Deadlines, updates, changes

And a little sliver of "news"

Hello, everyone. (And welcome, new subscribers.) Been a minute since I’ve been in your inboxes. That’s because I’ve got three major deadlines all coming due in, like, four months, and my bandwidth is maxed the fuck out 😬. Bad timing. Just worked out that way. What can you do? Point is, for the time being, you’ll be seeing less (if any) of your usually scheduled programming, like the monthly book roundups and author interviews, which I’ve somehow managed to be pretty consistent with up until now. I still hope to bring you one or two of the latter this summer (fingers crossed), as well as a little bit of this and that as time allows. We’ll see. Bear with me!

The main thing I’m hustling to finish is the manuscript for CALIFORNIA SCREAMING, due to hit shelves fall 2027 (knock on wood) from Union Square & Co., which is part of Hachette’s Grand Central Publishing Group. This project—TL;DR: the rise of punk in late ‘70s Hollywood meets the Hillside Strangler case—began, in earnest, in early 2023, when I got a green light from my editors at Vanity Fair to pursue a magazine feature that ended up running in VF’s 2024 Hollywood issue, and which then became the basis for a book proposal.

Well, here I am, something like thirty-nine months, seventy-five human sources (still more to go), and God-knows-how-many-thousand pages of archival material later, and it’s exciting to start seeing the finish line come into view when I squint into the distance. But the last leg of the race is always the most grueling (former track runner here), which is to say that nothing about my work on this book feels leisurely or un-rushed right now. In fact, it feels like my hair’s on fire and I’m actually sort of panicking! But at least it’s the fun type of panic. Lately, when I’m not checking my mailbox for an obscure forty-eight-year-old lawsuit from L.A. Superior Court, or giving my newspapers.com subscription a workout, you can find me mining the archives of Slash, in which I just stumbled upon what is almost certainly the first-ever piece of press for the Go-Go’s, circa August 1978. Pretty cool, right?

One of the other deadlines that’s bearing down is a ghostwriting/collaborative author gig. (Tell you about that some other time.) And then—can’t remember if I’ve already mentioned this?—I’m also in the trenches of a limited-series podcast adaptation of BLOOD & INK. It’s slated to debut sometime this fall from iHeart and Vanity Fair, assuming we ever figure out what to call the thing. (Got any good names? I’m all ears.) So far, we have three episodes written and two episodes recorded. Plus, iHeart hooked me up with a sweet home-recording setup, so I guess I’m officially a “podcaster” now?

Which brings me to a bit of personal news: I recently signed a deal with iHeart for a new weekly show—or an “always on” show, as they say in podcasting parlance. The ink’s barely dry and we only just had our kickoff meeting, so I don’t wanna reveal too much just yet. But I will say that, toward the end of this year, once these other deadlines are in the rearview, this podcast will become more of a focus, professionally speaking. I’ll also be thinking about how I can spin off elements of the show into material for this newsletter. This all sounds obnoxiously cryptic, but I promise to be back with more details before long, so stay tuned. (And btw, if you ever find yourself negotiating a podcast deal and need a crack attorney to look over the fine print, definitely give Dan Sirkin a call.)

Before I go… I know I just said no more book roundups, but I am gonna leave with you two recommendations for books coming out in the next couple months, because they’re from homies of mine and I have the galleys in hand and they are GREAT:

Don’t sleep on those preorders! That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. More soon…