Lethal Weapon is fine! It’s good! But it could be so much more. There’s a lot going on in the movie and some of it’s too much and some of it’s not enough. But its nucleus is pretty perfect; at its core, Lethal Weapon is an undeniable Yin-Yang buddy-cop story featuring two leads with extraordinary, unignorable chemistry. Danny Glover’s straitlaced Roger Murtaugh and Mel Gibson’s insane Martin Riggs fit together perfectly, and when they are sparring and complaining and helping each other out even while driving each other crazy, Lethal Weapon feels perfect. There are other times when it doesn’t. But those aren’t important right now. I might like Lethal Weapon a lot more if it weren’t for Lethal Weapon 2, a film which not only (in my opinion) fulfills the potential of the first film better than the first film, but also concretely builds on the elements established in its predecessor. Lethal Weapon 2 is both a doubling-down on a few chosen dynamics from the first film that worked well, and a knowing expansion of those dynamics into something new, without trying too hard or going too far. No film has a harder task than that of a sequel, which by its nature is already both pinned down and inflated by expectations before it even starts. Before it’s even made. The first film, made in 1987, is a revenge-fueled crime movie in which two opposite kinds of cops find themselves working together on a big drug case. The circumstances in which they find themselves are ordinary for that kind of crime movie (except that the film takes place at Christmas, which is a fun touch and wisely not repeated by the sequel). But Lethal Weapon 2 asks its detectives to grow their bond on a case that actually means something: Murtaugh and Riggs stumble on a group of South African diplomats using their diplomatic credentials to smuggle drug money. Suddenly, they’re up against villains who stand for something not only sinister, but also real. Joss Ackland plays Arjen Rudd, the Afrikaner consul-general of South Africa, who (along with a team of Aryan goons) embodies the hypocrisy, corruption, and oppression of the Apartheid regime. Additionally, the fact that the villain stands for and comes from an Apartheid regime asks Riggs and Murtaugh to confront serious things about the world, and how the world views each of them. That Riggs becomes even more of a passionate and outspoken critic of Apartheid as the film goes on nods to his realizing that the world views his beloved partner as lesser than he. And the fact that the two of them fight (and eventually defeat) the representatives from this terrible, racist regime reveals the beautiful triumph of genuine support and love over the closest thing there is to genuine evil in the real world. So, Lethal Weapon 2 feels more significant, feels more aware, and active in contributing to a dialogue about actual life than its more traditional parent. The most important thing that a sequel must do is meaningfully add to the original from which it came. Lethal Weapon 2 pulls off the delicate balance that most sequels fail to achieve: a thoughtful evolution of the original story, rather than a jarring.tacking-on of new plots or an arbitrary ratcheting-up of action. (Notable exceptions to this rule in the action canon include T2: Judgement Day and Aliens.) But Lethal Weapon 2 doesn’t merely grow in political awareness. It grows in terms of size. The success of the Murtaugh-Riggs partnership in Lethal Weapon is neatly preserved in the sequel, but it is also wisely expanded with the inclusion of a third character: Leo Getz (a perfect, pre-Oscar Joe Pesci), a chatty, excitable star witness in a case that connects to the activities of the dissembling South African diplomat-criminals. Lethal Weapon 2 is full of references to The Three Stooges towards the beginning… and then it turns the Riggs-Murtaugh duo of opposites into a trio of opposites, and puts them through a series of incredible camaraderie-fueled gags. This permits Riggs and Murtaugh to not merely reproduce their chafing-but-loving relationship from the first; it solidifies them as a partnership that, as a bloc, chafes against the new guy for a bit. On a simple level, it circumvents the inevitable redundancy of the two of them fighting all the time (and it doesn’t offer the incorrect assumption that adding a third player wouldn’t change the dynamic between the two, thus preventing the film from feeling like a long behavioral Mexican standoff). But on a complex level, it also is valuable in terms of their overarching character arcs; this element allows their relationship to feel like it’s adapted, deepened since the first one. Incredibly, in Lethal Weapon 2, Riggs and Murtaugh feel more like real people than you might expect would lead a high-octane action movie. The whole thing has heart and soul: in its representation of friendships and family-making, in its desire to say something relevant about injustice in the real world, in its willingness [and this is kind of spoiler] to kill off pretty big characters but refusal to let anything happen to Riggs’s dog. There will be those who will get stuck on how Lethal Weapon 2 (and the franchise in general) has aged, from a shockingly-aggressive flirtation scene to the general fact of Mel Gibson’s real-life objective terribleness. Real as these factors are, though, I hope they don’t overtake the overall shine of film: its many delights and truly impressive reinvention. Anyway, Lethal Weapon 2 feels like a masterclass in fine-tuning the expectations that naturally encircle sequels or franchise installments. Lethal Weapon 2 is not bigger than its predecessor; it is… older and wiser. It knows what it has set up, and it knows what to do about that. Few examples in the movie explain this better than a playful and deliberate Chekhov’s Gun; a nail gun is mentioned early in the film, lies in wait for most of the narrative, and then appears later as an effective weapon. This is a twist on one of the greatest rules about staging expectations in a narrative; an expectation is laid down and then fulfilled, but it’s done as a kind of pun. Lethal Weapon 2 knows how to leverage itself against the pitfalls of growing a plot in general, and then growing it past its original framework. And what it produces is a delightful, calculated, and satisfying action movie. Personally, I’ll never get too old for this shit. View the full article

There’s nothing more delicious than getting to the end of a mystery only to have the author expertly pull the rug out from under. Done well, an ending that reframes the entire book and turns everything we think we just learned on its head is both dizzying and invigorating, sending us back to chapter one to see if we can spot what was hiding in plain sight all along. These reversals are a subset of the twist, a literary technique that spins the plot, or the reader’s perception of a character, off in a different direction. Most modern thrillers — especially domestic and psychological suspense — deploy at least one, if not several, twists. But the kind that come at the end and shift the whole book fall into their own special category. I enjoy reading books with this device so much that I wrote it into my latest domestic suspense novel — You Deserve To Know. I framed the story with a prologue by an unnamed narrator who warns the reader that the book they are about to read cannot be relied upon as truthful, that it serves this narrator’s interest. It isn’t until the last chapter that the reader learns who wrote the “book.” My approach was unusually straightforward: I warned the reader not to trust the veracity of what was about to come, whereas most other books let their revelatory endings sneak up on the reader. Here are a few of my favorites (no spoilers): These Violent Delights By Micah Nemerever A brutal murder kicks off this novel, and by the time you get to the end you may wish it had never been solved. If The Secret History had a love child with Call Me By Your Name, it might look like this queer, toxic, dark academia about two young men and their escalating obsession with each other. Like the true-crime case of Leopold and Loeb — the two college students who kidnapped and killed a boy in 1924 — the two main characters in this book express their ultimate devotion to each other through murder. The book is almost over when you realize that you’ve become overly reliant on one of the two main characters. It’s then that you begin to question everything. The Wife Stalker By Liv Constantine An unreliable narrator is an essential linchpin in these types of endings, and Liv Constantine’s psychological suspense delivers not one, but two in The Wife Stalker. The first voice belongs to a sympathetic woman seemingly struggling to keep her family intact, while the second point of view belongs to a ruthless gold-digger who wants to marry up. The man at the center of this frenzy is hardly the point — you keep reading to see which of these women will prevail. It’s not until the very end that you learn of a relevant detail, carefully omitted, which casts the entire book, and the trustworthiness of the two women, in a startling new light. The Last House on Needless Street By Catriona Ward There’s no pretense about the reliability of one of this book’s narrators — a Bible-quoting cat. The opining feline is one the more obvious signals that this book will dance merrily along the border between mystery and confusion. The novel, which melds horror and psychological suspense, follows the inhabitants of the titular house — a recluse of a man with a drinking problem, an almost-feral teen girl whose treatment appears to be abusive, and the aforementioned cat. Just when you think the book has descended into chaos, the author reels you back from the edge, delivers a few key bits of information and voila, the pieces fall into place. That cat finally makes sense. The Good Sister By Sally Hepworth One could be forgiven at first for thinking this is a family novel about two adult sisters navigating their complicated relationship. Hang on, because these two sisters are not the people they claim or appear to be, and one of them is playing mind games with the reader. These two fully-developed characters have such different takes on their shared troubled childhood, as well as events that unfold during the book, that we are forced to take sides. Only when the truth is revealed do we realize how easily we have been manipulated. And Then There Were None By Agatha Christie Ten guests, ten dead bodies. The locked-room mystery set on a remote island (off the coast of Devon in this case) has been imitated and recreated so many times it feels like a cliché now, but Dame Agatha did it first and, arguably, best. Every death comes as a tiny shock to the reader, and once everyone has been murdered bafflement sets in. It is only in the epilogue, in the form of a letter from the killer, that we learn exactly what happened. It’s not just a clever puzzle box of a novel, although it is that, but a meditation on justice and who among us deserves to mete it out. Shutter Island By Dennis Lehane Starting off with a blast of sea air, we follow a U.S. Marshal and his new partner to a desolate island to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a mental hospital for the criminally insane. But this is much more than a detective tale with a nod to the noir of post WWII, the time period in which the book is set. It’s also a deep dive into the darkest corners of the human mind and an exploration of the stories we tell ourselves to stay alive. Clever readers might pick up the breadcrumbs lining the narrative arc, but it’s not until the very end that the naked truth exposes the depths to which we’ve been deceived. *** View the full article

