No One Knows What Autofiction Is

and other complaints: on Pleasure, Work, and really FEELING

-NYMag’s Vulture mentioned the newsletter in an essay about Substack and ranked me along George Saunders and Miranda July for “Substacks worth your five or six bucks a month.” High praise for a newsletter that I am currently writing from a Greek island using a pillow as a desk for my laptop! I sent the article to my friends who always complain that I never seem to be working. (People need to understand that every time I leave my house I am always working.) They mentioned the annual price of the newsletter but that is not the correct price, that’s only the SALE price (35% OFF) which you can get till July 25th. I might have to extend the sale because of the article… lucky you for those who have not taken advantage!

-Last week, I released an essay about DATING in my twenties…which was free thanks to the sexual healthcare brand Julie. You can read it here, they called it “There’s No One I Won’t Go on a Date With.” Post-release, I’ve heard people are announcing that they themselves have once gone on a date with me. Must I repeat myself! Men have one story and it’s always about me. This will be good to note when I discuss AUTOFICTION further down. Moving ON…

-The 100th anniversary re-issue of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with my new introduction is out August 5th. Order it now!

-I dropped by the Acropolis the other day and bought a few books from the gift shop. The clerk said, “Philosophy and Mythology?” and I responded, “I write fiction so that seems normal.” Then he said I should buy this beginners guide to Greek philosophy and then I told him I was okay, that I had dated enough Philosophers to know. He shook his head, “I’m sorry for that.”

-Now, autofiction. I don’t really understand people’s push to define their writing as autofiction. This already ups the ante because, to me, it requires both your life AND your fiction to be interesting and more than that, in TANDEM.