Sometimes it’s a sentence or a tune. Sometimes a mood. Sometimes a made-up word that didn’t exist until you needed it.

I loved every second of this impromptu conversation with my beloved husband, Jon Batiste. We sat on the stoop—dogs milling about—and talked about first lines, the tyranny of the blank page, and the permission to just free yourself and begin.

Do you tend to wait for clarity before you begin—or begin in order to find it?

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I adapted several prompts from our New Year’s Journaling Project into conversation fodder, beginning with our first—the one that’s been following me all week:

What’s a question you’re living inside right now—not trying to resolve, just inhabiting?

Kate answered first. The question she finds herself returning to is a tender, familiar one: Will I always feel this achy?

Sometimes that ache turns into something beautiful—the blues, a poem, a sentence. Sometimes it’s just pain. No redemption arc. How do we learn to sit with that? To not be surprised—again—by how messy living can be?

The question I’m inhabiting these days exists on a parallel plane: Where am I confusing momentum with meaning? And what happens if I slow the story down?

We didn’t hurry toward solutions. We let the questions breathe. We talked about ambition and failure, the narcotic pull of productivity, and the quiet relief that comes when you stop asking your life to justify itself immediately. And, as always, there was laughter—helped along, perhaps, by spiked coffee.

The full video of that conversation is available to paid subscribers in the player above. May it meet you where you are. May it be a reminder that January doesn’t have to be conquered. That questions don’t need to be solved to be useful. And that sometimes the most meaningful movement is the decision to slow down and sit with life, just as it is.

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A few months ago, a friend gave the beloved actress, producer, and entrepreneur Jennifer Garner a copy of The Book of Alchemy. I later learned she’d been not just reading it, but journaling to each prompt. When I wrote the book, this is exactly how I hoped it would be used, so hearing that she was doing just that (and had already made it through 35 consecutive prompts!) was thrilling.

I admire Jen so much for her generosity, thoughtfulness, and the way she shows up—on the page and in the world—with such good humor and heart. I got the chance to sit with her over a cup of tea in her living room, and it was pure delight. We laughed. We both got a little choked up. As Jen put it, she dropped a few truth bombs. (We also bonded over our shared office-supply addiction.)

What I’m sharing with you today is the full video of that conversation. It’s the kind of conversation we’ll be having together this month: honest, unguarded, unconcerned with arriving anywhere impressive.

One of the moments that stayed with me was when Jen talked about how, if you stay with the page long enough, you start to notice what keeps circling back. And how eventually, almost without trying, you find yourself asking a gentler question than What’s wrong with me? Instead: How might I shift this?

That noticing, that pivot away from self-criticism, toward curiosity and tenderness—that’s why I do this work.

Before we turn the page on the year, I want to share a small ritual I return to every December 31. I call it “The Five Lists.” It takes me about ten minutes and helps me feel oriented—not fixed or resolved, but open to what might come next.

The Five Lists

1. What from the last year are you proud of?

2. What did this year leave you yearning for?

3. What’s causing you anxiety?

4. What resources, skills, and practices can you rely on in the coming year?

5. What are your wildest, most harebrained ideas and dreams?

I like to think of this ritual as an inventory—one that offers exorcism, motivation, and celebration. These lists quiet my inner critic and remind me that I’ve already accomplished so much—that I know what I want, that I can face what’s ahead, that I have more resources than I think, and that I’m allowed to dream as big as I dare.

If you want to keep going, our 30-Day New Year’s Journaling Project begins tomorrow. I’ll be sending one prompt each day in January.

You’re very welcome to join us.

With love,
Suleika

You can watch our full conversation here—

This conversation is part of the Journaler’s Routine, my ongoing interview series with Random House. You can access a transcript of this video here.

Learn more & join us here

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Over the last two months, we’ve heard from writers, musicians, designers, cartoonists, community gatherers, journalists, illustrators, and more about this seemingly simple and utterly expansive practice of journaling. It’s been inspiring for me, and I know for many of you too. In your comments and in my own practice, I’ve seen catharsis, surprise, new insights, and a renewed fervor for what can happen on the page—for what it can contain, and what it can open up.

What I love about this final installment is how it ties those threads together. Today you’ll hear from my friend, the brilliant writer, actor, and director Lena Dunham (who, in a wonderful coincidence of timing, announced this morning that she has a new memoir, Famesick, coming out next year!). Lena’s is a singular voice, full of wit and tenderness. Her work, on the page and on screen, makes room for our full humanity—for all the edges and angles, from the ugly and absurd (and let’s be honest, sometimes hilariously base) to the cerebral, the loving, and the transcendently beautiful.

What I especially love about Lena’s answers is the sense of freedom. For her, the journal is a vehicle for knowing herself and accepting herself—even if it took multiple attempts and a few false starts. The journal as memory. The journal as reflection. The journal as an embrace of who we are—misspellings, doodles, crushes, and all.

If someone opened your teenage journal, what headline would they find?

For Lena’s thoughts on kindergarten crushes—and a peek into her teenage travelogue from Cuba, complete with best-boyfran drama—read on:

When did you start keeping a journal and what inspired you to begin?

I started keeping a journal as soon as I could write (hence the existence of a mortifying document in which I call a boy in my kindergarten class “my bess boyfran”). As I began to read, it was books written in diary form that really captured my imagination—whether that was stories from wartime like The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata’s Diary, or novels that embraced the form like Catherine, Called Birdy (which I reread every year until I finally adapted it as a feature in 2022). I sensed, even then, that a diary was a place it was safe for women to be their entire selves, and that it was often the only entry point women had to write. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that women have written so many of the great memoirs of all time, because we start writing reflectively about our lives at such a young age, knowing it’s a place that can actually hold us (and our misspelled musings about our bess boyfrans).

Can you tell us about a moment when keeping a journal unlocked something for
you, personally or creatively?

My journals, day planners, unsent letters, and lists are very often the basis of my prose—something as simple as reading my to-do list from a random day in 2011 can put me back in the headspace of that time, the same way a scent or a place can unlock memories. I have been in the editing phase of a memoir, and reopening the many books I’ve carried in my purse over the years is the best trick I know for connecting honestly to days past. Even the slant of my handwriting (which is terribly changeable) tells me something about who I was trying to be.

What’s your favorite journal and writing utensil?