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” There’s a unique power to a story that lies close to reality; a “just tomorrow” scenario that can prompt us to wonder how much of this tale might unfold in our own lifetime, and more importantly, why. When an author draws upon real science—rather than “in a galaxy far, far away—where does the known world end and the imagined one begin? I’ve always found that niche to be particularly delicious, first as a reader, and now as an author. My debut novel, Symbiote, attempts to thread this delicate balance. By weaving scientific plausibility into a thrilling narrative, I wanted to deliver a cautionary tale that would resonate with… let’s call it “unsettling clarity”. Unlike the distant futures of space operas or post-apocalyptic sagas, Symbiote inhabits a world only a few steps removed from our own. It’s Antarctica in 2028, and the middle of a regional war between the two superpowers of the world: the US and China. In my mind, this proximity serves two vital purposes. First, it brings readers face-to-face with an eerily accessible reality: the seeds of such a crisis might already have been sown in today’s world. Second, grounding the narrative in a somewhat strange yet familiar context can amplify the horror of the situation. Not everyone has experienced Antarctica, but thanks to COVID-19, most every person understands the psychological toll that isolation can have. The closer the crisis is to our lived experience, the more profound its impact can be. Scientific advancements, environmental stressors, and geopolitical tensions can be inextricably linked. This road has been well-tread by masters of crime and science-fiction. In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton used cutting-edge genetic science to resurrect dinosaurs, transforming bioengineering research into a harrowing lesson about nature’s unpredictability. Robin Cook’s medical thrillers, such as Coma and Outbreak, delve into the darker sides of biomedical innovation; these are stories about how technology intended for healing can result in unforeseen horrors. As a scientist and futurist in my day-to-day life, the fusing of credible scientific research into suspense and ethical complexity is something I relish. The narrative approach of grounding extraordinary events in everyday science, and creating a recognizable sliver of reality, has made it easier for me as a reader to slip into the protagonist’s shoes. I can more immediately imagine myself in their situation, instead of suspending disbelief and going along for the ride. Andy Weir’s The Martian is a great example. The protagonist uses actual scientific principles and problem-solving strategies to overcome life-threatening challenges. Weir’s meticulous attention to detail on the minutiae of survival on Mars captured our imagination. The Martian also illustrates another principle I’ve tried to embody within Symbiote: the power of a real place. Whether Mars or Antarctica, in places that are grounded in reality, the stakes feel higher. This challenges readers to differentiate between what is possible and what is purely speculative. The Antarctic setting of Symbiote serves as a microcosm for larger global issues, but a realistic level of detail and sense of place can amplify the experience of the reader, making even a speculative narrative more entertaining and thought-provoking. Carl Sagan’s Contact explores communication with extraterrestrial intelligence, but a rigorous portrayal of the science behind the search for alien life provides an anchor of realism. When the conceivable and the fantastical are carefully woven together, it both inspires wonder and provokes thoughtful skepticism. Neal Stephenson’s works, such as Seveneves, take this principle farther. Though his narratives often span centuries, they extrapolate current scientific understanding into speculative futures. The attention to realistic detail—whether in orbital mechanics, genetic engineering, or climatology—echoes a scientific authenticity. And this creates narratives that are both stimulating and suspenseful. These stories remind us that the seeds of our future are being sown in the laboratories and boardrooms of today. It’s tricky to intertwine fact with fiction without lecturing. It’s even trickier to preserve both the thrilling and the thought-provoking. Rather than resorting to vague or mystical explanations, authors like Weir, Cook, Sagan and Crichton use precise scientific language to transform an abstract threat into a concrete, terrifying possibility. The ability to marry hard science with narrative urgency is a hallmark of “near-future” science fiction, and is one I’ve always found wonderfully intriguing. Realistic science fiction often walks a tightrope between scientific advancement and ethical responsibility. In Symbiote, I’ve tried to explore not only the terrifying possibilities of biological manipulation, but also touch on the moral quandaries that arise when science is weaponized. There are profound questions implicit about the limits of human ambition, and the perils of playing God. This ethical tension is a central theme in the works of Crichton and Cook, who frequently questioned whether scientific progress, in its relentless pursuit of knowledge, might inadvertently unleash forces beyond our control. At the heart of Symbiote lies a question that has long intrigued readers of realistic science fiction: How much of this is science fiction, and how much is science fact? How close are we to a future where the lines between the two are indistinguishable? In the book, the parasite, an “extremophile” version of naturally occurring organisms blurs the line between speculative biology and empirical science. It’s a plausible extension of current trends in environmental degradation, military conflict, and scientific ambition, rooted in ongoing Antarctic biological research. Emerson’s insight—that fiction can reveal truths that reality obscures—finds fresh resonance in works of “near-future” fiction. These narratives not only entertain but also serve as both cautionary tales. They urge us to navigate the frontier of innovation with both curiosity and responsibility. They serve as a reminder that our future, as depicted in these stories, is shaped by the choices we make today. Science can be more than just a backdrop to the drama. Indeed, science can be the engine that drives the narrative, challenging readers to consider the ethical and practical implications of our relentless pursuit of knowledge. *** View the full article

Chapter 1 - Introduces the protagonist, antagonist, emotional hook, theme, tone and style. MIA “I’m sorry Mia, I fucked up, please hear me out” Hudson says as I sit on his bed, hearing a bunch of noise, but listening to none of it. How did it all go so bad so quickly? We were in love, weren’t we? I’m not even sure anymore. The room is spinning. I can’t believe this is happening to me. He just got home from his first semester of medical school. Aren’t prospective doctors not supposed to cheat on their girlfriends with other prospective doctors? I’m so confused right now. “I’m not going to hear you out. We’ve been together for six years. From junior year of high school to now. Six years of my life. And, the second you get a glimpse of something different, something new, you throw us away. You throw me away? You told me you wanted to marry me.” “I do want to marry you, I really messed up Mia. Let me make this all up to you, please.” “And how are you going to do that?” I say. “How do you expect me to look at you now? You’re supposed to want to help people, and yet you destroyed me.” “Please give me another chance Mia, we were all drunk, I didn’t mean to do anything.” “I thought it was weird all along when you were constantly studying with her all semester. I thought it was weird that my boyfriend bonded so well with a girl in school. I tried to look past it, I really did. Sorry we’re long distance. Sorry I’m not going to be a doctor. Sorry you forgot about me so easily.” “Mia stop, I am in love with you, I want you. I messed up so badly.” “I need time to think, to process all of this. I need a break from you.” “So is there any hope?” He says, with tears flowing from his eyes. I walk out the door, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. My chest tightens. The weight of six years crashes over me, and I can’t escape it fast enough. He was gone for one semester. We still spoke everyday. We still facetimed. I even met her over facetime. Gabriella, her name is. The complete opposite of me… She has black hair, deep brown eyes, pale skin, tall… I have light brown hair, olive skin, light blue eyes, 5’3 on a good day. But Gabriella, she was the kind of girl who seemed to belong in the pages of a magazine, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was just… ordinary. Is that why he could forget about me that easily? How can he tell me this? When I’m so excited to see him after months of him being gone. Months of no kisses. No hugs. Nothing.Just me, alone, figuring out post-grad life while he... did this. Did he forget I was the one who was there for him for the past six years? Did he forget about how we were each other's first time? Did it mean nothing to him? How can he hold it in and tell me when he’s home for Christmas? Isn’t this supposed to be a time when love fills the air and nothing can go wrong? I thought we were going to get engaged this Christmas. Boy was I wrong.

