As Valentine’s Day fades into the past, I find myself thinking about love—not the steady love of my female friendships, nor the unconditional love of my mother, not even the love I’ve learned to give myself—but the kind of love that hovers just out of reach. Close enough in dreams, yet distant in reality—the love of a partner. At 32—almost 33 years old—I have never had a partner. I have walked the entirety of my life alone, building something steady and self-made while everyo

Content Warning: This review discusses sexual abuse, coercion, and trauma. The memoir itself contains graphic depictions of abuse that may be triggering. I read Ordeal by Linda Lovelace over the holiday break. Or, more accurately, I devoured it—and it devoured me in return, body and soul, leaving nothing behind. No trace remaining of the woman I was before I read it. It inhabited me. Not in the way great literature does—through beautiful prose that lingers like perfume, or a

Every writer is told to brace themselves for rejection—to develop a thick skin, to expect disappointment, and to accept that the inbox will mostly echo back silence or polite nos. So when my writing partner and I began relentlessly querying literary agents, I braced for the wave of self-doubt I knew would hit. Each time I pressed “send,” I whispered to myself: their decision does not define the worth of our novel. Our book is already extraordinary. We poured our lives into it