Because my handwriting suffers from such a malleable sense of self—sometimes tidy like a school teacher, sometimes so sloppy it’s cause for concern—I get my best work done on the computer, where I can retreat into the familiar safety of Times New Roman or Ariel. But when I’m working on set and taking notes on a scene, I use a classic black sharpie, scrawling on the back of whatever printed matter is available. Anyone who works with me knows my constant refrain: “Do you know where I put my pages? Now if I were my pages, where would I be?”

Do you reread old journal entries? Why or why not?

There is a divine pleasure, an awe really, that comes from encountering old iterations of oneself. I’m always amazed, both by how much I’ve changed and how exactly I’ve stayed the same. Recently I found my journal from a summer trip to Cuba I took when I was 17. I filled a marbled notebook with what I thought were Hemingway level observations (seen below). Things like “Micki hooked up with the HOTTEST guy in the group, Tyler. He doesn’t seem insanely intelligent though.” With me on the case, how did it take another few decades for America and Cuba to begin to mend relations?

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Today’s Contributor—

Lena Dunham is an award-­winning multi-hyphenate. The author of the New York Times bestselling essay collection Not That Kind of Girl, she is also the creator of the HBO series Girls, for which she was nominated for eight Emmy Awards and won two Golden Globes, including Best Actress, and the Netflix series Too Much. She was the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for directorial achievement in comedy. Lena is also the writer, director, and star of Tiny Furniture, which won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay; she has since written and directed the films Sharp Stick and Catherine Called Birdy. She’s a host of the podcast The C-­Word, which examines the stories of women that history loves to call “crazy,” and writes the newsletter Good Thing Going.

You can find Lena’s essay and prompt, “Doing Her Very Best,” in The Book of Alchemy.

For more inspiration—

• On Asking for What We Need, a video replay of my Studio Visit with Lena Dunham, where we talked about physical limitations and self-advocacy, the spiritual dividends of pain, and the advice she’d give to her younger self

• Goodbye to All That, an installment of my advice column Dear Susu, where I answered a question from a disillusioned city mouse about moving to the country, real estate, and big dreams

• Envelopes of Air, a recording of one of our monthly creative hours, where we read a century-old letter by Virginia Woolf and contemporary letter-poems by Natalie Diaz and Ada Limón and meditated on one of our core tenets here at the Isolation Journals: how a creative practice can turn isolation into creative solitude and connection

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This one begins in an unexpected place. When I asked today’s guest, the artist Oliver Jeffers, about his journaling practice, he said he didn’t journal. But Oliver is a maker of worlds—an illustrator, an author, a dreamer on paper—and I suspected what he meant was simply that he doesn’t keep a journal in the narrow, lock-and-key, dear diary sense.

And that’s where the fun begins. I love prying open the word journal until it makes space for all its unruly cousins: the sketchbook, the commonplace book, the half-legible spiralbound, the grocery list where a line about milk accidentally turns into a line about mortality. Because the point isn’t tidy pages or a faithful record of the day—it’s a place of one’s own sanctuary, where the raw material of life can rest, shift, and, when the time is right, come into focus and meaning.

So I asked Oliver again, and what emerged was a set of thoughtful answers about a different way of keeping a journal: one where words and drawings bump shoulders, where play unlocks surprising new thought-trains, and where surrendering the fantasy of control (because it was only ever a fantasy) is how you stumble onto the good stuff.

Read on—

You don’t keep a journal in the traditional sense, but what about a sketchbook for art and other ideas? Tell us about your un-journaling routine.

I keep sketchbooks and notebooks and have different sorts for different purposes. For example, I have small-ass pads for to-do lists and reminders, and larger notebooks to capture ideas in real time, plan out layouts, write phrases, and generally see what something in my head looks like through the filter of a pencil on paper in reality.

I keep sketchbooks specifically to work out picture books, from the thumbnails of what goes where, to how a scene might be composed and color tests. I also have sketchbooks where I just play. I use them as a private art-making practice.

The act of playing in a book brings a certain joy and can unlock blocked thinking and spark whole new thought trains. As I get older and busier (especially with parenthood), sadly this is the one that suffers, as it is, in theory, the least practical.

Do words ever slip into your sketchbooks, or do you keep writing and visual work in separate orbits?

Constantly. Although I’m often accused of being a writer, I don't think of myself as one, rather as an artist who has words at their disposal, in their toolbox. You can change the look of a painting or drawing by adding text, even as a visual anchor. Text can even change its meaning too, by either contrasting or confirming what you’re showing.

What role do your sketchbooks play in your artistic process? Are they playgrounds, laboratories, confessionals—or something else entirely?

All of those things. There is a difference between thinking and doing. Sketchbooks are step one for the act of doing; until then every thought is just abstract.

Is consistency important to you?

I’ve never had consistency. I’m not the sort of person who needs to draw every day, and no two days are the same. I suppose I would write in my calendar or diary every day the things I need to do, but that's about as consistent as it gets.

Do you return to old sketchbooks? Why or why not?

Yes, you never know how an old, half-cooked idea will collide with a new half-cooked idea. This is pretty much how the entire book Once Upon an Alphabet was born.

When you sketch, do you feel in conversation with anyone or anything? A past or future self? Or is it more about catching something fleeting in the now?

It's more a conversation between what my hand does of its own will, and what my brain imagines seeing. Half of making good art is surrendering to the idea that neither of them is fully in control.

Do you think about the afterlife of your sketchbooks? Would you want others (whether loved ones or the public) to peruse them? What, if anything, would you want destroyed?

I don’t think I’d want anything destroyed. If future generations might get something from them, then they can have at it. I’ve never been so precious or self-conscious that there’s anything so vulnerable in there I didn’t feel I could share. In fact, I think this is a requirement for making art.

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Today’s Contributor—

Oliver Jeffers is an artist, author, and activist working across a number of fields using a number of mediums. He grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he studied at Belfast School of Art at Ulster University. Primarily known for his picture books for children, his work has been translated into forty-­nine languages and has sold nearly fourteen million copies worldwide. An internationally recognized painter, sculptor, and speaker, Oliver’s work, with its simple and accessible beauty, encourages people everywhere of every age to reconsider how they see a world that is radically changing, and, armed with perspective and hope, to reexamine their role in how it will be shaped for future generations.

You can find Oliver’s essay and prompt, “What I Learned from the Astronauts,” in The Book of Alchemy.

For more inspiration—

• Read Me, See Me, Like Me, an installment of my advice column Dear Susu where an aspiring writer shares the ache to be read and recognized—and I answer with stories of rejection, false starts, the fleeting high of being published, and why nothing we write is ever wasted.