(Poster/Conference Attendee/Author Note: Our journey toward this conference began with what we initially perceived as a nearly complete book. However, through the assigned readings and the thoughtful prompts introduced during our preparatory work, we realized just how much needed to change. It is with humility and passion-not haste and hubris-that we embarked on this project almost anew. Below is what we currently believe to be the beginning of our book. We now view it as a piece of creative nonfiction rather than a self-help tutorial. We look forward to all the learning that awaits us next week. -Jessica and Joahn ) Intimate Reflections: A Twins’ Journey to Reclaim the Power and Visibility of a Woman as She Ages in a Sexualized Society Summer of Sorrow: We call it the summer of sorrow. My twin and I would lie on either side of our mother on a mattress we’d dragged into the living room. We were home from our freshman year of college, determined to help our shattered mother navigate the darkest chapter of her life. Our father had left her for another woman, leaving her so heartbroken that even getting up, going to work, or caring for our little sister seemed insurmountable. Our parents had tried counselling twice, but during the second session when the counsellor (male) told our mom point blank that “He [our dad] never wants to have sex with you anymore”, she knew it was over. She confessed only recently that she has not felt desirable since. When my mom told us our family as we had known it was broken forever it felt like we all cried together for days. It was jarring and unmooring to be so young and idealistic, on the verge of building our own adult life, and unexpectedly seeing our mom so shattered and lost. Here we were, ready to build our own futures and potential families, now witnessing the woman we loved and looked up to most without power or strength or a framework for what her next decades would look like. One man, our own father, (had held such a now seemingly precarious hold on our little family.) I took a full time job working at a surf shop and a part time job at the jewelry shop to help pay the bills, while my twin assumed the role of caregiver, preparing small, careful meals for our mother and taking our sister to the public pool to swim away the strange new days in the warm sun. Each night, we gathered as a makeshift family isolated in our bubble of sorrow. As the weeks passed and our mother gradually reclaimed her strength, we began taking long beach walks where we discussed the twist of fate that had brought us there and speculated about what life might look like for our mother now—a single woman in her mid-forties, reinventing herself after losing the love of her life. The summer of sorrow was not without humor, however. Early on, my twin sister announced “It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all” whereupon we all cracked up, especially because it was way too soon. (Now we use that adage whenever someone says the wrong thing.) We learned that summer through our mom that nothing, not even heartbreak, is one hundred percent dark. Our mom still tried to make us laugh. She would sometimes pretend to answer the phone saying, “Yes, I forgive you, you can come home!” Although punctuated by laughs, we learned a hard and cruel lesson that summer. Our power as women can suddenly be taken away by a man whom we love but who no longer loves us – our feelings of self-worth and desirability cut off at the knees. Pain and grief are part of life, but it’s up to us NOT to remain stuck in a bitter and vengeful whirlwind of our own mind. After clawing her way out of those first intense weeks and months of sorrow, our mom has managed to stay childlike in how she views the world and in how she views herself. As a magical being of light, capable of magical things. You can see this in her eyes when she talks, and you can feel it surround you when you join her in conversation. She is a rare person who does not seem to feel loss or bitter as she aged, (just adventure and marvel.) Our mom grew stronger over the next year, but she would often talk about feeling invisible in society in this new role as a single, middle-aged woman, that her presence and voice no longer held attention and respect wherever she went. The thrum of youth did not vibrate around her and call attention to her; wanted or not. Without the role of wife to identify with, she felt lost. As we listened to our mom talk about her invisibility crisis and drowning sense of self, my twin and I vowed to define ourselves on different terms. We were determined to avoid the vulnerability of being defined by our desirability in our sexualized society. Our young and still- forming minds wanted desperately to guard ourselves against that kind of betrayal and heartbreak. We wanted to be able to face something like that without being cut off at the knees. But as we soon found out in young adulthood, it is one thing to be determined to avoid something and quite another to be successful. The Betrayal “Just eat this,” she said handing me an orange slice from the orange she had just peeled. I was sitting on my secondhand couch in a nice family home in a bad neighborhood in Sacramento. The tears had dried up and I felt hollow inside. “Why?” I asked my twin in a baffled and hoarse voice. We were in our mid-twenties, did not have scurvy and were not even trying to stave off a cold. In fact, my condition was arguably worse than severe malnutrition or the flu; I had just discovered that I could add betrayed wife to my budding resume as an adult. Mixed in with the immediate grief of the betrayal and the details surrounding it was a shocking. How had I let this happen to me? I was sure that I had chosen a spouse who was safe. My then husband had swept into my life right after the summer of sorrow when I was back at college. He witnessed me reeling from my broken childhood family and pledged to be my new home. I couldn't believe this was happening -feeling like my mom must have felt; that my sense of self and confidence was so tethered to the whims of another’s desire. I had been a part of this play before but had played a supporting character in the betrayal drama. I was the daughter who had helped her mom through infidelity and the rebuilding herself. This was a whole new ballgame; it was now my turn to be the aggrieved spouse and to see if the lessons from my youth held strong. “Just eat it please,” she said shoving the half-moon shaped soggy slice of orange in front of me again. Of course, eating the orange did not rewind time to six months before and keep my gross husband’s pants zipped and my little world tilted right on its axis. It did not stop the tears, nor did it stop the next six months of fear and despondency as I navigated a divorce and life after scandal. I ate an orange slice that first night after finding out about the betrayal. My twin raced to my house (with apparently an orange in her purse) from miles away as soon as I called to deliver the news that rocked my world. I ate another orange slice the next weekend when we looked for apartments. I ate still more orange slices when we packed my few belongings I wanted to take with me. I ate oranges when we met at the gym to workout. I ate oranges on my lunch break when I tried to ignore the sympathetic looks from coworkers who knew that I had been so betrayed. I ate oranges as I thought about my shortcomings and why I had not been enough. Oranges became a constant in that first year. It symbolized still doing something good for myself even when I did not feel worthy. It symbolized my twin’s determination to do anything she could in a spot where she was mostly helpless. She could not fix the fact that I married an amoral and cruel man but she sure as hell could peel me some citrus and help me help myself. She knew what I needed in that moment was to not just be a broken woman but instead be a woman eating an orange slice. I was doing what I had pledged years before in our summer of sorrow; I was not going to let this betrayal be what defined me. I also knew at a deep part of me that this betrayal hit different than one at 40 or 45. I still had a life to build and a family to create. I could dust myself off and find a new path in what still felt like a long runway of my life. I thought back on what my mom had said about feeling invisible and could only imagine how much harder her heartbreak had felt when she truly believed her years of desirability were behind her. This made me, and my twin, want to redouble our efforts not to be defined by desire and sexualized visibility. The Invisibility Crisis; the Invisibility Myth The next fifteen years were spent in a blur of career and family building; creating a life and continuing to feel like thriving and youthful participants of our