’ve kept surface level until now.

• Practice being bad at something. Nothing reminds me that the reward is the journey quite like taking on a new hobby and finding out I completely suck at it. I was gifted a craft book from Quadrille called Tunisian Crochet Wardrobe by Lindsey Muscarella and I am bravely going to try it. There’s a really cute bonnet that the book has marked as beginner friendly (we will see about that) and I’m prepared to spend hours on something without getting it perfect.

• Seek information outside your usual perspective. Thanks to algorithms we are constantly spoon-fed a bowl full of opinions very similar to our own. This month try to break out of that by taking recommendations from an unlikely source, reading some authors outside your typical genre, and watching foreign films from before you were born.

• Make a personal altar to spring. During this first week of April, dedicate a space in your home to the promise of spring. An altar can look like whatever an altar looks like to you. I’m leaning into the pagan origins of the spring equinox with an array of candles, flowers, and other symbols of the season.

Bonus: I have just discovered that you can send literally anything as a postcard as long as it’s the right size and has the right postage?? Write to a friend on something unconventional and see if it makes it through the mail. I think I have to try this myself with all this extra La Croix packaging in my kitchen!

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I ended march far away from my winter doldrums, in a palazzo in Venice. It was me, my sister, and our dad for four nights in the 1600-year-old city. Venice is one of those places you can’t imagine actually exists anymore, but somehow does. That doesn’t mean that it’s existence isn’t threatened, though — Venice isn’t quite the island it appears to be. It is a city built on millions of wooden piles. There are 10,000 oak trees holding up the San Marco Basilica, a feat that should be impossible.

That is the word that came to mind when it first appeared to me, first a fuzzy shape on the horizon as our boat zipped in from the airport. I’ll never forget how other worldly it was to arrive to a city this way. There are no cars, no bicycles even, just a series of meandering canals and bridges stretching across the water.

Aside from all the cicchetti my favorite part was a trip to a stationery store. I found Paolo Olbi while doing my initial Venice Instagram reconnaissance. Paolo has been making journals since 1962, and he’s still in the shop today doing everything by hand. I’ve been wanting to pick up a leather bound journal for a few months now, and nothing smells as good as Italian leather.

My eye caught on a red diary with a gold design on the front. It looked like something you’d find in a dusty old library, but it felt brand new. As I flipped open the pages I found depictions of the different zodiac signs peppered throughout. It was my perfect storm: artisanal and astrological.

Some more highlights from Venice: Just walking around and accidentally hitting dead ends in the tiny corridors, eating gelato, taking a little gondola ride, going to Da Ivo the day after Kesha did, having seafood pasta at least four times. More highlights can be found here on IG!

Last month’s highlights: Obviously Venice ^, setting up my new pin board, getting lots of writing done, and seeing Straightiolab at the Bell House (with Matt Rogers, Bowen Yang, Patti Harrison, Jo Firestone, and Celeste Yim!!! A dream!)

Last month’s terrors: The Lindy West drama of it all, my cat refuses to eat the expensive new food I bought her.

Things I noticed: Chat GPT is detrimental for the hunter gatherer part of our brains.

Books I read: Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones (Pillion is based on it), Like Life by Lorrie Moore (my favorite author, not my favorite book but still enjoyed), The Girl With the Golden Eyes by Honoré de Balzac (PASS!), Lázár by Nelio Biedermann (releases soon and I really liked it! Kind of a Hungarian One Hundred Years of Solitude…generations of family, war, and magical realism). Started and didn’t finish The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst (listless, literary) and The Best Short Stories 2025: O. Henry Prize Winners.

Movies and Shows: Love Story was actually kind of good until I realized Paul Anthony Kelly cannot act in the second half of the season. I think I just love 90s clothes, good color grading, and Sarah Pigdeon. I finally finished rewatching Mad Men (sad), but I saw this amazing edit of it on TikTok (happy). Finally saw Le Bonheur at Film Forum, so I’m also upping my Varda credit.

Hey why is nobody talking about: How cute I look in this polka dot dress??

Can people stfu about: celebrities being clones when they’ve actually just had really weird work done.

Something you should add to your to-do list: Turn my phone off. Brick my phone. Leave my phone in the other room. Get rid of my phone.