• On Notebooks and Notecards and Writing about Ex-Loves, watch my Studio Visit with , where we talked about how to mine your journals as creative source material—and the double-edged sword of writing publicly about heartbreak.

• Fill in the Blank, a recording of one of our monthly creative hours, where we read a poem by Richard Brautigan and talked about the overwhelming power of a white space on a page—how it can be both a moment of equilibrium and an invitation to unspool

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Today marks our eighth installment—our eighth! Nearly two months have passed, which feels impossible. Lately life has rushed by like highway billboards: bright, half-seen, gone before you’ve read the words—unless you pull over at an overlook and let the sky catch up.

That’s why I’ve taken an August hiatus from the Sunday newsletter. I’ve missed writing to you, but the pause has been necessary. With summer already in its final days, I’ve been focused on rest and small joys: recovering from my latest round of chemo, floating down rivers with friends, sitting in the garden binge-watching clouds until the mosquitos get bold, and scribbling in my journal—my refuge, my “still point in the turning world,” to borrow T.S. Eliot’s phrase. (Also the one place where doodling a potato counts as deep work.)

For award-winning journalist Noor Tagouri, journaling is that same refuge—and so much more: a path to self-knowledge, a tool for liberation, a record of becoming. “My journaling routine is like prayer for me,” she told me. “It’s the grounding presence wherever I go, whenever I feel overwhelmed or stuck.” Her practice—messy, abundant, unapologetically imperfect—has carried her through investigative projects, identity shifts, and the writing of her first book.

For Noor’s routine, read on—

When did you start keeping a journal, and what inspired you to begin?

Growing up I kept a journal on and off. I’d write, and then tear pages out and burn them. I was always so afraid that a parent would read my journal, and that fear really kept me from making it a practice. But more than that fear, I found that every time I wrote, I was criticizing my own writing. Judging it for not being good enough. I put so much pressure on myself that anything I wrote needed to be excellent. This need for perfection also got in my way of the practice.

Then, early in Covid, a group of my friends read The Artist’s Way together, and morning pages freed me from the weight of structure and perfection. I’ve filled almost 40 journals in the three years since.

What does your journaling routine look like when it's at its most gratifying? Do you have a favorite place, time of day, or ritual that helps you journal?

My journaling routine is like prayer for me. It's the grounding presence wherever I go, whenever I feel overwhelmed or stuck. But at its most gratifying, I am in my writing cabin, an old cathedral with no WiFi in the middle of the woods. I’ll burn some copal or palo santo, and I’ll sit at the edge of the doorway, overlooking the mountains, surrounded by my paintings of questions I’ve asked myself, and play what I call my “Wild Woman” music.

First thing in the morning is ideal. I really resonate with Julia Cameron’s practice of morning pages, and how writing first thing in the morning is like removing the top layer of film from the soup of your mind. I usually write from my Inner Voice, and inspired by my dear friend Suleika, I address the voice by asking, “What will you have me know today?”

Can you tell us about a moment when keeping a journal unlocked something for you, personally or creatively?

There are three main journeys that my journals have guided me through.

First, my last investigative project, REP: A Story about the Stories We Tell, is a podcast documentary about how the misrepresentation of Muslims and Arabs has shaped American culture and society as a whole. I handwrote the entire series in my journals. The journals gave me the space and capacity to ask the questions that scared me the most about truth, objectivity, my relationship with media, having a politicized identity, and my own role in my misrepresentation.

Second, my “Wild Woman” journey. Inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés' Women Who Run with the Wolves, right after I finished producing REP, I felt my world and my heart break wide open. I had been wearing the hijab, covering my hair, for 15 years of my life. (I started covering the week I got my first journalism job.) After REP, I began asking the hardest questions of my life around choice, hijab, and hair. The journey of asking these questions put me on what I’ve called my "Wild Woman" journey, the journey of coming back to my instinctual nature, and deconstructing my identity, beliefs, and values. It has been a liberating process with many psychic deaths and rebirths. This is what inspired me to create the Wild Woman Club, a space for women to reclaim their instinctual nature together.

Third, the journey of writing my book. I am currently writing a book on self-investigation, and I have been handwriting the entire thing in my journals. The relationship of pen to paper feels like a direct line to my consciousness that I can't exactly access on a laptop or through a screen. My words like to take up space on the page. They flow out more smoothly and I get to experience them in the physicality of my handwriting and the feeling of the words and stories themselves.

Do you reread old journal entries? Why or why not?

When I began my book-writing journey, I felt called to spontaneously book a trip to the desert in New Mexico, bringing a carry-on bag full of all my journals. I made an altar of my journals at a beautiful, remote home in the desert called Casita de Arrebol. I read every single journal in the span of four days, taking hikes to a labyrinth in between. It was such a ceremonious experience, a roller coaster of emotions. Revisiting the past versions of myself but tangibly witnessing the evidence of my own evolution. One of my greatest Wild Woman experiences.

What's your favorite journal and writing utensil?

My favorite journals are ones that have been gifted to me by loved ones. Most of my journals were gifted because people know journals are the best gift to give me. Every journal I write in next feels like the next chapter of my life. So if the journal is thicker, I know the chapter in life might require more space, more time. If it's a shorter journal, maybe the chapter is more intense and completes sooner. I do enjoy indulging in the experience of a beautiful luxury Smythson journal too!

As for writing utensils, my partner and I go through Pilot rollerball pens like it's no one's business. I love to see the ink disappear knowing I've finished a chapter with the pen too. Pilot is our dream brand collaboration!

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Today’s Contributor—

Noor Tagouri is an award-winning journalist, producer, and speaker. She has told critically acclaimed stories across every medium, from radio and print to documentaries and brand campaigns. She is the founder of At Your Service Media, a production company dedicated to telling representative stories as a form of service, and the creator of the investigative series (and subsequent course) REP: A Story about the Stories We Tell, which examines representation and objectivity in media. You can also find her essay and prompt, “If You Really Knew Me,” in The Book of Alchemy.