sexualized society. It wasn’t until we approached the same age our mom had been that summer of sorrow that we truly grasped what she had been trying to share with us. It was not until our early forties that we started to experience what we thought was the invisibility she spoke about that we had pledged to guard against all those years prior. Her words started to make sense in our changing world as we left the full color glaze of youth. We realized this idea of slowly becoming invisible is not just something our mom experienced that we could just guard our heart against; it seemed inevitable in the sexualized world we live in. But just as we did during the summer of sorrow, my twin and I were determined to navigate this new phase together. This was not really how life had to be; we were determined not to allow our sense of self wither along with our metabolism. As identical twins and now coauthors, we actually have a combined wisdom of over 88 years. Because that is of course how it works when you are a twin. Everything one of us does is like both of us doing it. A point of pain for one, hits even harder for the other. A moment of joy and triumph for one, felt even more acutely for the other. A sonogram in utero declared us one giant baby. Two heartbeats beating as one from the beginning. Two beings, split in utero, continuing to grow together almost as a unit. Getting ready for school side by side in the mirror in high school, sometimes getting distracted wondering who was doing what and laughing at the silliness of it. When my boyfriend decided he was actually into her, I sighed in total understanding and we both wrote him off with a laugh and a big glass of wine. When I first found out I had infertility, she barely needed to get tested to know she did too. When I had my first miracle IVF baby, hers of course came months later as well. Hitting middle age together and grappling with the feeling of shrinking in the world overtook us like a rogue wave used to in the ocean we grew up in. Engulfing us was a feeling of being isolated and yet too exhausted to know how to be less lonely. It took us a while to recognize the source of this new phase of loneliness and despair, but it helped to give voice to it and realize, like always, we were in lock step with our experiences. As we did during the summer of sorrow and with every challenge before and since, we approached the trauma as a challenge to be worked out. Side by side we knew we could always find the joy, the good and the optimism that was waiting to be discovered. The more we explored the idea of an invisibility crisis, the more we realized that this crisis is a construct of our society that values youth and sexuality above all else. If we refuse to buy into this idea and realize that we were never, and never will be how others define us, spouses and lovers included, then we are free to unveil who we really are. We want to share what we have discovered with you, in hopes that you will find the same optimism that we have. You, an aging woman past the point of being sexualized, are not destined for invisibility. You now have the freedom out of the harsh glare of society’s expectations to unveil who you really are. The best is yet to come.

Gary Larson’s The Far Side comic strip (if you can call it a strip… it was always single-panel) ran in syndication throughout American newspapers from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995. I was too young to read it in the paper, but I read every single cartoon in the giant, two-volume, cloth-bound box set of The Complete Far Side when I was growing up. But the cartoon below (which came out in January 1993), I first saw on a monthly Far Side calendar that my mom had hanging up. It quickly became my favorite. BEHOLD: Copyright Gary Larson, 1993 When I saw it, at age eight or so, I was confused by the scene. “It’s because in mysteries, the butler always does it,” my mom told me. And then everything clicked… the hilariousness of the prospect of a butler being murdered at a convention of butlers. I think about this cartoon often, about how this conceit would make a perfect meta murder mystery, which of course is my favorite kind. Can you imagine? A murder at a Butler convention? This cartoon contains one of the best exemplars of Far Side humor… the fact that the punchline is one degree removed from the joke of the whole conceit. It’s not an observation about the funny thing, it’s a remark that already absorbs and acknowledges the funny thing. Of course the detective wouldn’t want to start a Monday with a case like that. Who would? View the full article

First Assignment - Story Statement Mia Romano must learn to break free from the comfort of familiarity and trust herself enough to embrace something new—something real—with Will, all while navigating the resurfacing of her past and the uncertainty of her future. Second Assignment - Antagonist: Hudson Just as Mia finally begins something real with Will—something unlike anything she’s ever known—Hudson returns to New Jersey in July, upending everything. He’s back from medical school, returning to the life he left behind, including the girl he cheated with. But now that Mia is happy, now that she’s moved on, he decides it’s time to reappear. Hudson isn’t outright malicious, but he’s selfish. He’s spent years believing Mia would always be there, always forgiving, always his. And for a long time, she was. Their relationship had been built on routine, a cycle of comfort that she never questioned—until now. Will is different. He’s older, more mature, and refuses to play games. He wants Mia, but will he wait around while she wavers between the past and the future? As Hudson tries to pull her back into their old patterns, Will challenges her to face what she truly wants. With his sister’s wedding approaching in August and his own decision about staying in New York looming, Mia is running out of time. She must finally break free of the past and choose: the boy she once loved or the man who’s showing her what love is supposed to be. Third Assignment - Breakout Title See You Later – This title is a reflection of Mia and Will’s ongoing connection, capturing the way they always say "see you later" to one another, a phrase that becomes a symbol of their bond. It’s more than just a casual farewell; it’s a promise they share, a way to stay connected despite the uncertainties of their journey together. Their repeated use of "see you later" is both playful and meaningful, embodying their growing relationship and the quiet hope that their paths will always cross again, no matter what comes next. What’s Meant for Mia – Emphasizes Mia’s journey of self-discovery, as she figures out what truly belongs in her life, both in love and in her career. This title encapsulates the emotional evolution Mia undergoes as she navigates the complexities of her relationships and begins to trust in what the universe has in store for her. You Deserve More Than You Think – A title inspired by Will’s belief in Mia, representing his gentle persistence and her transformation throughout the story. It highlights the core of their relationship, as Mia learns to embrace love in a way she never had before, recognizing that she deserves more than the hurt she’s experienced. Fourth Assignment - Develop two smart comparables for your novel. Who compares to you? And why? Meghan Brandy’s Say You Swear – My book shares a loose take on the love triangle dynamic from Say You Swear, but it’s more playful and less intense. While Say You Swear has a deeper, more serious edge, my novel injects a fun and lighter atmosphere into the narrative. The dynamic between Mia, Hudson, and Will is more about personal growth and timing rather than an all-consuming love triangle. Will’s character is inspired by Noah Riley, but he brings a fun, easy-going vibe to the mix while still being emotionally supportive, unlike the more intense tone in Say You Swear. Emily Henry's Book Lovers and Happy Place – My book shares similarities with Emily Henry’s Book Lovers and Happy Place, blending romance with personal growth in a setting that feels both relatable and heartwarming. While Henry’s novels balance heartfelt moments with humor, my story does the same but with a lighter, more playful tone. The emotional layers are there, but they’re mixed with enough charm and wit to make it a fun, enjoyable read. Like Henry's characters, mine go through challenges in love, but with plenty of joy and humor in the journey. Fifth Assignment - Hook Line Hook Line: Mia Romano, a young financial analyst reeling from the heartbreak of her high school sweetheart Hudson’s affair, unexpectedly meets Will, a charming stranger at a hotel before her company’s holiday party. She’s drawn to him in a way she can’t ignore. However, she soon discovers that