Head On Fire

11/12/2024

Heard a good one from this weekend:

How many years of unseasonably warm winters do we have to have before we stop calling them unseasonably warm?

My husband and I had a rough weekend, but a bright spot was a new tradition, seeing the show!

It’s always good seeing friends. and Dela worked absolute magic in a carefully crafted show that somehow made us laugh and rallied us for the fight ahead.

Not pictured: Jinkx and I collapsing into each other with the biggest hug. I nearly cried but there were people watching. It’s just so good to see friends right now.

If you can go see this show, you absolutely must!

07/12/2024

07/12/2024

07/12/2024

07/12/2024

06/12/2024

Is this appropriate to wear to the & show on Sunday?

Not an ad but I got the shorts from .

02/12/2024

Let it be known that I both own and wear clothes with sleeves.

Yesterday a friend and I decided to go fuss around some stores to see if there were any irresistible deals. We went to Target, of course, and when we walked by the book section there was a mom with her daughter looking at the MG & YA books.

I overheard the mom say “when you grow up, you can be an author and then YOU can decide the right ending for the book”.

I smiled and said quietly but not so quietly that they didn’t hear, “It doesn’t get any easier when you become the author.”

Mom overheard, because I’m much louder than I think I’m being, and asked “Are you an author?”

I said yes, and the little girl brightened and had all these questions. We chatted about the stories we all loved and then she asked what I had coming out.

Y’all when I told this 11 year old girl about Verity Vox & the Curse of Foxfire she LIT UP!!! Her birthday is also next August, which is when the book comes out. She and her mom were so excited for her to have an adventure fantasy with a hero who loves all the things she loves.

I am now addicted to this feeling. I’d like to bottle it and sell it. Every author should get to have this feeling.

This is why I wanted to write for kids. Because of that look and that excitement.

28/11/2024

🦃 Happy Thanksgiving!🦃

26/11/2024

Someone in a social media comment (not on my video but I saw it) referenced me as “that guy Don with the Very Blonde Hair” and I was like…umm have I made a hair mistake? Did we go overboard with the highlights? Am I giving highlighter head?

So I decided to go back to my natural dirty blonde for a little while. It normally lightens up to a gold in the summer, but I’ve been inside writing books so it didn’t do that as much this year.

Anyways, pulled out a beautiful ashy dirty blonde from my roots and overall cooled things off. She did a gorgeous job. I think it’s giving “big city author goes home for the holidays only to meet his high school crush who is for some reason running a Christmas tree farm”.

I hope I’m no longer giving neon.

26/11/2024

They say all politics is local, but that’s difficult to believe when every single topic of conversation at our dinner table seems to have national stakes. From the books on our kids’ shelves to who reads those books to them to the statues in our parks to who is allowed in our parks, every issue large and small feels like it’s operating on some grand scale. It’s hard to gain perspective, hard to know what information to trust, especially when some of our politicians are telling us not to trust what we’ve seen and heard with our own eyes and ears.

That’s where good journalists come in.

Gregory Royal Pratt is an investigative reporter with the Chicago Tribune. He’s made a name for himself covering corruption, triumphs, and everyday heroes in the third largest city in the country. We had a conversation about the power of local journalism, the influence of national politics in small town spaces, and why he wrote a book about Lori Lightfoot.

Listen to the latest episode of Head On Fire everywhere you get your podcasts or on YouTube!

23/11/2024

🩷IF HE WANTED TO HE WOULD!💚

22/11/2024

Found out today Eggsy has cancer. It doesn’t look like we have very much time left with him.

Please note I am in a raw emotional state. I’m only posting because I know many of you have come to love Eggsy over the years. I am not seeking advice of any kind. My husband is a veterinarian and he is getting the best possible care.

22/11/2024

It snowed all day, which meant I needed a comforting bowl of pasta, a cozy fire, and something fun on tv.

Hope wherever you are, you’re safe and warm.

19/11/2024

Hello from Loneliness!

I’m currently about 20% through with the draft for WHERE DID EVERYBODY GO?, my nonfiction book about the loneliness epidemic.

It comes out next year.

So far I’ve defined our “what”, which is loneliness. I’ve learned the concept of loneliness is fairly new in the human experience, or at least we didn’t have a good way of describing it until quite recently. I’ve examined when we began seriously researching it as a social condition and which definition works best. I’ve also found an interesting bit of research that has found a way to “measure” loneliness.

But you all know I’m all about the why behind the what, so the next few chapters are examining some of the big Why’s. Why are we lonely?

The first stop on that journey, and the part I’m working on right now, is the loss of Third Places. Those spaces outside of home, work, or school where we can relax and engage with our community.

It’s rather fascinating because I kind of thought we all agreed as to what a Third Place was, what defined them, and why they were important. Turns out there’s a good deal more nuance than I thought. (And that’s why we don’t just read books but we go and ask researchers studying the condition right now what they’re finding)

I promise this will not be a downer of a book even though it sounds like a downer of a subject.

13/11/2024

📚 Book haul! 📚

The books are:

🎄 Flopping in a Winter Wonderland by

👀 Mechanize My Hands to War by Erin K. Wagner from

🇺🇸 The City is Up for Grabs by Gregory Royal Pratt

12/11/2024

Thanks to the Make America Healthy Again movement, there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation on the rise about food, “chemicals”, and whether what we eat is safe. Thankfully, Erin the Food Science Babe is here to help.

Follow her at & get the latest episode of Head On Fire everywhere you get your podcasts or on YouTube!

10/11/2024

Had an utterly fabulous time celebrating the opening of with .ancrum! I also got to watch the artist create this enormous giraffe 🦒 specifically for the store! Isn’t it gorgeous?!

It was a day of delighting in independent bookstores, free speech, and get all the details about Kayla’s upcoming book The Corruption of Hollis Brown. (Y’all are unprepared for how cool it is!)

Mostly, it reminded me that my people are out there, much closer than I told myself they were a few days ago. It’s important to build community, and moments like this are foundation stones.

09/11/2024

Starting a new religion.

Church of the Horrors.

Who’s in?