For more inspiration—

• Shame Shepherds & Grace for Fuck-Ups, in this installment of my advice column Dear Susu, Calvin, incarcerated since age 18, wants to write his story but shame keeps blocking the page. I gather wisdom from a shame shepherd, a writing mentor, and a pen pal on death row to help him chart a path through the thicket

• On Rejection & Striving for Excellence, a Studio Visit with the brilliant Imbolo Mbue, author of the New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club pick Behold the Dreamers (one of my favorites). We talked about rejection, how she landed a literary agent after years of what she jokingly called “low-level stalking,” and why aiming for excellence matters more than chasing publication

• Won’t You Come Celebrate with Me, a video replay and recap of our monthly creative hour where we read Lucille Clifton, talked about the power of art to transform despair to laughter, the way we can create ourselves through words, and how all of this is more necessary now than ever

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Welcome to the seventh installment of the Journaler’s Routine—a summer series in collaboration with Random House, in which contributors from The Book of Alchemy share the creative routines that have shaped their lives and work.

If you’ve been with the Isolation Journals for a while, you might recognize today’s guest: my sweet and hilarious friend Nora McInerny—writer, podcast host, and speaker extraordinaire. Her essay and prompt “How Are You Really?” appeared in the second newsletter I ever sent, on April 2, 2020, back when we were still learning how to stand six feet apart and waving to our neighbors like extras in a silent film. In that piece, which appears in expanded form in The Book of Alchemy, she writes about telling the truth in the aftermath of loss—the kind that rearranges your insides—and about resisting the reflex to say “I’m fine” when you’re anything but.

For Nora—as for me, and maybe for you—the journal is the one place where nothing needs to be performed. It’s where honesty with ourselves begins, and where honesty with everyone else becomes possible. Or, as she puts it, “It’s how I empty out the junk drawer of my brain.” Her reflections on the urgency of journaling are so particular to her, yet I found myself nodding along, thinking, yes, yes, me too—until we got to the part about the electric fence. That’s all hers.

In her Journaler’s Routine, Nora remembers her childhood reading life, her Midwestern thrift instincts, and the surprising insights that came from revisiting old journals—revelations that altered the course of her life. Below, you’ll find her wise, tender, and very funny interview, along with a video of her reading from her childhood journal (a giant red leather diary she named Jo) that you truly don’t want to miss.

When did you start keeping a journal and what inspired you to begin?

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I think I owe my entire writing career to journaling. I was in second grade—highly verbal and highly anxious—when my parents gave me a giant, red leather diary. I loved the feeling of documenting my little life, and I panicked when I missed an entry (anxietttty!!!).

I’ve kept a journal ever since, but I really doubled down when I read Little Women. I didn't just identify with Jo, I named my journal Jo (crrrrrriiiiiiinge), so I could write directly to the heroine who would understand exactly how I felt about the Foursquare controversy on the playground.

Is consistency important to you? What helps you return to the page?

Journaling is one of the few things I do alone, and just for me, and it has always felt like more than just an account of who and how I am. It’s how I empty out the junk drawer of my brain, how I get to the heart of what really matters to me, how I shake off the cobwebs. I no longer cry if I miss a day (growth!) but I know that journaling is one of the practices that adds up to a better day for me, so I keep the pressure low. They don’t have to be pages upon pages of writing. They don’t have to be beautiful. I can paste in a scrap of paper I found in a parking lot and that counts. I can dash off the funny thing my kid said to me at bedtime and that counts. I can write the same sentence over and over and that counts.

What’s your favorite journal and writing utensil?

A dot-grid, softcover Leuchtturm notebook + a Muji .38 pen in black = my perfect combination. That said, I am also from the Midwest, and if I have a free notebook laying around I PHYSICALLY CANNOT ALLOW IT TO GO UNUSED.

Can you tell us about a moment when keeping a journal unlocked something for you, personally or creatively?

I’ve read my journals from childhood and adolescence, but I am no longer interested in reading my adult journals. A few years ago, I paged through a few and realized that I had been writing and feeling the same thing for literal years: I was burned out. I was exhausted. I was depressed and deeply unhappy.

I knew that—I was in therapy and on medication—but there was something about seeing it laid out on the page that felt like touching an electric fence (which yes, I have done!). I could not fill any more journals with those same sentiments, and I could not keep living that kind of life anymore. I changed nearly everything about my work life in 2024, and I wish Past Me could see me now.

What does your journaling routine look like when it's at its most gratifying? Do you have a favorite place, time of day or ritual that helps you journal?

The most gratifying journaling routine I’ve ever had was when I actually did The Artist’s Way after about ten years of buying the book at various thrift stores, letting it sit on my shelf, and then donating it to a thrift store. The best part of The Artist's Way is the practice of morning pages: three or more handwritten pages of automatic writing, done right when you wake up. I loved it so much that I continued for weeks after the 12-week program wrapped, just to keep the momentum. It felt like I was starting the day with a truly fresh slate. But that’s a hard routine to keep with kids and dogs and work and life, and while I reserve the right to do it sporadically whenever I please, I actually think of journaling much differently today than I ever have. Journals have always been their own entity: a notebook clearly labeled and held for the purpose of journaling. But now I journal in the same notebook where I write my to-do lists and my schedule. Annie Dillard wrote that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” and having all this life in one place feels good to me. It also means I am journaling more frequently, because it’s all right there.

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Today’s Contributor—

is the author of five books, including No Happy Endings and Bad Vibes Only, and the host of Thanks for Asking, a podcast that lets people be honest about the hard things in life. She’s also a remarried widow raising a beautiful blended family with her current (very much alive) husband. Subscribe to her Substack Feelings & Co.

For more inspiration—

• Carrying Complicated Grief, an installment of my advice column Dear Susu, where I grapple with a bereaved mother’s question: “Can I destroy my deceased daughter’s journals?”—and share wisdom I learned from Nora in my answer

• Nothing on Earth but Laundry, a video replay and recap of the Hatch, where we read a poem in praise clothes flapping on a line (Richard Wilbur) and another in praise of daily chores (Naomi Shihab Nye) and wrote to a prompt on airing your dirty laundry—at least metaphorically

• On Joy, Sorrow, and Creative Alchemy, a workshop with the bestselling author Susan Cain, where we talked about the challenge of accepting life’s sorrows, how they deepen the joys, and how we can use a creative practice to marry the two

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Welcome to the sixth installment of the Journaler’s Routine—a summer series in collaboration with Random House, where I invite contributors from The Book of Alchemy to share the writing rituals that sustain their creative lives.

Now that we’re halfway through the series, certain themes have begun to surface—threads that run through the contributors’ reflections and the community’s responses alike. One recurring theme is the deep vulnerability of journaling: many of you have shared stories of violation, of a family member or friend trespassing into the pages of your notebook. The aftermath is often silence, a closing-up. I’ve known that feeling too.