Will is a Vice President at her company’s California office and will be joining the NYC team. As Hudson desperately tries to win her back, Mia finds herself torn between her painful past and her undeniable connection with Will, forcing her to confront her fears and learn to trust love again. Despite her initial guilt over moving on, Mia realizes Will is mature, kind, and the man she’s been missing in her life. However, as Mia begins to open her heart to Will, Hudson returns, trying to re enter her life and complicating her newfound happiness. Torn between the past and the future, Mia must find the strength to move forward with Will and leave behind the man who no longer deserves her. Core Wound: Mia’s core wound is rooted in the guilt she feels over her attraction to Will after Hudson’s betrayal. Despite the deep connection she shares with Will, she struggles with the feeling that she’s doing something wrong by letting go of her past. But as Will proves himself to be a man who is emotionally mature and steady, Mia begins to push aside her guilt and fears. Her journey becomes one of self-discovery, as she navigates the pull of her past with Hudson and the promise of a healthier, more fulfilling future with Will. Sixth Assignment - Matters of Conflict Inner Conflict: Mia’s internal struggle stems from the anxieties she feels about moving forward after her relationship with Hudson. She feels guilty for even considering a relationship with someone new, unsure if it’s the right thing to do. Despite these feelings, her best friend, Amelia, constantly reminds her not to be scared of embracing new possibilities. As Mia grows closer to Will, she starts pushing past her fears and allowing herself to experience something real. Will’s steady, mature demeanor helps break down her emotional walls, making her feel safe and valued in a way Hudson never did. But just when Mia starts feeling comfortable in her new chapter, Hudson reappears, throwing her into turmoil. She’s forced to confront the fear of leaving the past behind and embracing her future, uncertain whether she’s ready to fully trust herself again. Secondary Conflict: Mia’s secondary conflict revolves around the professional challenges she faces as her relationship with Will develops. As an analyst in the New York office, she feels the weight of their differences in seniority—Will is a Vice President, and she’s much lower on the corporate ladder. She’s nervous about how their budding relationship could affect their dynamic at work, particularly how it might be perceived by their colleagues. The office environment is filled with whispers, especially since Will is considered very attractive, and the women at the company are often vocal about their admiration for him. Mia tries to keep things professional, denying the connection between them, but people begin to notice the subtle changes in their interactions. The pressure mounts as Mia tries to navigate her feelings for Will while managing the risk of office gossip and maintaining her reputation in the company. While navigating all of her emotions, the concern that people might think poorly of her because of her relationship with Will only adds to her growing anxieties. Seventh Assignment - Story Settings - sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it. Mia’s NJ Home - Mia’s family home in New Jersey holds memories of her past with Hudson—the last time she saw him, when he tried to act like everything was okay, despite the cracks in their relationship. The house, warm and filled with the bustle of family life, serves as a reminder of what once was and what has since changed. Mia’s family home in New Jersey is a place where Sunday dinners are a cherished tradition, a time when everyone gathers around the table to share laughter, stories, and, of course, an abundance of homemade food. The kitchen smells of roasted meats, simmering sauces, and freshly baked bread as her aunts and uncles bustle around, preparing their specialties. Her cousins, always full of energy, run through the house, while her grandparents sit at the head of the table, telling stories of the past with a touch of nostalgia in their voices. Mia’s Car - When she drove to Amelia to tell her how Hudson cheated on her. Her car is her sanctuary, a small personal space where she can think through the mess of her emotions. NYC Streets - The streets of New York City are where Mia feels a surge of inspiration, a sense of possibility that’s hard to find anywhere else. There’s an electric energy in the air, a pulse that drives her forward as she walks through the bustling streets. The city is alive with movement—people rushing by, the sounds of honking taxis, the hum of conversation, and the clatter of coffee cups in cafés. Mia loves the anonymity of the crowds, the way she can blend in yet feel completely connected to the vibrant pulse of the city. Hotel - Where she and Amelia stayed the night before the extravagant Christmas party, a quiet retreat away from the rush of the city. The sleek, modern lobby with its polished floors and chic décor sets the tone for a night of luxury and escape, a brief respite from the whirlwind of emotions Mia is processing. The front desk, checking in, where Mia first meets Will—a moment that would become the catalyst for something she couldn’t yet comprehend. His charm and effortless smile were enough to stir something inside her, but she didn’t know then how much this encounter would come to mean. The hotel felt almost like a world apart, a place where the outside worries faded into the background. That first night, unable to sleep, Mia finds herself drawn to the complimentary beverage bar. The soft lighting, the quiet hum of the space, offers her a moment of peace amid the chaos of her thoughts. It’s there that she spent a moment with Will, connecting with him, before knowing that he would be working with her in the future. They built a bond, before knowing they’d be professional together in the future. The hotel hallway becomes a poignant setting once again after the Christmas party. In a quiet, unexpected moment, Mia and Will share a kiss, a moment of connection that feels both exhilarating and overwhelming. Yet it’s cut short, interrupted by a call she overhears that Amelia and Hudson are in, desperate to pull her back into the past, leaving Mia torn between the comfort of the familiar and the pull of something new and uncertain. The hotel, in all its elegance, becomes the backdrop to some of Mia’s most intimate moments—memories she’ll hold onto, but also ones she’s trying to move forward from. Christmas Party - The extravagant Christmas party is a turning point for Mia. There, she realizes Will isn’t just a stranger from the hotel—he works at Eastend Investments too and is about to transfer to the NYC office. The moment shifts their dynamic, making their growing attraction even harder to ignore. Amid the festive chaos, they share brief but meaningful exchanges that make Mia question what this connection might mean. NYC Taxi - The taxi rides are brief but frequent moments throughout the book, offering Mia and Will small, intimate pockets of time to connect. Office - The office is sleek, fast-paced, and filled with the pressure of career-driven ambition. Mia works hard to prove herself in this high-stakes environment, but she's also acutely aware of the complex power dynamics, especially with Will. His daily coffee deliveries and his subtle gestures make her happy entering the office and look forward to her daily routine. She finds comfort in her big office and the opportunities it represents, but she also has to navigate her feelings for Will while maintaining professionalism. Jersey Shore Beach - The Jersey Shore beach offers Mia a moment of peace and reflection during Memorial Day weekend. It’s here she tries to clear her head and focus on her future, only to be interrupted by Hudson’s friend, Mark, who mentions that Hudson plans to return in July, throwing her emotional clarity into turmoil. Mia and Amelia’s Apartment - Mia and Amelia’s cozy two-bedroom apartment is their sanctuary—a place filled with laughter, late-night conversations, and the comfort of true friendship. It’s here that Mia can process her internal struggles, confide in Amelia, and seek guidance. The apartment becomes her safe haven, a spot where she can reset and recharge after the pressures of her personal and professional life. It’s a true testament to their shared girlhood and unwavering support for one another. Will’s Apartment - Will’s apartment is a stark contrast to Mia’s cozy, modest space—luxurious, modern, and impeccably designed. The first time Mia spends the night there is after drunkenly texting him, an impulsive move that leads to an unexpected, yet intimate, connection. The apartment feels like a glimpse into