That’s all I’ve got for you right now, but I’m coming back reaaaally soon with a special piece. Have an amazing april and OH YEAH! Don’t forget to make a 10 list!

xo,

Julianna

Thank you for reading keepsake! If you liked this post please consider supporting my work further and becoming a paid subscriber. You get even more posts, the ability to submit to the pen pal program, and it helps me do more of what I love which is writing for all of you <3

follow club keepsake on instagram, or drop a comment below.

Reading: Consumed as usual by Lorrie Moore. Like Life is a good reminder of the things I love about her, but Self-Help is still far and away my favorite.

Watching: My friends and I put on half of Dick (1999), an alternate history comedy about the Watergate scandal starring Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams. We fell asleep because we were really tired but I still recommend it!

Listening: Harry Styles’ new album (my review is enclosed, but also safely behind paywall) + Miffed It by Way Dynamic

Eating: Soup season is ending, but not before my roommate Paige turned out one more banger with this lemony carrot + cauliflower soup by Marissa Clark. We add shredded chicken to make it a main course and it’s sooo good and soft and cozy.

Wearing: Saie Blush in soft rose + cool baby pink in little layers (rose on apple of cheek baby pink on top of bone thank me later)

Recommending: Drinking more water but like actually this time

March 7th, 2026

I’ve been working on my microbiome which means I’ve been burping multivitamins for the last two weeks. Why do so many things aligned with self improvement actually make you less pleasant to be around? I started taking seed probiotics to feel like I was accomplishing something and it’s working so far. It’s very girl who has her life together.

I’m burping my DS-01 synbiotics and daily multivitamin support joyfully as I strut my way through Park Slope. I’ve just had a call with my agent that has been almost euphoric. We’ve been working on something for months and there is light at the end of the tunnel. She said it’s in a VERY GOOD PLACE (can you believe) and we should be able to send it out THE LAST WEEK OF MARCH (which is around the corner!!). I’m on my way to the Center for Fiction to knock out the last little bit and I have a literal spring in my step. It isn’t snowing, my gut is healing, the project is completing, etc.

In my bag: my regular journal and my project journal. In April I will be able to tell you what the project is. Also, a much smaller journal in case having two isn’t enough. A travel vial of Glossier You and a pen from a restaurant I don’t like that much. Like Life by Lorrie Moore, my laptop, my airpods, a miniature container of rose tinted vaseline, and an envelope of photos to be framed.

It’s unseasonably nice out so I am walking my errands. Framebridge first, with two kodaks from 1968 of my mother and her mother at Sand Pond. It’s the lake my mother grew up visiting and I grew up visiting too. In the picture my grandmother, stylish and expressive, is lounging in chairs that still sit out on the beach today. She passed away when I was a baby and I always wonder what my life would be like if I’d had more time with her.

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I always thought it was my greatest fear, this idea that I am actually nothing and no one, but being a loser is comfort food. It’s buttered noodles and eggs on toast. This is partially because when you’re a loser nobody expects much out of you, so there’s no reason to feel any disappointment. You are free to be a victim in a vacuum.

I exhibited signs of loserness at an early age. I had more than one imaginary friend and a perennially stuffy nose, plus I confused people teasing me as earnest attempts for connection so I was a lot of fun to pick on. I never felt like I understood the pace other people were operating at. Children are always being told to be themselves, but I knew that being myself was something that often did more harm than good. When I was myself I was saying something embarrassing, putting myself at odds with a three girl friend group. All I wanted was to be regarded as normal, but everywhere I went I was a little bit weird.

A little bit weird was the worst thing you could be until 2009, when the benefit of being a loser was first marketed to me with the premiere of Glee. You can say what you will about Ryan Murphy, but he really changed the game for overweight children that did show choir.

The show perfectly exemplified the culture we were in. The internet was on the rise and monoculture was beginning to die out as a result, therefore being niche was seen as a positive. Even though they were constantly getting slushied, the characters in Glee held a valuable type of currency. They embodied awkwardness and randomness at levels that made millennials salivate. This was a time when as a society we were saying things like ‘derp’ and drawing mustaches on our fingers, so the weirder you could seem the better.