Others are preoccupied with a different question—the fate of their journals: Should I burn them? Excise the most revealing parts? Turn them into art? Leave them for posterity?

And then there are those, like Julie, who are only just beginning. She started journaling five years ago and recently shared in the comments:

“When I read about people who’ve journaled their entire lives, I feel inadequate and sad that I didn’t. I remember wanting to, but never did. Why didn’t I have the fortitude to put pen to paper when I was young?”

I wanted to urge her to be gentle with herself—but I didn’t have to. Julie found her own answer:

“What if I had been journaling since I was young, and my notebooks were lost in a fire or flood? I’d be in the same place I am now.”

And this—now—is the only place any of us ever get to be.

Earlier this week, during a hybrid workshop-conversation with Melissa Febos, we spoke about the journal as a kind of labyrinth. Unlike a maze, there are no dead ends, no wrong turns. That, to me, is the quiet power of this practice: it’s not a performance, not meant for anyone else. The journal meets you where you are—no matter the season, no matter the noise. It charts your way by walking it with you.

That’s true for today’s guest as well: the writer, storyteller, and community builder LaTonya Yvette, whose essay in The Book of Alchemy, “The Shape of Goodbye,” maps the texture of grief and grace. Her journal is a companion—whether she’s on her couch, in a park, drafting a book, or finding her way through heartbreak.

To step inside LaTonya’s routine, read on—

What does your journaling routine look like when it’s at its most gratifying? Do you have a favorite place, time of day, or ritual that helps you journal?

Like writing a book, I try to journal first thing in the morning when the sun is still coming up, when I’m less judgmental of what comes and will let what may arrive. However, if I’m struggling through something, I bring my journal around with me and will journal wherever (park bench!) I can. I tend to process a lot in my head and through my writing, so this is the best way for me.

Can you tell us about a moment when keeping a journal unlocked something for you, personally or creatively?

In 2021, I had a really difficult break-up, and journaling (thanks to my friend R, who gifted me one!) really helped me process it (along with therapy). So much so, I was able to finish Stand In My Window—without it, I think I would have given up and not finished the book. I need a place to put a part of me that had nothing to do with the book while writing it—since so much of the writing process is emotional.

If your journals were read posthumously, what, if anything, would you want destroyed?

I’d like my children to maybe read one (?!) of my journals after I’m gone—to hold on to it. However, the rest can burn! Too embarrassing—who would want to read that? Certainly not me, and definitely not my children (I hope). Unless they could be redacted and translated into some wonderful art project?

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Today’s Contributor—

is a storyteller, writer, community builder, and steward of the Mae House, an upstate New York rental property and the home of Rest as Residency, which offers BIPOC families a no-cost place for rest and focus. She writes on style, family, and culture at With Love, L, and is the author of Woman of Color, The Hair Book, and Stand in My Window: Meditations on Home and How We Make It. She consults with various organizations regarding creative strategy, storytelling, creative direction, content, curating, building and maintaining digital and editorial communities with a focus on care and impact. She lives in Brooklyn with her two children, River and Oak.

Some related reading—

• To Betray or Not to Betray, an installment of my advice column Dear Susu, where I answer the question “How do I write my story without hurting the people I love?”—and share my good-faith protocol for writing about others

• My Hands Have Never Been Just Hands, a video replay of our creative hour with Melissa Febos, where we talked about how writing can return you to your body, soften your grip on the unloved parts, and help mend your relationship with them

• Letters from Love, a workshop with the dazzling Elizabeth Gilbert, where she shares the transformative spiritual practice she’s used for twenty-five years to combat self-criticism and to access an ocean of unconditional love

Launching a new series can feel a bit like shouting into a well: Are you out there? Is this anything? But your replies have been so alive, so full of hum. Last week, after the designer Debbie Millman wrote about journaling through a dark season—and what happens when we let the page hold what we’re not yet ready to say aloud—I sat down and savored every comment.

This one from Katya, who began keeping a journal at 12 and continues to do so at age 81, stayed with me:

One of my fondest pastimes is to open my large journal cupboard (that holds over 500 volumes of every shape and color and pattern) and pick one at random. I cuddle up and read “what I was up to” back then. Sometimes I am so moved, I xerox an entry and paste it into my current journal, because it speaks so resonantly to me now. I am amazed at where I’ve been, what I’ve done, who I always was and still am, and the self that is always evolving.

Five hundred journals! A cathedral of a life—each page a brick, a pane of colored glass, a votive flickering in memoriam. I love the image of her standing at the cupboard door, opening a portal to a former self and inviting her in. Time travel via copy machine and glue stick.

It reminded me of Joan Didion’s enduring wisdom: “I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.”

Today’s guest, the musician Kimbra, does just that. Her journals are full of voices from her younger self—offering clues, comfort, and the kind of truth that only reveals itself in hindsight.

And you?

Do you keep on nodding terms with your past selves?

What do they say when you do?

Without further ado—Kimbra’s Journaler’s Routine.

What does your journaling routine look like at its most gratifying?

One of my favorite ways to journal is going on a “solo date” with myself, either to a coffee shop or restaurant, and journaling in between the sips of coffee or bites of my meal. It feels like some kind of secret conversation taking place, one that no one around me gets to know about, but they’re a backdrop to the ways I’m recording my interior life in that moment. It might seem strange or distracting to have voices, the sound of knives and forks, or espresso machines going while I’m journaling, but somehow the juxtaposition actually helps me get in touch with myself. Perhaps because my inner world is made of equal parts chaos and contemplation!

When did you start keeping a journal and what inspired you to begin?

I began regularly journalling around 15. I have kept up a reasonably regular practice ever since and actually have every one of those journals still with me. They are like the chronology of my growth, spiritual insights, and an inventory of my deepest challenges and most heartfelt prayers. My journals have been the place I can be most honest and also creatively spontaneous.

I was inspired to begin because of the longing in my heart to express myself in ways I found hard to do in day to day life. Often I would write letters to the afraid part of myself from the stronger part of me who knew everything would be okay. It’s helped me to develop an intimacy with the different parts of who I am and make room for them all.

Is consistency important to you?

Yes, if I go too many days without journaling, I begin to feel as though all my thoughts are flying around at once and I have no internal witness or anchor to a larger reality. I find that I want to journal less when I’m going through difficult seasons, as though by writing it down I’m somehow perpetuating the feelings of sadness or anxiety—but I know that it’s actually the opposite. By naming the moments of struggle on the pages, they begin to have less anxious real estate in my head.

