the powers that be are spitting out the DEI kool-aid
a sign of the times
QUICK HITS
Eli Lilly isn’t selling as many weight-loss drugs as they expected
AI financial advisers aim to help young people living paycheck to paycheck
FDA bans red dye No. 3 in foods, decades after additive found to cause cancer in rats
and I are launching a new series for our paid subscribers. It’ll be called 2 Girls, 1 Book—because we love to read, and apparently, so do you. In my last newsletter of last year, I polled my readers on what they wanted me to write about in 2025. Surprisingly, a lot of you said BOOKS! 2 Girls, 1 Book will be a written conversation between Pandora and me about a new book that everyone is talking about—or we think they should be. We’ve been WhatsApping about books for a while now, and the vibes are immaculate. February’s book is The Coin by Yasmin Zaher, about a young Palestinian woman who gets caught up in a scheme selling fake Birkins. The Times says it’s for fans of The Guest by Emma Cline and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh.
In other Substack crossover news, Delia Cai is joining Magasin as its first-ever Managing Editor, tasked with helping Laura Reilly grow the “inevitable” Magasin empire. During my hiatus, I spent a lot of time talking to other Substack writers. Everyone is thinking STRATEGY this year. There’s a sense that with the looming TikTok ban and the current state of social media, Substack is poised for another growth spurt in 2025. A few months ago, I asked, "Who’s the new Substack-native talent this platform is going to mint?" There’s a wave coming, and everyone’s preparing to ride it.
The Left’s answer to The Free Press is here. Veteran opinions columnist Jen Rubin is leaving The Washington Post to start an independent publication countering “authoritarian threat.”
, co-founded by CNN commentator and former Obama official Norm Eisen, will be hosted on Substack. On leaving The Post, Rubin said, “The Post, along with most mainstream news outlets, has failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press.” I stopped writing about The Post because my schadenfreude ran out. Just know it’s a shit show over there.Every once in a while, I think about the fact that Lili Anolik said Caroline Calloway is the Eve Babitz of our generation. When asked if she’s worried about getting sued by the estate of Elizabeth Wurtzel, whose work her new book is heavily inspired by, Calloway told Dazed, “I feel very confident that the Elizabeth Wurtzel estate is not going to come after me. It’s in shambles. I feel confident in the shambolic state of the Wurtzel estate.”
Caroline (Left), Elizabeth (Right) Independent romance fiction publisher 831 Stories is launching a Membership Program, in line with their ambitions to be the A24 of romantic fiction. A friend called me yesterday to discuss her plans for self-publishing her book, which led to a long conversation about everything happening with legacy publishing—A.I., conservative imprints, editors who don’t edit, marketers who don’t market, and BookTok. Or the (probable) end of it. What happens when BookTok is no more? This was the second friend to tell me they plan to self-publish this year. I’m super curious about the role self-publishing and smaller, niche options like 831 Stories will play in a changing publishing landscape. I’m excited to see the bookish side of Substack evolve in the next year.