This behavioral shift marks when we began to see the rise of the hipster, and therefore the way we interpreted the nerd/cool axis. To be so uncool you’re cool is alluring in itself. It’s one of the reasons hipsters prickle at being identified as one. It all hinges on the idea that you’re ironically yet authentically loser adjacent. Trying to be cool is the least cool thing of all. The term hipster has petered out, but it is such a tentpole of the millennial aesthetic that we just don’t really need to use it anymore. It’s so omnipresent it would be redundant. When everyone is a hipster nobody truly can be. There’s still cultural cache in being part of the underground, especially at a time when so much of our taste is curated for us algorithmically.

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The more online we have become as a society the more we see stereotypically ‘nerdy’ things hailed as cool. When I was on Tumblr as a teenager I could never have imagined a world where fan fiction goes mainstream and publications like New York Magazine tag articles with ‘fujoshi studies’. If the majority have access to the niche and obscure, we begin to realize it’s not so obscure after all. This is why in 2020, when everyone was stuck indoors, the concept of being ‘alt’ became a popular movement. In the early 2000s if you wanted to be a popular girl you had one very narrow avenue to do it in, one that involved low rise jeans and juicy tracksuits, but the internet changed all that. You could hop into forums and find underground bands, Zooey Deschanel could wear yellow tights with a turquoise skater skirt. Suddenly there was a chance for the quirky girl to be considered cool.

I’m kind of cool on the internet if you ask a select group of people. Writing on Substack is like operating a blog of sorts, but in a chic Carrie Bradshaw or whoever we’re posting notes about these days way. Back in the early days of internet a blogger was someone that lived in his parent’s basement and never showered, but now it conjures an image of a young woman in a major city with a penchant for literature. Achieving some kind of niche internet status has been everything I’ve wanted since I was ten, so why do I still feel like a dud?

If you were a loser once, does the feeling ever really leave you? Is it something you have to renew your membership for annually? The version of myself I am most familiar with cannot be reconciled as someone cool and confident. It doesn’t make sense for me to be successful. Being a loser is my safety net, my sword. It’s so much more comfortable to be someone that never tries and therefore never fails. I’m not afraid of failure. I’ve failed too many times for that to be true.

When I was 19 I worked at a grocery store called Stew Leonard’s, which, If you’ve been, you know is more like an amusement park. It holds the title of world’s largest dairy store according to Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, and it was also the center of a major tax evasion scheme in the 1990s. I loved going there growing up because when you spent $100 you got a free ice cream, and my mom did a lot of shopping. There are several other attractions too, like a petting zoo in the parking lot that overlooks a major road, and some terrifying animatronics.

It was September of 2014, and I was supposed to be in college. People go to college to discover new worlds, to turn over rocks and learn great things about themselves. I attended one year of it, and I only found the things I already knew; that I was a poor student and a late bloomer. I was ill prepared for school as I was ill prepared for everything. I had just come off a year of displaying Olympic levels of loserdom. I failed all my classes, sleepwalked through an entire semester, and at the end of the year the school told me not to come back.

Stew Leonard’s is kind of a perfect job if you are 19 years old and want to stop existing for a while. At home I was very visible, and there was much debate as to what could be done about me, but all I wanted was to slip into obscurity behind the checkout counter. I quickly memorized the PLU codes, soothed to have a combination of numbers that always made sense. When I was falling asleep at night I would picture an endless supply of produce coming down a conveyor belt, and assign each their corresponding code as they passed. Apples, 4135. Bananas, 4011.

I spent that year working shifts at the grocery store and attending a fleet of doctor’s appointments. Everybody wanted to figure out what was going on with me. I had lots of therapy, both group and individual, and even saw a naturopath who monitored my brain waves. I remember feeling relieved that all of my issues were someone else’s problem, and that all I had to do was allow myself to be carted from specialist to specialist and eventually someone would figure me out.

Today I relish the opportunity to do that myself. I write in my journal, theorize with my friends, and publish longform essays about my inner workings on keepsake. Discovering who I am has taken a very long time, but at thirty-one years old I think I’m finally getting close to the truth. This is why I’ve grown so tired of telling myself I suck all the time. There comes a point where you have to wonder what the point is. It’s been twelve years since the floor dropped out from underneath me, and I’ve built a whole new foundation in that time.

