The next edition of Newsletter Workshop 2.0 will be on Tuesday, May 5, at 11 a.m. EST. The Self-Edit Workshop, its follow-up companion, will be on Tuesday, May 12, at 11 a.m. EST. The brand-new Everything You’ve Wanted to Know About Selling a Book will be on Tuesday May 19 at 11 a.m. EST. The next Food Essay sessions will take place each Tuesday in June at 11 a.m. EST.

$5 per month or $30 annually gets you full access to the archive and every post; join the Salon Series and Book Club conversations, as well as the Discord; discounts on workshops and consulting; travel maps; and more. Find all the links and codes here.

Friends of the Desk—$10 monthly, $30 quarterly, or $120 per year—receive all of the above, plus an annual 30-minute editorial consultation OR I’ll send you a specifically chosen book from my overstuffed library—just email me to claim.

I talked to the wonderful Besha Rodell for “Eat It,” a long-running food program on Melbourne independent radio over the weekend—about the book and the magazine. As a fan of Australian pop music (INXS and Savage Garden both are integral to my life), Besha Rodell’s work, and independent radio—how cool. In full disclosure, it was 9 p.m. EST on a Saturday. Do with that information what you will.

Food Tank rounded up spring food books and included On Eating: “It is a personal work, but it also offers lessons to help eaters realize that deliciousness and joy don’t have to come at the expense of sustainability and the health of people and the planet.”

On Eating is out on April 14! A preorder means so much in a book’s precious early days. There are options for print, audio, and ebook. Kirkus Reviews called it “a pleasure for foodies of all persuasions.”

In April, we’ll be talking to Liz Pelly—music journalist and author of the National Book Critics’ Circle–nominated Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. She’s a longtime vegan, she’s from Long Island too, and we’re gonna have a great conversation about where all of this meets labor conditions for culture workers! Members have free access, always, and will receive the recording in full. Non-members can purchase access and the recording here.

For May and June, we’re reading the 1985 classic by Sidney Mintz: Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. It’s accessible, I promise, and is a work of anthropology largely credited with kicking off food studies as a discipline. We’ll get into the good, the bad, the ugly…!

I’m always honest about you about what I’m cracking open and right now, it’s nothing, because I’ve had too much to do. A sorry state of affairs! Watch this brief BBC video about Knausgaard, though.