Will’s world, one that’s different from the life Mia knows. It’s sophisticated and sleek, with expansive windows that offer a breathtaking view of the city. Later, Mia finds herself spending a rainy day there, the sound of the rain against the windows adding a peaceful, almost surreal quality to the moment. As she sits in the lavish surroundings, Mia grapples with the growing complexities of her feelings for Will and the life she’s now entering. Pizzeria - The pizzeria is where Mia and Will find a bit of normalcy and comfort. After their post-Christmas party pizzeria encounter, it becomes a place they visit often. Will shares his favorite pizza slices with Mia, and it quickly turns into a sweet ritual between them. Restaurant by the Brooklyn Bridge - Located with breathtaking views of the Brooklyn Bridge, this upscale restaurant is the perfect setting for Mia and Will’s first date. The romance and elegance of the place set the tone for their deepening connection, creating a moment of intimacy and excitement that Mia can’t ignore. Will’s Car - Will’s car serves as a quiet, intimate space where Mia and Will share personal moments. Whether they’re heading to Brooklyn or off to Rhode Island for Will’s sister’s wedding, the car is where they can truly connect, away from the distractions of the city and the complexities of their work lives. It becomes a place where Mia can open up more than she might otherwise. Rhode Island - The serene environment of Will’s family home in Rhode Island sets the stage for a wedding that brings Mia closer to Will’s world. The elegance and warmth of the wedding contrast with the storm of emotions Mia feels as she navigates her feelings for Will. Surrounded by family, Mia is forced to confront her emotions and question what her future could look like with Will in it. Christina and Enzo’s Apartment - Christina and Enzo’s apartment is a welcoming, family-centered space where Mia feels a sense of connection outside her own family. Their Sunday dinners, filled with food, laughter, and close relationships, remind Mia of her own family traditions. It’s during these meals that Mia begins to reflect on love and relationships, with Enzo’s stories sparking deep thoughts about what she truly wants in her own life. What makes these settings so interesting is that they aren’t just places—they’re reflections of Mia’s journey, her emotions, and the choices she’s struggling to make. Every space she moves through carries meaning, whether it’s tethering her to the past or pushing her toward something new. There’s a contrast woven throughout the book: familiarity vs. change, comfort vs. uncertainty. Mia’s New Jersey home is warm, loud, and full of tradition, but it’s also a place where Hudson’s presence lingers, making her question whether she’s really moved on. Meanwhile, New York City is electric and full of possibility, a place where she can get lost but also discover something entirely new—especially when it comes to Will. Some settings are big and cinematic, like the Christmas party, the wedding in Rhode Island, or the restaurant by the Brooklyn Bridge—places that make her relationship with Will feel larger than life, almost unreal. But then there are the quiet, intimate spaces—a hotel hallway, a late-night pizzeria, the inside of a taxi, the privacy of Will’s car or apartment—where emotions build in a way that feels even more intense. These are the moments where Mia and Will are forced into proximity, where their connection deepens even before either of them fully realizes it. And then there’s the office—where Mia is supposed to be focused on her career, but Will is there every day, making it impossible to ignore what’s growing between them. Even the Jersey Shore, which should be an escape, becomes a reminder that her past is never as far away as she thinks. All of these places matter because they shape Mia’s decisions, pull her in different directions, and make the love triangle even more emotionally charged. The settings aren’t just where things happen—they are the story.

One: To move towards her lifelong desire of being in a same-sex relationship, the protagonist must untangle her religious beliefs from a mental health disorder that, together, keep her trapped within a heterosexual marriage. Two: The protagonist and antagonist are the same character who is locked in a back and forth over the freedom to fulfill her lifelong desire. In me vs. myself, the antagonist is personified in patterns of anxiety and evangelical certainty. I fight my own entrenched religious fundamentalist beliefs and layers of distorted thinking that keep me in a state of fear and a miserable heterosexual marriage. Three: What the Third Eye Sees: A Foray into the Forbidden Certain Beliefs: Unraveling the Anxiety in Fundamentalism and the Fundamentalism in Sexuality Certain Uncertainty: The Magic of Overcoming Distorted Thinking Four: HIJAB BUTCH BLUES by Lamya H. Written from a Muslim perspective, the author dissects traditional stories of the Quran in the way I use the Christian spiritual practice of lectio divina. Both of us reinterpret what we have been taught to renegotiate the binary character of God. We come to a new understanding of ourselves and integrate our sexuality and feminist beliefs into our faith. Although the root causes differ, Lamya H and I both struggle to be vulnerable and are lonely souls in search of the authentic connection that isn’t available to us through romantic heterosexual relationships. Primary differences between our stories make them unique to each other. First, I chose my fundamentalist faith as an adult and built my marriage and parenting on its tenets, whereas Lamya was raised steeped in the teachings of the Quran. Also, because I came of age in an era that obscured the gay landscape, I lacked an understanding of my sexuality until I was middle-aged and already married to a man. Lamya, however, understands this when she is in her late teens and unmarried. Further, the layered themes in our stories are different. Lamya writes of the difficulties of being a Muslim immigrant near the time of 9-11 while I include the complex layer of an anxiety disorder. MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO SOMEONE by therapist and writer Lori Gottlieb. Gottlieb’s memoir follows a chronology much like mine. The plot is anchored in the therapy sessions of the main characters. As readers sit on the couches with Gottlieb’s clients, so they sit with me in my story. Both stories present mirrors to readers and enjoin them in a process of self-examination, but my story is told from the client’s perspective rather than the therapist’s. Further, my story is broader in scope as it captures life outside of therapy. LIVING, LOVING, and LEAVING the WHITE EVANGELICAL CHURCH by Sarah McCammon. Evidenced by its rapid rise to the New York Times bestseller list, this memoir reflects the appetite for books about the evangelical world across a broad readership. The book, which is part memoir and part investigative journalism, addresses evangelical cultural issues of her childhood, including sexuality, women’s roles, and other dogmatic religious teachings. While I speak to many of the same issues, I, in stark contrast, could be the parent in her story because I raised my children much like she was raised. Another difference is my emphasis on the patterns of dualistic thought produced by a fundamentalist worldview; patterns that were kept in place by a need for certainty and reassurance. In addition, McCammon is not a lesbian. Five: After years of battling an anxiety disorder, a health event propels a 60-year-old evangelical woman into the therapy that springs her from traps of distorted thinking and frees her to choose her authentic sexuality. Six: Early spiritual and supernatural experiences of “hearing” God nurtured the belief that every choice or decision is either the right one or the wrong one, and that making wrong choices will result in displeasing God or tragedy. Overcoming binary thinking means foregoing religious teachings and the need for certainty. When therapy uncovers a childhood trauma of sexual assault, the embraces that as the cause of her same-sex attraction, but only tells her husband about the assault. As she tries to extricate herself from the marriage, he holds on to the idea that she can be healed from the assault’s wounds, forcing them both into a cycle of guilt and reprieve. Seven: The story is anchored in therapy sessions in two different offices, but flashbacks take the protagonist out of those places into other primary settings of her home, neighborhood, inside churches, and the bar at a local grocery store. Scene is enhanced by the behavioral details of the actors, such as jangling keys, slamming doors, picking up lettuce off of a plate, and looking down at the floor.