You learn a lot about who you are by knowing who you’re not. I knew from an early age that I was not like everyone else. I was slower, more sensitive. Uneven. I never considered these things a blessing until adulthood. I suppose sometimes the late bloom is more beautiful, or something less hokey than that.

After lots of meandering, I am now punishing with my schedule. I’m always telling my friends I need to get my life together and they’re telling me ‘Julianna it is together’, but that can’t possibly be true. If this is together then that means I’m ready for more, and more means trying harder and looking stupid and people seeing the effort you put into things. I know though that of all my loser qualities the worst of them all is my meekness. Rachel Berry didn’t care that everyone thought she was annoying, she just got up there and sang her little heart out.

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xo, Julianna

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There’s this Sylvia Plath quote making the rounds on Substack right now; “In March I’ll be rested, caught up and human.” It feels more like a motivational poster than a manifestation. It’s almost tauntingly improbable, so encouraging as to be mortifying, like it should be at a pediatrician’s office next to a poster of a kitten doing a pull up saying YOU CAN DO IT!

We’re all just about done with winter, but is winter done with us? I’m still not sure. The weather in New York is erratic. I am putting my puffer jacket on only to sweat through it in such quick succession that I’d rather not have left the house at all. Rested? Caught up? HUMAN? How could I possibly have time for all that? I’m still trying to figure out what waterproof shoes look cutest for an in office day.

I need some of that classic Sylvia optimism. I have been pouring all of my time, my January and February, into a project that is finally possibly taking some final form. Writing on Substack has always been a fun way to get a quick thought out into the world, and some of my posts here take me a while sure, but nothing has taken nearly as long as this project of mine. I’m at a point with it now where I would rather light my computer on fire and never be able to access it again than make a single line edit. I love creating things, but when one of those things takes up so much time all my other creative impulses fall to the wayside.

Where is the playful and giggly side of myself? The one that dances like no one’s watching in earnest, and has not one but two different baskets for colored pencils and crayons in her bedroom. She’s waiting to be rested, caught up, and human I suppose.

I have dedicated March to creativity because spring is when you should give yourself away to it. Winter has this heavy veil, one that can only be lifted with creative output. My creative output has been going in circles building up inside me, so in March I’m looking forward to unbottling it.

Read on for prompts, artsy findings, and more to get creative this March!

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If winter is for slowing down then March is for making. My ability to create has been buried by the snow, left unattended in the wake of every squall, but now as the sun shines through and so does my disposition. There is so much we have to be patient for in February. It’s the shortest month, but it stretches so much longer when you agonize about the fact that spring is just on the other side of it. I’ve heard March is spring or at least something like it. Ice caps melt and become little streams that you can let yourself be carried away on.

In winter I lived like the animals do. I squirreled the best bits of myself away and used them for sustenance in the dark. I punished myself for needing the rest. I should know better by now, but I always expect to be able to operate at the highest level at all times. Winter reminds me that is impossible. I’m always going to have more energy in the heat of summer, when I recover from the day with late nights under stars, or at least with my windows open to the world. I’ll always be a better thinker in autumn, when the trees show their colors and then retract them just as swiftly, leaving me to ponder about my own impermanence. Winter is when I am lying in wait, incubating in my room as the bitter winds swirl.

I find March to be one of the most hopeful months. I’m alive with the possibility that the earth will be alive again too. I find it easier to expand. This winter my creative output has felt like homework. I have been approaching it as something I need to force myself to produce rather than a symptom of existing. Existence is an inherently creative act after all. Everybody is out here trying to become something, to mold ourselves into something greater. March is telling me that everything adds up to something else. Winter fades, spring creeps, and soon there will be blooms again.

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March: Creativity

⟡ finding the sunlight ⟡ listening to nature ⟡ creating your own world

Since I started making these monthly intentions I have dedicated March to creativity. It’s the first crack of light after the seemingly unending winter, and this winter in particular has felt eternal. March is when everything starts to thaw and stretch it’s limbs again, so don’t forget to stretch yours too.

• Draw something (even if you’re really bad at it). I think there are certain cobwebs that can only be cleared by doodling. Think of it like going to the gym for the visual side of your brain.

