What’s all this then?
This is a newsletter written by me, Catherine Shannon, a writer and comedian living in Manhattan. You can read some of my other writing for The New Yorker here and contact me here.
I started this newsletter to share my more nuanced ideas, and it has evolved over time into lots of that, plus short fiction, humor pieces, and personal essays. Anything goes.
As a subscriber, here’s what you get:
My thoughts on the culture
One thing that kind of bums me out about culture these days is that people love to tear things down, but they rarely offer hopeful alternatives. Often they identify a real problem, but are too absorbed by their own apathy, anger, or ambivalence to even think about the answer. There’s much about modernity that deserves criticism (and there will be plenty of that here), but something I earnestly strive to do in all aspects of my work, whether on stage or in my writing, is offer my own small, hopeful alternative.
The obvious disclaimer: I don’t have the answers, but I believe that I owe my readers my best guess. I’ve found that, sometimes, the mere existence of an alternative perspective can be a tremendous comfort, and I want to provide that perspective in full, as best I can, and not stop short.
Humor
That all sounds very serious. Um, I know, bitch! Humor plays a part in almost everything I write, but there are definitely some pieces where that’s the whole point.
Short fiction
Honestly, I just really enjoy writing fiction that blends the two things above: cultural critique and humor.
Personal essays
I’m a woman living in 2023… there’s gonna be some stuff about me. No promises that it’s relatable.
How it works
You won’t have to worry about missing anything. When you subscribe, every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox.
Some previous topics and themes
If you’d read an essay on any of the following topics:
The Great Diminishment ∙ Resolutions ∙ Lit Woman Winter ∙ Nostalgia ∙ Ironic detachment ∙ Gratitude ∙ Manhattan ∙ Briefcases ∙ Aristotle ∙ Independence ∙ Love ∙ Feminism ∙ Going Monk Mode ∙ Intuition ∙ God ∙ Therapy ∙ Skincare ∙ Sweatpants ∙ Exercise ∙ Facebook ∙ Manners
And you’re interested in themes like alienation, hypocrisy, spirituality, beauty, narcissism, feminism, and technology…
And you want to look critically at the brand- and status-conscious world of bicoastal millennials while having bit of a laugh... you’ve come to the right place.
Referral rewards
I’d like to grow my readership to include more people like my current readers, who are very cool and inspire me to be a better writer. Word-of-mouth is definitely the way I want to go, so if you’re already subscribed and want to do more to support my work, please consider sharing it with your friends.
In fact, if you share this newsletter—or any individual post—you can unlock special rewards and posts. You can read more about how it works, and more about the rewards themselves, by clicking here.
Thank you very much for supporting my writing.
Catherine x