Your monthly dose of thrills, chills, and necessary distractions has arrived! Here are five riveting psychological thrillers that will keep you reading late into the night. Susan Meissner, The Map to Paradise (Berkley) A blacklisted actress with too much time on her hands teams up with her clever, secretive housekeeper to investigate the disappearance of their neighbor, a reclusive writer. His sister-in-law, who’s been his longtime caregiver, insists he hasn’t vanished, and is merely working on his latest script in private. As the women grow closer, and increasingly suspicious of each other’s motives, they reveal shocking secrets and dark pasts. Sarah Hartman, All the Other Mothers Hate Me (Putnam) In this biting, satirical take on the domestic thriller, a failed pop star turned private school parent must clear her son’s name when his bully goes missing. Luckily, she’s just made a new friend—a lawyer who just happens to harbor dreams of private investigating. And her upstairs neighbor is a cop, although not a very useful one. Between the three of them, she’s sure she can track down the little shit precious angel child before her son’s reputation is forever tarnished. If you like quirky characters, scrappy fighters, and a high dose of hijinks, this is your cup of tea! Who am I kidding? This book is everyone’s cup of tea. Connie Briscoe, Chloe (Amistad) Briscoe’s latest is a respectful yet inventive ode to Rebecca, in which a young private chef named Angel enters into a potentially dangerous liaison with the haunted scion of a wealthy Black family, who appears to be grief-stricken by the loss of his powerful wife. You know the drill….or do you?!? I can’t give anything away, but Connie Briscoe still packs the familiar tale with plenty of surprises. Ashley Winstead, This Book Will Bury Me (Sourcebooks) Ashley Winstead has quickly become one of my favorite voices in the genre—there’s a polish to her characters that belies their hardened interiors and wounded pasts, their favored delusions and worst decisions. Her latest may feature her most interesting and complex heroine so far: an internet sleuth, mourning the loss of her father, throws herself into investigating the high profile murders of several sorority girls, and in the process does something terribly wrong. Many authors have taken a stab at capturing the complex and exploitative ins and outs of the true crime industry and its many cold case warriors, but Winstead’s is my favorite take yet. Deanna Raybourn, Kills Well with Others (Berkley) Deanna Raybourn’s charming sequel to Killers of a Certain Age is finally here! Our four favorite senior lady assassins Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are back. They are laying low but growing restless… but then they learn of the perfect job and swing back into action. I cannot even tell you how much of a vacation these books are. –OR View the full article

In my debut novel, Creep, the protagonist, Alice, ruminates on the significance of three: “Third time’s a charm, I am told: there are always triples in stories of old: bears, billy goats, blind mice, benevolent fairies – three acts.” It’s appropriate, perhaps that, at thirty-five, I have had three surnames, each for roughly a third of my life. Each iteration of my name has been tightly bound up in my identity as a mixed race woman, which, in turn, is explored in my novel. I was born to a Mauritian father and English mother as Emma Bundhoo* (to preserve privacy I have changed my birth surname to another common in Mauritius), and, after their divorce when I was one, endured a childhood of mispronunciations and misspellings. Why is your name funny, playmates would ask, and sometimes, after a long look: why are you brown? to which I, bewildered, had no response. I remember emulating the tired way my mother would spell it down the phone: B, U, N for November, D, H, double O. How I wished I was called Emma Lennox, like Mary in The Secret Garden. My mother met our wonderful stepfather when I was six, and thenceforth we grew up in an overwhelmingly white, English environment, and had an entirely typical (privileged) middle class upbringing: ballet lessons and girl scouts, holidays to Spain, going to the cinema, riding bikes, playing board games and reading books. We had English accents, English turns of phrase, English mannerisms, living in our English house, by the English coast – but the fact remained, we were brown, with white parents. Nothing could change this otherness. My older sister bore the brunt of it. She looked much more like our Mauritian father, with expressive brown eyes, shiny dark brown hair, and skin which tanned readily. I was a more diluted version, watered down: my hair, eyes and skin were all lighter, meaning, I could pass, if not as white, but as western. I had the uneasy privilege of being assumed to be Spanish, Greek or Italian when in holidaying in those countries, of being asked sometimes: so where are you from? in a way that was curious, not aggressive. My sister, on the other hand, was called racial slurs at school. By the time I was thirteen, she had successfully petitioned our mother to legally change our surnames to her English maiden name: Grimwood. I would never have thought of it myself, but I eagerly, gratefully, followed. It made sense: we didn’t see much of our father, had no links with Mauritius, and, for me, in a childish way, I was keen to not have to explain my name, or feel the familiar rush of embarrassment that it set me apart. Although Grimwood, too, was occasionally misspelt, it was unequivocally and reassuringly English. A layer of otherness was removed, and I leaned into this new name. Before long my schoolfriends had forgotten Bundhoo. I forgot Bundhoo. In making new friends at university, I became merely Emma Grimwood: Grimmy, Grimmers (some still call me this) and it was a thrill to be so assimilated, to pass unnoticed, to ignore my own Asianness even as I struggled to tame some of my body’s revolts against whiteness: seemingly excessive, fast-growing body hair and tendency to store fat on my stomach and thighs, arms that darkened so dramatically in summer that it drew comments. There’s a scene in Creep where Alice remembers an internship where she was asked to make a cup of tea the colour of her skin. That happened. * I married my husband in 2017, and, despite it becoming increasingly uncommon to take one’s husband’s name, I wanted to do it, to shift once more. I had been English Emma, and was ready for a more nuanced identity, one where I could cautiously find a middle ground: almost comically European, and delightfully vague, meaning “from the street/road”. It wasn’t a momentous erasure of selfhood as it felt to some friends, but a development of identity, into that of a family unit, whose name our children would have. This, strangely, is where I stopped wilfully identifying as white, and began cautiously, willingly trying on my mixed-racedness, my dual heritage. It is no coincidence that I started writing the manuscript that would become Creep a few years later. As I created the character of Alice, my writing began to make explicit things I had only ever internalised: feelings of self-disgust that came with a 90s upbringing and emphasis on thinness and whiteness, together with the quiet assumption that no one would want me. One of the first changes my editors suggested I make was to tone down Alice’s oppressive self-hatred, to use her vitriolic words about herself more sparingly. It was shocking to realise that there wasn’t one thing I had written in her unhappy, spiteful voice that I hadn’t thought about myself, and deleting them one by one felt cathartic. Now, my daughters – a quarter Mauritian, a quarter Dutch, half English – are van Straatens and Grimwoods and Bundhoos. One has hazel eyes, one has blue; one’s veins at the crook of her arm are green like mine, the other’s blue like her father’s. I hope they feel rooted in each name, and not at pains to push any part of themselves away. In Creep, Alice never reconciles herself with her racial identity; sees it as something conspiring to alienate her from the life she wants. I, on the other hand, after many years of shame, or trying to ignore it, am at long last, proud to identify as other: as mixed race. View the full article