• Pick something you’ve been wanting to learn for a long time and take even the tiniest baby step towards learning it. I have said for years it would be cool to knit so why not start now? Starting can mean getting the supplies and sitting down to do it, or just doing some preliminary research into what it would entail. Both count as a step forward.

• Take a recommendation from a stranger. Go to a bookstore and ask the bookseller what the last thing they read was and purchase it. Get a restaurant rec from someone on the street, ask an elderly person what they got up to when they were your age. We are all in our own little ruts and patterns, and sometimes getting an outside opinion can introduce you to something new you’ll love.

• Usher in spring. It might be a completely different season where you are, and it might turn out to be a horrendously cold March where I am, but we are going to call on spring. To heighten the new-month-new-season energy open your windows, sweep your floors, and let the sunshine into your space.

Bonus: If you’re into physical media and have some magazines lying around cut out a few images/phrases that speak to you. Paste them into your journal for a little collage, or tuck them into your wallet, tape them to the inside of your closet, put them anywhere you’ll see on the daily.

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It just so happens when you are in the process of turning your creative hobbies into your job that life gets a lot busier and a lot more stressful. February was spent heads down at my desk, or I should say the various desks at Center for Fiction where I’ve been camping out most weekends. God bless the cafe downstairs that serves drip coffee size large. God bless the rattling heater and the view of Whole Foods from the large windows. I love being surrounded by people that quietly eat snacks and type type type for hours. I’ve been so productive, and productivity is wonderful. It even feels close to creative. What is not wonderful however is that between my full-time job and part-time job to be I have absolutely no room to be playful.

Play comes naturally to me, or at least it’s supposed to. I’m the girl that finds magic in things and I played with Barbie dolls for much longer than Mattel intended. I was a distracted and disorganized child, so it still shocks me that I’ve become this very regimented adult. I’m missing the aimless wander my mind used to thrive in. A lot of Substack girlies talk about the gifted child to burnt out adult pipeline, but what about the opposite direction? It’s hard for us too! I can’t be the only type b middle child with ADD who struggled to do homework and now gives herself an endless supply of it. I am so used to stumbling around in the dark that this surge of direction in my life feels insurmountable. I can’t imagine that I could possibly be up for the task, but if I just keep going I know eventually I’ll find myself where I want to be.

P.S.

Taking breaks always helps.

Last month’s highlights: Going to NYFW(!!!), Spending a snowy weekend upstate with my girls, sharing my little short story on ’s Substack, getting so much writing done.

Last month’s terrors: brownish black snow drifts, the national/global news in general.

Things I noticed: Everyone has the same Lou glasses I do from Jimmy Fairly and the word protein is being marketed too much at coffee shops.

Books I read: Big Swiss (most fun), Vladimir, Open Heaven (fave read), One Hundred Years of Solitude (worthwhile classic).

Movies and Shows: Slow movie month but liked Pillion a lot and I’m now reading the novella it’s based on. Love is Blind continues to strike fear in my heart (also ik it’s always been trad and maga coded but this season especially so??), and I think Miriam Petche is the best thing to hit Industry. Oh yeah and I saw Wuthering Heights…

Hey why is nobody talking about: Trujoy frozen greek yogurt I don’t think anything has hit my household this hard since Heated Rivalry

Can people stfu about: Clavicular and any sort of incel based iconography that relates to him

Something you should add to your to-do list: BUY NEW SOCKS! Tell me right now that you have a perfectly sufficient sock collection and I will tell you you’re a liar. I know there are holes I know some of them are missing their buddies.

See you in a few days for club keepsake :) Oh hey, while you’re here maybe vote for our March read for book club?

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xo,

Julianna

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Reading: I’m in the middle of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and I’m having just as much trouble with all the name repetition as the internet said I would, but I’m enjoying it! Also recently read Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt which is sooo tender and lovely and makes me want to escape to the British countryside. Highly recommend.

Watching: I’m rewatching Mad Men and it is SO! REWARDING! Longer piece to come tbh but wow what a masterclass on narrative and color grading and the stories people tell themselves.

