Blog

Mirror Twins and 70s Cults with Abbott Kahler

Image shows the author Abbott Kahler on the cover of Poets and Writers magazine

Today is publication day for Abbott Kahler’s deliciously suspenseful and widely recommended first novel, WHERE YOU END! I’ll be talking with her at The Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan tonight at 6 PM, if you need an antidote for gray January doldrums and the-world-is-falling-apart malaise, and honestly, who doesn’t?? We’ll be talking about so many things, including gross cults and the 70s and mirror twins and unexpected ancestry discoveries, and knowing the two of us when we get together we’ll probably tell some slightly inappropriate stories!

Hope to see you. Most importantly, I hope you’ll pick up the book.



A Conversation with Sunny A. Smith at Fort Mason

Bay Area friends—I’m delighted to be in conversation with Sunny A. Smith at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco this Saturday for the celebration of their The Compass Rose catalog, which memorializes their striking show about ancestors and objects and legacies passed down. We spoke together for the catalog itself, and I’m eager to continue the conversation in person. Join us if you’d like. 🍂✨

Read more




Christian Nationalist News and Private Jets

Over the past century, my family has given an enormous amount of money to extreme evangelical Christian preachers, back to my great-grandmother in Dallas, who was so poor afterward that she couldn’t buy food or firewood. Nowadays, my mom and stepfather also get their “news” from Kenneth Copeland’s Christian nationalist Victory Channel. Copeland is the preacher with three private jets who asked his supporters for donations so that he didn’t have to fly with “demons” on commercial air travel. Recent guests include Lauren Boebert and the former president.

Read more



Categories

Newsletter Signup

Subscribe to my free newsletter, Ancestor Trouble.

Newsletter

You might want to subscribe to my free Substack newsletter, Ancestor Trouble, if the name makes intuitive sense to you.