The Pleasure Of... Preorders!

In full recognition that I am the absolute worst.

Friends, it has been a long, long road. It appears I last wrote to you in December 2020, then allegedly there was a year 2021, and now, damn, it’s May. You know because it’s raining. Actually that’s a little unfair, we’ve had some blazingly beautiful days, including last weekend when we took the little peanut—who is now a vocal toddler stretching out into a kid before our eyes—over to Hoboken. Specifically, to a pretty, “manicured” park (the literal description on Google Maps) between the water and a massive Target, where X ran his second kids’ race through New York Road Runners. They rope off an area of about thirty feet, corral the two-year-olds together with a parent each, then release them to stumble, walk, shove, scream, and occasionally run to (or near) the finish. It is adorable chaos, and X loves it. He’s delighted to wear a number pinned to his chest, and although he’s pretty reticent with strangers, he seems not to mind the crowds. So now we’ve got three more kid races on the docket and—I guess this is our summer now?

I’ve made innumerable plans over the past, um, year-plus, about how to revive this newsletter, make it more sustainable, richer, more critical, more creative, more more. And of course, those ambitions kept me from just diving back in and picking up the floating thread, so that’s what I’m committing to for now. Fridays, in your inbox. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

I also have a couple of ANNOUNCEMENTS. The most important one is that my book is done, finished, printed, out of my hands, almost ready to be launched into the world. Jokes (and toddler) aside, this is where 2021 went, into this beauty:

The book tells the story of Heterodoxy, a feminist club that met in Greenwich Village for roughly 25 years, although I focus on the first decade, between 1912 and the early 20s. The women in the club were all famous in their own circles, and professionally accomplished: most were writers of some kind, and also artists, activists, educators, researchers, doctors, and lawyers. They included the first women to practice psychoanalysis in America; the co-founder of the ACLU; two of the most famous socialist orators and organizers in the country; Margaret Sanger’s main rival in the fight for birth control; several suffragists who were imprisoned for picketing the White House; and the founding members of the avant-garde Provincetown Players theatre. They came together as a group at a moment of extreme inequality and division in American life: between Black and white people, between men and women, between rich and poor. They are a remarkable bunch, and I hope you’ll enjoy meeting them as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

And here’s where I ask for your help: firstly, in telling your friends, students, maiden aunts, playground parents, dental hygienists, grocery-store clerks, anyone and everyone about the book. Online, you can do this by saying nice things on Amazon and Goodreads, and wherever else you’re hanging out: Twitter, Instagram, Bumble, Onlyfans, J-Date, irs.gov (side note, where IS my refund?) If you have a line to Reese Witherspoon or, better still, one of those Tik-tokkers who upended the publishing industry by getting emotional about The Song of Achilles (no judgement, I love that book) please send them my way. Or me theirs.

Real talk though: the most vital assistance is PREORDERS. They count as sales, of course, but they also tell the platforms and publisher that people want to read the book, so it will get easier for other people to find. It’s an algorithm thing. I gather. That link to my publisher will give you a range of options for ordering ahead and getting your copy shipped the instant it’s available, but this is my house, where I will implore you to order from Bookshop or your local indie (or mine!)

UK friends, I will have information for you very soon about the separate publication (with Duckworth) and release, on July 14th. Plus events, and all kinds of fun stuff!

Thank you all so much, for still being here. You can always hit reply on this email to say hi, and I would love to hear from you. Here’s to pleasure, even on rainy days.

You can check out all my recent writing on my website, www.joannascutts.com. I hate the tyrannical hold that paid subscriptions have over our lives (but I love hyperbole) so I don’t and never will charge for this newsletter. The best way to support my writing is by buying my books, but if you’re so moved, a coffee would also be delightful. Thank you!