Can you tell us about a moment when keeping a journal unlocked something for you, personally or creatively?

I began writing letters to a hypothetical future child around five years ago. I started with “Dear Beloved” and just began speaking to this child about the things I was going through, and what I might hope to tell them when (and if) they experienced the same things. One day, I was writing one of these letters and began to feel as though the words could make for a beautiful song lyric. Phrases from the letter became a song called “Foolish Thinking,” which was released on my fourth album, A Reckoning. Writing those letters unlocked a very maternal part of me and also a direct line from the privacy of my journal to the world of my music—two worlds I had kept quite separate until then.

Do you reread old journal entries? Why or why not?

Yes, I do sometimes. If I’m in a season of depression and hardship, I often need to hear my own voice echo back to me that this too shall pass. Reading about the times when I have experienced deep connectedness, spiritual intimacy, and joy reminds me that I’ll feel that again in due time. I’ll often just open up a random page from a random journal to see what it says. It’s like plucking a day out from my memory and living it again. Quite often, the younger version of myself will have something to say to me now.

If your journals were read posthumously, what, if anything, would you want destroyed?

I feel like there is much in my journals that could actually help other people so I don’t feel any of it would need to be destroyed (if it was all released after my death I wouldn’t be around for any potential humiliation anyway!). My entries are just a human being a human. If someone close to me read and did something with any excerpts that felt edifying for the soul, I would consider that to be a positive offering for the world. We need to know that we’re not so different.

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Today’s Contributor—

is a New Zealand-born songwriter, musician, producer, and adventurous performer. Her 2011 debut, Vows, was certified platinum in Australia and New Zealand; that next year, “Somebody That I Used to Know,” a duet with Gotye, topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, was the bestselling song of the year in the United States, and earned her two Grammy Awards. Since then, she has toured with artists ranging from the Roots and David Byrne to Beck, Son Lux, and Jacob Collier. She has released four more albums to date: The Golden Echo, Primal Heart, A Reckoning, and most recently Idols & Vices, Vol. 1. Subscribe to her newsletter where she writes to discover what lies beneath and beyond her music.

The other day I came across these words from Audre Lorde:

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.

I felt the truth of that immediately.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve kept something to myself—not out of choice, exactly, but fear. Or shame. And how quickly that silence can become a wall between me and the world. But when we do speak—when we offer up what’s real—we find something else entirely: connection, recognition, the quiet relief of being seen.

Still, the risk of sharing what’s deepest in us can feel enormous. Too tender, too vulnerable to hold up to sunlight. For me, the journal is where I begin. It’s where I lay things down—not to solve them, but to understand them. It’s where I give form to what I don’t yet have words for.

This is also true for today’s featured guest: award-winning designer, educator, curator, podcast host, author—and someone I’m proud to call a friend—. I’m so honored to share her reflections on the journal as witness, and on the quiet, accumulative healing that happens when we let the page hold what we’re not yet ready to say aloud.

And now, Debbie’s routine—

When did you start keeping a journal and what inspired you to begin?

I started writing a makeshift diary on a large yellow legal pad in 1974; I was in the seventh grade. I don’t know why I started at that time other than these were the darkest years of my life and I imagine I needed a confidante. My mother had gotten divorced from my father three years earlier and she remarried nine months later. My stepfather was a cruel and violent man; he sexually and physically abused me for years. I didn’t write about any of the abuse at that time, but it was clear I was a sad little girl. Writing became a solace of sorts.

Is consistency important to you? What helps you return to the page?

Yes and no. In addition to journals, I’ve been recording my life in two-year datebooks for over 30 years. I include pretty much everything in them—notes, appointments, lists, thoughts, ideas, phone numbers, passwords—if it is important, it is in there, and I take it everywhere, all the time. My journaling has evolved over time; sometimes it is sporadic, other times it is daily. In addition to writing, I now create visual stories. I combine illustrations, photography, and writing to describe and share myriad events, experiences, and thoughts. What keeps me returning is this: my love of record keeping, my desire to keep making things and to better understand my place in the world.

Can you tell us about a moment when keeping a journal unlocked something for you, personally or creatively?

Klaus Mann once wrote, “Memories are made of peculiar stuff, elusive and yet compelling, powerful and fleet. You cannot trust your reminiscences, and yet there is no reality except the one we remember.” I’ve often looked back on my life and wondered: Were my memories real? Was the past truly how I remember it?

Some years ago, I reread a journal I kept during my college years, in 1982. I came upon an entry wherein I candidly described what was happening to me during the dark years of 1974, and how helpless and alone I felt. I found myself holding my breath as I realized these weren’t just diary entries or memories. They were evidence of a life. They were my witnesses to living and persevering.

What’s your favorite journal and writing utensil?

I don’t have a favorite journal; I am an equal opportunity journaler. I mostly use notebooks given out in tote bags at conferences; I have some from the TED Conference, Cannes Lions, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, and I love to fill them up. I also designed a journal for Baron Fig that I enjoy writing in, though it is often a challenging experience. My favorite utensil is a mechanical Paper-Mate Sharpwriter #2. It’s utilitarian; I buy them by the box, and it’s all I ever write with.

If your journals were read posthumously, what, if anything, would you want destroyed?

Funny you should ask. My mother gave me two of my grandmother’s journals after she passed. One is from 1929, the other from 1975. The journal from 1929 recounts the first year she met the man she would marry and who—decades later—would become my grandfather. The journal from 1975 details a cross-country trip she took with her son and his wife, a few years after my grandfather had passed. They are fascinating and glorious and poignant. Someday I will pass them on to one of my nieces.

As for my journals: I wouldn’t ask for them to be destroyed, per se, and anyone could read them. Though I wouldn’t mind if they were cremated with me and then spread—along with my ashes—in some of the lightest and happiest places I’ve been.

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Today’s Contributor—

Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA, and a “woman of influence” by Success Magazine, Debbie Millman is a designer, educator, curator, host of the long-­running, award-­winning podcast Design Matters, and the author of eight books, most recently Love Letter to a Garden. Debbie co-­founded the world’s first graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2010, and she is also president emeritus of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)—­one of only five women to hold the position in the organization’s hundred-­ year history. She was awarded a lifetime achievement award from AIGA in 2019.

Just a few days ago, I joined Anand Giridharadas and Leigh Haber on The Ink to talk about how journaling not only transformed my writing—but also saved my life. (They picked The Book of Alchemy for their book club!) At one point during the conversation, someone in the chat wrote:

“I really don’t like writing at all—what’s your secret?”

