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Gaaaagh… Hiiiiii. How are you??? Happy Thanksgiving! I’m coming to you LIVE from in between pies, book trailers, and whatever dimension your sleep mask disappears into.
Can I just start by saying that it is so much fun working with ? 🎥 We got the first look at the final cover and trailer for Are You There God? It’s Me, Menopause—turn your volume up, because the music SLAPS!
Holiday PSA: Preorder Are You There God? It’s Me, Menopause by Dec 9, and we’ll send you this très Empress tote, below—perfect for books, baguettes, and the emotional baggage you refuse to carry into 2026. 🎁👜
Grab your copy, get your tote, become the woman at the party everyone asks, “WAIT, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?”
On another front: I hit TWO YEARS SEIZURE-FREE this week. 🥹✨ I’m so wildly grateful not to be drinking my turkey from a Vitamix this year! I’m trying not to jinx it, so if anyone has an Etsy witch on retainer, please send her my way. I’ll pay the rush fee. I’ll throw in a pie.
In a bit of silliness, one of the MIT nerds in our building helped me reprogram our Alexa to sound like Alfred the English butler from Batman.
But the wildest part? We programmed Alfred to recognize the exact sound I make when I go into a grand mal seizure. And, as fate and horror cinema would have it, I apparently sound identical to the ghost girl from The Grudge.
So now, if I slip into that particular demon-rattle, Alfred chirps,
“Alisa, it sounds like you’re having a seizure. Shall I call someone?”
Which gives me the option to reply—very grand, very Bette Davis—
“Don’t be absurd, Alfred. I’m merely recreating a scene from my favorite Japanese horror masterpiece.”
But if I make the sound again in actual distress, he follows up—relentlessly cheerful—
“I’m going to take that as a yes and ring the doorman.”
And honestly? It is slightly unnerving to have a robot functioning as my agony butler. But I’ll take that over a real butler—or any human whose entire job is to monitor my every wiggle and wobble. At least Alfred doesn’t judge. He just quietly listens for any crackles from the electric ghosts in my brain.
Meanwhile, this week… my family of “misplacers” (we don’t lose things, we simply misplace them into other ZIP codes) is in peak form. We once lost our hamster, Penny, for three days at my girlfriend’s house in Palm Springs. When we have multiple floors, as we did in Vermont, we can lose things like a wheel of CHEESE for up to a year without even noticing! Given the current avalanche of books—Unfixed, Cabernet Club, Who By Fire, Come to Dinner, Fallout—plus a truckload of NYC kid-books, time capsules, clothes, shoes, and the giant DeKooning-style kid art projects we apparently needed, it was only a matter of time before I misplaced THE ONLY THING that lets me sleep: my mask.
My youngest got me hooked on them when she was four on a flight to France—she’d slap hers on before takeoff and shout, “W’eady to B’wast Off, Mummy!!!” And listen… once your brain gets Pavlov’d like that, you’re done. The mask goes on, the system shuts down like a CIA-grade kill switch.
Except this week: GONE. Vanished. Probably living in a Vermont cheese wheel.
So the other night I panicked and fashioned a sleep mask out of black ribbed tights.
Worked great… until 4 AM yesterday, when a building-wide alarm started BLARING, and a stern disembodied-lady voice came over the PA and told us to all evacuate toute de suite before the sprinklers activated. I shot out of bed like Carol from Pluribus, sprinted into the hallway, saw my reflection in the mirror, and—friends—I looked EXACTLY like the Dread Pirate Roberts. (OK, yes, it WAS also giving Hamburglar) But think… Eye mask. Bedhead. Full Princess Bride energy. All I needed was a Buttercup.
Turns out? It was neither a fire nor a sword fight nor any sort of meat thievery. The French bakery next door simply needs to clean its ovens—nothing like shivering outside at dawn with Cambridge’s Finest while wearing tights on your face.
To give you a sense of the whole experience, dear reader, it happened AGAIN this morning. And, again, the more I live, the more I fear I am becoming Carol from Pluribus… because get a load of my narration 😂!
So… THEN, I slept through my first meeting. Thankfully, everyone I work with knows: if you live with Frenchies and scientists, something is always on fire.
✨ Meanwhile, at Empress HQ:
It’s been bananas over here—true “balls-to-the-walls, who signed us up to launch this many books at once?” energy. But we’re also floating somewhere above cloud nine, thanks to a brand-new upcoming title we’ve been calling, with great affection, Eat. Pray. Joan.
It’s by bestselling legend Sara Davidson and award-winning memoirist and food writer , who graciously penned the foreword, and it is pure Didion magic.
Our dream for this launch?
A global constellation of foodie-lit Substackers hosting Didion Dinners—Substack Live community gatherings with readings, music, good wine, and Joan’s favorite recipes simmering in real kitchens around the world.
We saw what happened with ’s live book launch—the way it cracked open the internet for a minute and turned into a genuine community moment. We’d love to build that kind of magic again, with all of you around the table.
Stay tuned. Bring your appetite. We think Joan would approve. 🥂🕯️📚
We’re also quite keen to finish this guy…
🍷 Cabernet Club (by ) galleys arrived, and they’re shiny enough to use as signaling devices for RESCUE helicopters! That’s right. These books could save LIVES in the wilderness, people! Preorder yours for Galnetines!
💥 Not to be outdone, Fallout has had such a deep cinematic glow-up—I can already hear Eleanor, Liv Colman, and Ralph Fiennes gleefully accepting their BAFTAs.
When it comes to Who by Fire, by , the Rachel Cusk comparison isn’t accidental. Hailed by Pulitzer prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler as “Literary & Lyrical: An extraordinary explorer of memory, desire, and the truths we speak only to ourselves.” Preorder now.
📚 And for Unfixed: our Black Friday sale is pure gratitude economics—buy four for holiday gifting or your book club, and we’ll send a free copy to your favorite Substacker as a thank-you for their inspiration, solidarity, and emergency soul-maintenance. C’mon, you know you love it here. 😂
Don’t you want this lady at your table? We are so thankful for her!
Mostly? I am craving what we already have today, an analog Thanksgiving with my whole soul. Bananagrams on the table. Vinyl humming in the background. Pie for breakfast because we’re adults. A chaotic closet swap. Old paper books that still smell like childhood.
And you—this little coven we’ve built here.
I’m completely grateful for every single person who’s shown up for these authors, this press, and this slightly unhinged vision of ours. You’ve helped us unbreak publishing for midlife women—even if just a smidge—and honestly? That smidge feels like a full-blown miracle.
And if you need Leslie to come over and regulate the vibe… I believe she still has slots:
Happy Thanksgiving, beauties. May your sleep masks stay findable and your pie be plentiful. 🖤🔥🥧 - xoxo - gotham girl
PS - I am a human typo. Amnesty appreciated.
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