Cruel compendium #7 🎆
The single experience, sad girls and Wig Baby
I’m starting an advice column called Dear Jilla. But to write it, I need your queries! Please submit your questions on heartbreak, healing and hardship here.
I’m reading
Friendships are the greatest love stories of our lives by Tiffany Philippou in her newsletter, The Tiff Weekly. The longer I live, the more I understand that my friends are the true loves of my life.
The single experience isn’t one size fits all by Nicola Swanson at her newsletter, The Single Supplement
Single? Count your blessings. Cheating spouses, secret addictions and identities—marriages are buckling under Covid quarantine by Marisa M. Kashino
Ilana Kaplan interviews Phoebe Bridgers about her new album, being a “sad girl” and recovering from an abusive relationship. I had no idea she was only 25!
When motherhood means carrying life and death by Danielle Campoamor. A mother shares her thoughts on grief and joy after giving birth to twins, one stillborn.
How to show up for your people and yourself, right now. Gyan Yankovich in conversation with author Rachel Wilkerson Miller. Some of you may know that “Show Up For Me” was a mantra of mine over the last year, so I’m very excited to read Miller’s new book, The Art of Showing Up. She also has a fab newsletter: Just Good Shit.
Questionable self-care advice
Support I got that you might need to hear
You should know about
Author Mason Currey’s newsletter, Subtle Maneuvers. I’ve written here before about his books, Daily Rituals; his newsletter continues to explore how we work and create.
The Tangle, a bipartisan politics newsletter that explores the news from the viewpoints of both sides of the aisle. I know how hard it is to build a media diet, and this newsletter does a great job succinctly and fairly explaining the news issues of the day you should know about, in 10 minutes. If you scroll down to the “your questions, answered” section of this edition, you’ll find a fascinating breakdown of the belief systems that Americans are generally united on in a divided time.
This one-women performance of Cher playing all of the roles in West Side Story that my friend Louie called “sacred ancient gay scripture”
Minerva moment
Anthem of the week
“Soulmate” by Lizzo x Queer Eye
This cheered me up
Thank you, Wig Baby.
Mood
Rain on me 2020, why the hell not?
Cruel compliments
I’m glad someone is excited for my advice column! Thanks Tiffany Philippou for sharing my post in your newsletter as something you loved and tweeting my news:
Introducing my advice column: Dear Jilla: I adored this edition of one of my favourite newsletters Cruel Summer Bookclub by Jillian Anthony and there’s so much incredible wisdom in this from her years of writing a dating column and I felt so seen when she wrote: “Dating has always been challenging for me, and I’ve gone through a lot of heartbreak and feelings of inadequacy and longing. I still do. But I’ve never stopped trying to find love, or to further embrace my sexuality."
A reader (Hi Cristiana!) alerted me that Cruel Summer Book Club got a great shoutout in the Italian newsletter La McMusa. I don’t speak Italian, but here’s a rough translation thanks to Google Translate:
I signed up for her newsletter because I had been so intrigued by her name: Cruel Summer Book Club. I am continuing to follow her because her stories are passionate and every now and then she makes me discover characters and glimpses of America to which otherwise I would never get. Her name is Jillian Anthony, she is going through a difficult time in her life—first for love and then because of the coronavirus—and she uses the sharing of stories and cultural projects to get better. Biggest advantage: candor.
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