Listening: The YouTube channel that helped me write 15,000 words this month:

Eating: My mom made made an actual cookbook of all of our family recipes, and for valentine’s day I treated Paige to my great grandmother’s meatballs. My nonna was born in 1899 and lived to be 100, and maybe the meatballs have something to do with it? Here’s the recipe if you want to live forever.

Wearing: I’m finally one degree of separation closer to Benito Skinner because we are both part of the rollneck generation I am obsessed with how cozy it is.

Recommending: EADEM peptide lip balm in Fig Sauce, the one thing keeping my lips from falling off in the cold.

February 15th, 2026

Almost can’t believe I’m being sent to NYFW. Granted just backstage, and granted, not because I’m some kind of fashionable and interesting person, but because the company I work for is supplying robes for the models to get their hair and makeup done in, but still: I’m being sent to fashion week. These are the thoughts that fill my head as I trek my way uptown.

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The conversation around Wuthering Heights is focusing on all the wrong things. Yes it is inaccurate, but accuracy never seems to be Emerald Fennell’s goal. She seems more concerned with what feels sensational over what feels true. I was first introduced to her directorial style via Saltburn in 2023, a splashier yet less compelling version of The Talented Mr. Ripley that left me wondering why something that seemed so geared toward my taste on paper was so ineffectual in practice. By all accounts I should like Emerald Fennell. We’re interested in the same things. We both like themes of vengeance and when Jacob Elordi wears a little hoop earring. Where she loses me though is her ability to pull those things together into a cohesive story.

While I have not read Wuthering Heights I knew this was the sort of book-to-movie adaptation where that didn’t really matter. I wasn’t going for substance anyway I was going for spectacle. The spectacle ended up being a touch less titillating than I had anticipated. For a movie that opens with a hanged man getting an erection I have to say I was a little bit bored. The chemistry between Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie leaves something to be desired, though they each gave a decent performance in their own right. I say this knowing, of course, the controversy around their casting. Elordi as Heathcliff betrays the original character’s presumed racial identity, and Robbie is far from the adolescence of Brontë’s teenage heroine.

I do believe though that we should abandon all preconceived notions when discussing this adaptation. Staying true to the source material is clearly not what Fennell is going for, and so that is not what we should be focusing on. What we should be focusing on is Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton.

When we first meet Isabella Linton she is absolutely decked out in ribbons, fervently retelling the climax of Romeo and Juliet to a polite yet uninterested Edgar Linton1. Catherine Earnshaw is curious about the wealthy bachelor who moved in next door, and after weeks with no introduction she finally takes it upon herself to peek over the garden wall.

Catherine lives with her father, a drunk who has gambled away the family money. They share the residence with an assortment of servants, including Catherine’s companion Nelly (Hong Chau). One day, when Catherine is still a child, her father brings home an orphan boy. Catherine gives him the name Heathcliff and so begins their life in orbit of one another. Wuthering Heights, the home they live in, is as gloomy as the title suggests. Both the house and the people living in it are in various states of disrepair, so it is even more striking when over the garden wall we see the Lintons thriving. Edgar Linton’s home features a manicured lawn and powder-wigged staff. there are tea cakes and bright colors. Nothing is more brightly colored than the peculiar Isabella Linton.

Isabella Linton occupies a trope we see often in the genre, a sort of side character to the protagonist that in modern romance may be referred to as the funny best friend. Routinely these characters provide a sort of comedic relief in the story, and act as a foil to the protagonist. Our period piece heroine tends to be beautiful or well bred, and if she’s really lucky both, which affords her a temperamental streak that propels the story along. The side characters cannot afford such petulance. Where Catherine Earnshaw is headstrong, Isabella Linton is meek. In Jane Austen’s Emma the heroine Emma Woodhouse is independent and opinionated while her best friend Harriet Smith is sweet and mild. This character usually holds a certain naivety and goodliness that paints them as less complicated and compelling than the heroine of the story.

When we met Isabella she has wide eyes and tiny glasses. Her hair is large and unstyled save for the gigantic lace and ribbon headband she has fastened to the top of her head. Isabella is instantly attached to Catherine in an ‘I want to wear your skin’ kind of way. Alison Oliver plays the intensity perfectly, with a lilting voice and open expression that immediately draws you in. When Catherine marries Edgar, Isabella creates a doll emulating her and uses clippings of her hair because nothing else would do the color justice. This is a type of obsession that we see often in Fennell’s films, one that is destructively all consuming.