Here’s mine: What I’ve always loved about the journal—it’s so capacious. It defies genre. It can be lists or sentence fragments. A hastily drawn worm. A dream about a raccoon who gave you advice. A single sentence that just says “why.” It can be a recipe notebook, a log of all the books you’ve read and the lines that moved you, a place to write letters you’ll never send to ghosts from your past. There is no wrong way to do it. That is the secret: the journal becomes whatever weird and necessary thing you need it to be.

Today’s featured guest is a perfect example of someone who embodies that expansive spirit: the brilliant cartoonist, illustrator, and writer . Liana doesn’t keep a journal in the traditional sense—but without question, she uses pen and paper to puzzle through the wild ride of being human, in all its hilarity, poignancy, absurdity, and beauty.

So without further ado, Liana’s routine—

What does your journaling routine look like at its most gratifying?

I don’t keep a journal, except when things are really bad. I do draw little autobiographical things all day, so I’ll tell you about that. Whenever there’s something I’m trying to figure out—a misunderstanding with another person, a social norm that strikes me as wrong—I’ll try to crystallize it into a compact idea drawing. Putting my point of view on paper and seeing it as valid weirdly helps me get past whatever the sticking point is.

When did you start?

I’ve always drawn compulsively. It became therapy when I was in my early teens and got sad and lonely. Now it’s some mixture of just needing to make things—like I️ did when I️ was little—and needing to figure things out—like I’ve done as an adult. Back before I️ had kids, I️ used to go to a café every morning—not to force myself to draw but to protect myself from all the things that tried to get my attention and keep me from drawing. Emails, chores, friends. Now those little things (kids, dog, dishwasher) are my life, so no more café. I don’t draw as much anymore (I️’m on a family vacation this week, to cap off the end of a four-month, self-imposed—and unpaid—maternity leave), not because I don’t feel the need but because life comes first right now. It’s been a moment of missing drawing, mixed with pride that I️ can stop for a bit without imploding. I️ wonder what my drawings will be like when I️ come back. Of course, I️ still draw, just much less, and less legibly.

What’s your favorite journal and writing utensil?

Staples bright white printer paper, which I️ keep in the empty shell of a 9x12 pad of Bristol paper, and a .38 Muji pen or a .4 Pentel Arts Hybrid Technica.

Is consistency important to you?

I’ve had a big shake-up these last few years. Had a kid at the tail end of the pandemic, and another this year. So while consistency is important to me, it’s also in some ways impossible. I have no idea if my drawings are still any good. I️ guess I️ always felt that way. For someone who lives by routine, I️ have surprisingly little memory of who I️ am or what I️ do.

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Today’s Contributor—

is a cartoonist, illustrator and regular contributor to the New Yorker where she also wrote the “Dear Pepper” advice-from-a-dog column. As the author of eight books, her work also frequently appears in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine and more. She is the recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim and New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. In reference to requests about her cartoons, it says, “You may tattoo for free.”

And don’t forget to check out Liana’s essay and prompt in The Book of Alchemy. It’s called “Guilty Until Proven Innocent” and it’s one of my favorites. It features my most beloved creature: a dog. And my most feared: take a guess.

I loved reading your responses to the first installment and hearing about your own routines. I equally loved hearing from those of you who are searching—as I have been—for a new one.

I keep thinking about these lines from a community member named Noreen: “Sometimes, when I’m weary of my words, I reach out and place a hand on my journal. Yes, acknowledging its vital place in my daily life. Yes, inviting grace of ease. Yes, to the next time pencil meets paper!”

With that, I’d like to introduce you to today’s featured guest: my friend and generous mentor, the award-winning author . As it happens, Melissa will also be joining me at our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers this Sunday, July 13, from 1 to 2pm ET—I hope you can join us! Paid subscribers will receive the Zoom link the day before. We’ll read and write together, we’ll talk about the journal as a site of personal transformation, and we’ll answer all your questions—so if you have any, please drop them in the comments!

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And now, Melissa’s routine—

What does your journaling routine look like at its most gratifying? Do you have a favorite place, time of day, or ritual that helps you journal?

I journal all over the place, but my favorite setup is first thing in the morning, at sunrise. If it’s a clear morning, I grab my coffee and take it up to a little room on the second floor of our home in Iowa City, whose window faces due east. I love to write my morning journal entry as the sun rises, coffee in hand, followed by my 20-minute meditation. If it’s an overcast day, I take my coffee into my home office, where I sit on a little sofa facing my bookshelves. There are few moments in a day more peaceful and satisfying to me than these ones.

When did you start keeping a journal? What inspired you to begin?

I have been journaling daily since childhood, and since then it has been an integral part of my creative practice, my mental health hygiene, and my spiritual life. Like many artists, I was a very sensitive and self-aware child, who had lots of thoughts and feelings. The privacy of my journals felt like a sacred and safe space for me to express and explore things that didn’t feel appropriate anywhere else. Because I so firmly established that intimate and honest relationship with my notebooks as a young person, it has really held, across publishing five books of personal nonfiction. It feels so lucky and somewhat miraculous to have retained that sense of privacy. Most of the most meaningful changes and revelations in my life have begun as conversations with myself in my journals. I think best when I externalize my thoughts and it’s difficult for me to integrate experience without writing about it, which is one reason why I am a serial memoirist.

What’s your favorite journal and writing utensil?

Oh I love talking notebooks and pens! I have been through many devotions, but across them all I like a strong binding and flexible cover. Right now, I use Decomposition Notebooks with spiral binding and lined or graph pages for my morning pages, and a slim bendable lined Moleskine for my daily use. I love so many pens, but have an abiding affection for journaling with a good felt-tip pen. I enjoy the classic Le Pen, in purple and green especially. The Pilot G2 is my everyday standby (there are G2s at the bottom of all my tote-bags), but a thicker nib, at least a 5, preferably a 7. Also the Pentel Energel, the Gelly Roll, and the Sarasa Gel Rollerball are favorites.

What role does journaling play in your more public writing? Do you use your journals as source material? Was it a part of your process for The Dry Season?