This year marks the twenty-sixth anniversary of Law and Order: SVU, which has aired continuously since September 20, 1999. The hour-long drama features the Special Victims Unit of the New York Police Department, who are charged with investigating sensitive, “especially heinous” crimes against vulnerable people—primarily crimes of sexual assault, abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. Very bad crimes, done by very bad people, in near-constant syndication on a show that has also managed to host countless icons of popular culture as guest stars—Robin Williams, Chloe Sevigny, John Ritter, Serena Williams (as a hoopster!), Martin Short, Elle Fanning, Whoopi Goldberg, Henry Winkler, Zara Saldana, Jerry Lewis, and even Murder She Wrote’s Angela Lansbury, among many others. Drawn from Hollywood, professional sports, and the music industry, SVU’s guests come to the show at the top of their games, not as a way to get started. They take on roles as villains, victims, or vice because they want to. Because it means something. Feels good. With more than five hundred episodes behind it, Law and Order: SVU might be considered the Platonic ideal of the TV procedural: each show stands alone, a one-shot narrative with a tidy resolution, while the workplace world built around our investigators becomes so emotionally rich over the span of seasons that we learn to claim every member of the ensemble cast as ours to gossip and speculate about—our eccentric found family who will never change or disappoint us. In the microcosm of the procedural, we seek, perhaps above all, a performance of comforting and absolute competence. These shows deliver the fantasy of just laws and a reordered community in which every victim is listened to, believed, and fought for, and every case is open-and-shut. As Emily Nussbaum put it in the New Yorker, “For all SVU’s excesses, we expect it to keep one promise: no matter how bad things get, the story will end.” SVU is the same age as its relatively recent, and highly enthusiastic, Gen Z audience, who follows the only remaining original lead, actress Mariska Hargitay’s Captain Olivia Benson, as she is challenged alternately by her convictions and the limitations of the legal system. Benson joined the unit as green as they come, partnered with Christopher Melloni’s Detective Elliot Stabler, and we soon learn that Benson is a survivor herself, and therefore motivated by a righteousness that frustrates everyone for whom the work is only a job. Guaranteed closure and earnest conviction: these are powerful appeals in the increasingly uncertain and divided world of late-stage capitalism, and SVU continues to draw millions of viewers every week—including writers Roxane Gay and Carmen Maria Machado, both of whom have spoken about their love for the show that Machado considers a modern-day “fucked up Western fairytale.” Even Taylor Swift is on record as a fan; her Scottish Fold cat, with an estimated net worth of nearly $100 million (and presumably a fan of at least purring in Swift’s lap during an SVU marathon), is named “Olivia Benson” after Hartigay’s character. For ordinary viewers, procedural mysteries like SVU and their medical procedural cousins, including the evergreen Grey’s Anatomy and House, inspire countless fanfictions and rewatch podcasts. When the procedural format embraced forensics and crime scene scientists in the early 2000s via docu-series like Forensic Files and TV’s CSI franchise, as well as the work of bestselling novelists including Patricia Cornwell (whose Scarpetta is in the process of being adapted by Prime Video) and Kathy Reichs (whose Temperance Brennan inspired Bones), we even saw ripples in the United States’ IRL justice system. Detectives and prosecutors scrambled to catch up to the ideal that no crime is committed without leaving clues while simultaneously struggling to overcome the unrealistic expectations that the scientifically documented “CSI Effect” inspired in juries. Procedural book, television, and film series are a catechism, a soothing and cherished mantra against feelings of dysregulation and fear. The Equalizer, whose CBS reboot stars Queen Latifah and is now in its sixth season, makes this promise explicit by offering justice directly to the disenfranchised: in every incarnation of the premise, the protagonist, a retired intelligence agent, advertises their services, “Need help? Got a problem? Call the Equalizer.” The current CBS series takes this vow a step further, promising in its tagline, “Injustice will be equalized.” In most episodes, Latifah’s Robyn McCall goes head-to-head against enemies who embody current societal problems, from transgender discrimination to refugee trafficking to domestic violence. The diverse cast illustrates the triumph of progressivism in all of its muscular and unyielding power. While The Equalizer, along with SVU, CSI, Bones, and their cozier counterparts like Murder She Wrote and the reissue of Matlock with Kathy Bates, have invited criticism for their lockstep and formulaic structure, it’s the formula that makes the viewing experience soothing. On a procedural, justice is inevitable, and the journey is the point. The viewer is along for the ride, relaxed and free to ponder the larger issues at stake or to fixate with delight on a favorite slow-burn ship. Perhaps this is why Roxane Gay has said she does most of her writing “lying on my couch and watching Law and Order”: the procedural doesn’t compete for her attention so much as it creates a comfortable backdrop for Gay’s creativity. The appeal of the procedural is, in this sense, a shade different from the appeal of a sleuth mystery or even of true crime. Consider the jokes about there being “nothing more soothing than true crime before bed,” the popularity of “relaxing with my murder podcast” and stepping into a space of being “basically a detective.” True crime and sleuth mysteries explicitly invite the audience to participate in the work of solving a crime. They tell their stories in a variety of different ways, with only the sleuth themself (or the podcaster’s soothing narrative voice) remaining constant from one episode to the next. The procedural, by contrast, is an established step-by-step procedure of storytelling. It presents its case not so much for the viewer to solve (although we’re welcome to speculate) but rather to make a frame for what the viewer is truly interested in—whether that be complex character issues, anger, advocacy, romance, found family, friendship, or all of the above. Of course, there’s no hard-and-fast dividing line, but it’s interesting as novelists to think about the procedural as its own separate space in mystery storytelling. Much of the advice given to budding mystery novelists is grounded in the assumption that readers will strive to solve the mystery alongside the protagonist, and many do. On the other hand, surely one of the pleasures of a long-running mystery series is that there is no requirement to stay one step ahead of our sleuth. Kay Scarpetta, Temperance Brennan, and even Stephanie Plum can be trusted to get their guy. Deep in the Kinsey Millhone alphabet, we know that the procedure by which Kinsey solves the titular mystery will involve a jog on the beach, a conversation with her landlord, and one or more episodes of mortal peril, along with half a dozen changes of clothes. Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski series (launched in 1982, with its most recent release in 2024, a longer-running series than even SVU) and founder of the professional author group Sisters in Crime, likewise blurs the lines between procedural and amateur sleuth, adopting a handful of beloved plot beats that she utilizes in every book to tell the reader where they are and where they’ve been in the mystery, and to remind us that the bad guy can’t stay ahead of Vic. Our upcoming mystery debut, Big Name Fan, embeds a fictional TV PI procedural called Craven’s Daughter alongside its actors’ attempt, five years after their show has wrapped, to solve the murder of one of the show’s crew members. There’s nostalgic fandom here, placed in conversation with fan critique of a network’s shortsighted decision-making when it comes to queer ships, but there’s also an acknowledgment of Mariska Hartigay’s observation that the longer a show goes on, the harder it can be to tell the actor apart from the character she plays—even for the actress herself. Maybe that’s why, as readers of these books and audiences of these shows and podcasts, we find ourselves loyal to particular series and to characters and can even be reluctant to explore a new fandom or book. Novelty is in the details, but not in the voice. Not in the familiar home that a procedural makes for its mystery, whether it be dark or light, romantic or gritty. Olivia Benson, as ever, has got this, and she understands, especially, why you’re here. *** View the full article