In Saltburn, Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) is overcome with fascination that bleeds to envy when he meets aristocrat Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). Where Felix is charming and wealthy, Oliver is overlooked and poor. Together they represent the unique chasm of social class that still exists in England, a class system that is more clearly defined in the era of Brontë’s novel. However, Isabella’s obsession with Catherine doesn’t quite follow the Saltburn rubric. Isabella lives luxuriously and wants for (almost) nothing. She wears the finest fabrics and has an entire room dedicated to her ribbon collection2. Catherine sits below her in social class, and so her infatuation is not driven by a desire for wealth but by a desire to be wanted.

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In Wuthering Heights, sex and money are ways to gain power. Every character interacts with this equation differently, but Catherine holds the key to all three. While Isabella is of higher station she is powerless to her motivations. She is sexless in her relationship with Edgar, who in this adaptation is not her brother so is perfectly capable of marrying her but doesn’t. She is even more sexless when she first meets Heathcliff and has to visibly fan herself in his presence, the pinnacle of the blushing virgin. Sex is often depicted here as vengeful and transactional, and Isabella finds herself unable to wield hers the way Catherine does. Catherine is a beautiful woman, the most powerful type you can be, and Isabella longs for that currency.

Wuthering Heights isn’t about Isabella Linton, but I could watch an entire movie set in her world. I’m drawn to the eccentric outsiders in these stories, perhaps because I feel that’s the role I occupy in my own. If I were in Isabella Linton’s position I too would make dolls for the people I love and spoil things by being extremely earnest. As much as I was meant to be compelled by Heathcliff and Catherine’s doomed love affair I only wanted to know more about her.

Emerald Fennell uses sex as a weapon throughout her films. In Promising Young Woman the main character seeks revenge for a friend who committed suicide after being sexually assaulted. In Saltburn Oliver Quick seduces and destroys every member of the Catton family to take what he couldn’t be born into. In Wuthering Heights Catherine and Heathcliff use sex against each other, her by marrying another man and him by eventually marrying Isabella as an act of revenge. There is no transaction as clear as Heathcliff’s seduction of Isabella. He breaks into her bedroom and tells her that he doesn’t love her, he never will, but he will marry her just to torment Catherine. He asks her if she wants him to stop, and she tells him no. The two enter a verbal contract where Heathcliff agrees to use her, and Isabella agrees to let herself be used.

In that scene, where Nelly walks in on Isabella chained to Heathcliff’s fireplace like a dog, we are seeing the depth of her devotion. It is devotion after all that kept her as Edgar’s ward in the beautiful house for all those years. It is devotion that earned her a friendship with Catherine, when she was a shiny new jewel in the Linton crown. It is through her devotion that she is of most use to Heathcliff, the man she desires yet knows will never desire her the same way. The portrayal of BDSM in Wuthering Heights is as sensationalized and incomplete as the rest of the movie, but the dog metaphor is carried across the film. So much of love in this story is about truly owning someone else, and Isabella is the only character that really wants to be owned.

When they are children Heathcliff is a sort of pet for Catherine. She even gave him his name when her father came home with him like you might a stray dog. Heathcliff is loyal to Catherine like a dog would be for much of the story. He protects her and keeps her company. Catherine is like a dog too, but more like a dog with a bone, or as Isabella puts it during a confrontation a dog in the manger. Catherine is in such possession of Heathcliff that she wouldn’t even allow Isabella to have so much as a crush on him. She tries to dissuade her by speaking of Heathcliff’s animalistic nature, calling him wolflike and claiming he would destroy Isabella if given the chance.

So the beautiful twist is that Isabella wants to be destroyed. She wants to be man’s best friend and his kicked puppy all at once, the two things she’s been training her entire life for. Alison Oliver lets us know this by giving a wink while she barks on all fours. From my research this is not the Isabella Charlotte Brontë intended, but it’s the Isabella that Emerald Fennell brought forward, and so I have to at least salute her for that. In a film that felt more lukewarm than steamy, Alison Oliver burned brighter than anything else.

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xo, Julianna