Written by Meghan Daum | 08 March 2013

The February 20 party in Hollywood celebrating the launch of the Emily Books release of the electronic version of My Misspent Youth was a great success except . . . Emily forgot to turn on her tape recorder during the Q&A session! So she twisted my arm into recontructing it for the Emily Books Tumblr and I finally got around to doing it. Topics discussed include: shiksas, death, redemption narratives, Christian book clubs, and much more. Read it here.

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Written by Meghan Daum | 25 January 2013

Big news!

I'm thrilled to announce that my 2001 essay collection My Misspent Youth will soon (and finally) be available as an e-book. It will be featured as the Feburary selection of the online bookclub/electronic imprint Emily Books. Visit the Emily Books site for ordering information.

If you're in the Los Angeles area, come to the kickoff event, An Evening of My Misspent Youth, on Wednesday, February 20 at M Bar in Hollywood. I will be "lightly interviewed" by Emily Books founder Emily Gould. I'm glad it'll be light because I wrote the essays so long ago that I don't remember some of them too well.

Facebook info about the e-book is here. Official RSVP for the event is here.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out the other fabulous titles offered by Emily Books.

Written by Meghan Daum | 22 January 2013

I'm supposed to be writing a new book (and I am; I really am!) but in addition to the LA Times column I still sometimes get sidetracked by magazine assignments I can't resist and/or ideas that I must express right away lest the cultural moment pass. So in case you missed them (and considering that they range from The New Yorker blog to Redbook, you probaby missed some of them) here are a few recent examples.

Is Elizabeth Wurtzel Hannah Horvath's cautionary tale? My take on Wurtzel's much-discussed January 6 New York magazine article vis-a-vis Lena Dunham's GIRLS alter-ego, Hannah, who I suspect would give anything to be able to write and publish a book like Prozac Nation.

 What Would Hannah Horvath Make of Elizabeth Wurtzel? The New Yorker online, January 11, 2013

This is 40? Yeah, yeah. I know all movies are fantasies on some level and I know Judd Apatow en famille really do live like this as 40-somethings but, uh, stil . . .

 This is Not Forty, The New Yorker online, December 29, 2012

This one was a wildcard. Redbook magazine approached me about participating in a project they were doing in collaboration with The White House and The Wounded Warrior Project about military spouses who become fulltime caregivers to veterans with traumatic brain injury. These are wrenching, humbling, important stories. I'm not going to say they're inspiring; that word is overused and we really shouldn't take any inspiration from what these families are going through. We should take action. Or at least fight for it.

 Caregivers: Celebrating The Invisible War Heroes, Redbook, November 2012

And here is a video about Debbie and Brandon. I had the privilege of interviewing them in their home in Hemet, CA.

About as far from a story about military spouses and brain injury as you can get. A treatise on the exasperating, exhilarating, sometimes bewildering, never boring writer Katie Roiphe on the occasion of her latest book, the essay collection In Praise of Messy Lives. This was something I'd wanted to write for a long time.

In Praise of Messy Thinking: On Katie Roiphe, Los Angeles Review of Books, September 4, 2012

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Written by Meghan Daum | 29 December 2012

I love Paul Gilmartin's podcast The Mental Illnes Happy Hour. It's like listening in on the therapy sessions of comedians and other funny, interesting people except the sessions usually last more than "the 50 minute hour" and the therapist is also funny and interesting.

Last year Paul invited me to do an interview. It was a lot of fun but in my typical fashion I kind of kept it under the radar so no one I knew would hear it. However,  my mother-in-law recently told me she'd heard it so I figured there was nothing left to lose.

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