I always keep multiple notebooks—at minimum, three: one for my morning pages, one for my daily notes and thoughts, and one for whatever book I’m currently writing. The main events of The Dry Season—which describe a year that I spent celibate to do some deep reflecting on my sexual/romantic/spiritual life—took place 7 or 8 years before I wrote the book, so I had to do some considerable research to pin down the details necessary to ground the narrative. My old notebooks were invaluable for this purpose! While I keep my morning pages practice for spiritual and mental health reasons, it does also serve as a handy archive of my daily thoughts and feelings going back almost twenty years; I have a whole cabinet of full composition notebooks.

The notebooks I kept during my celibate year were rich with concrete detail and careful descriptions of my preoccupations during that time: the many pleasures and also conflicts—inner and outer. I also kept a specific journal during that year to record my thoughts and efforts to change my ideals and patterns (both in thought and behavior). I wasn’t planning to write about the experience for publication (the idea would have repelled me, then—it was too vulnerable at the time), but taking notes has always been a crucial part of my learning process, and I was trying to learn how to live differently.

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Today I’m kicking off a new summer series in collaboration with Random House called the Journaler’s Routine—a twist on their much-beloved Writer’s Routine.

Over the last few months, I’ve gotten so many messages from readers telling me that The Book of Alchemy has sparked something good—a sense of courage, new creative connections and peregrinations, a fresh approach to keeping a journal.

Just last week, it was this in the comments section, from Becky: “I have been routinely reading your Alchemy book and writing daily, which I have never done before. My writing is not anything great, but I am celebrating picking up a pen and putting it on the page. I realize how much I need routines to move forward. I have been home for six weeks after a surgery and I have a new appreciation for all who struggle with chronic illness and pain. It is hard to feel limited and find ways to renew.”

It is hard to feel limited. It is hard to find ways to renew. I feel these words in my bones, as I struggle to get back in my own routine after a whirlwind few months. And so in this summer series, I’ll be asking writers and artists from The Book of Alchemy to share their journaler’s routine.

Today we begin with mine.

What does your journaling routine look like when it's at its most gratifying? Do you have a favorite place, time of day, or ritual that helps you journal?

Journaling, for me, is most gratifying when I’m doing it daily. Also when I’m aiming for three pages, which is long enough to write through the brain fog, to push beyond the surface of things and arrive somewhere unexpected and interesting. I love that moment when I think I’ve run out of things to say, and suddenly something floats up to the surface from deep in my subconscious. It’s so satisfying.

I’ve always been partial to journaling very early in the morning. I like those moments of quiet before the rest of my house is awake and before the world is awake—before emails, phone calls, and text messages start to filter in. I like to cozy up on the couch or in the overstuffed armchair in my office with my three dogs nestled beside me.

When did you start keeping a journal, and what inspired you to begin?

I began keeping a journal as soon as I could hold a pen. My family moved a lot when I was young, and I’d get a fresh journal when I started at a new school. As a kid who felt like a misfit, the journal was both a hiding place and a finding place. It represented possibility—on the page I could reimagine who I was. I could reinvent myself as often as I needed.

Is consistency important to you? What helps you return to the page?

Like with exercise, I believe you reap the true benefits of journaling when you’re consistent. Inevitably I lapse, and what gets me back is a low barrier to entry—so if all I manage is a few sentences, I consider it a win. I avoid an all-or-nothing approach (often that leads to nothing). I try to journal at the same time each day and pair it with a non-negotiable. Journaling as I sip my coffee works as a little Pavlovian trick; I go to sleep dreaming about that first cup, so journaling becomes something I also look forward to.

Can you share a moment when keeping a journal unlocked something for you, personally or creatively?

When I got my book deal for my memoir Between Two Kingdoms, I was elated—it had been my dream for years. But with that privilege came an all-consuming imposter syndrome that made writing nearly impossible. I couldn’t experiment or play. I lost my sense of creative freedom. I wouldn’t allow myself to take off in whatever direction, trusting that you often have to go down the wrong path to find the right one.

My laptop also posed a problem. For every word I wrote, I deleted two, and there were distractions like email and social media. I felt vulnerable and exposed, so I switched to my journal. Writing by hand, I was less likely to self-edit (only so much crossing out you can do). I could be messy and take creative risks—because it didn’t count. The journal embodied an important lesson for me: There is the draft you write for yourself, the draft you share with the world, and many drafts in between.

What’s your favorite journal and writing utensil?

I collect journals when I travel, so in my stacks of old journals, I have everything from leather-bound beauties to drug-store composition books to a blue notebook that’s standard for school kids in Greece. I’ve gone from lined paper to grid to dots; my go-to for the last several years has been our very own Isolation Journals notebook or a medium-sized Leuchtturm with dotted pages. But currently I’m in the process of designing my dream journal, and I want it to be as capacious as possible—to really emphasize this notion that the journal can contain anything. As for my favorite pen, it’s a medium nib, refillable fountain pen by Lamy. It writes so smoothly and beautifully, and it makes me feel delightfully analog to have an inkwell on my desk.

Do you reread old journal entries? Why or why not?

I generally don’t reread old journal entries. There were periods in my life that I made it a rule not to go back, because it was very important to me that I not be precious about the writing. Again, it’s about keeping that barrier to entry very low: I don’t want to be concerned about writing beautifully or even grammatically, and not rereading really helps in that regard. That being said, for my first book and my most recent one, The Book of Alchemy, I did go back and read journals as source material—to reanimate and fact-check memories.

However, I do love reading other people’s journals—in a sanctioned way, of course! Some of my favorite books are the published journals of artists and writers I love, like Frida Kahlo, Audre Lorde, Anaïs Nin, Susan Sontag and Virginia Woolf. It’s both fascinating and instructive to encounter them in that private space, revealing their unvarnished, unedited, fully human selves.

If your journals were read posthumously, what, if anything, would you want destroyed?

I’m tempted to say destroy everything—or at least lock them up in a vault that only gets unsealed after everyone I know and love and who could be potentially unsettled, dismayed, or hurt is gone. But then I think about how much I love reading the journals not only of famous writers, but also the journals of people who weren’t famous, like Anne Frank, or my mother, who let me read selections of her journals when I was writing my memoir. What a privilege it is to get a glimpse into a moment in time and a person’s interior world. What a joy to be in such intimate company.

So rather than destroying them or sealing them up, I think I’d appoint my best friend, Lizzie, to be the arbiter and curator of my journals’ afterlife. She’s the best, toughest editor, and I would trust her to discern what was interesting and what was unnecessarily hurtful, to sort what would be boring from what might be valuable. I love the idea of having a trusted keeper and reader who can determine what, if anything, should be destroyed—and what should live on.

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