Substacks recommended by Bess Kalb

Recommended by Bess Kalb

Jacqueline Novak's Quality Notions aka Mailing List

Comedian of GET ON YOUR KNEES, the Emmy-nominated "poetic treatise on the blow job," now streaming on Netflix. "Brilliant" - NY Times. Author, HOW TO WEEP IN PUBLIC: Feeble Offerings on Depression from One Who Knows. Co-host of Berlant & Novak (fka Poog)

How lucky are we to get to read whatever my favorite living comic is thinking on a given day.

- Bess Kalb

Miranda July

Off the cuff MJ writing/videos/picts/audio for paid subscribers and an ongoing All Fours Group Chat for everyone (not a book club! A place to talk about your own life.)

P.S. by Plum Sykes

From the desk of the Original Voguette

The Green Spoon

By Greta and Fanny

Cooking simple + delicious food for young kids and their exhausted parents.

Big Salad

By Joanna Goddard

Life advice, fun finds, and dating gossip — from Joanna Goddard and the Cup of Jo team.

Even though I am an adult with children and a mortgage, reading Big Salad makes me feel like I'm a teenager hanging out with my cool big sister who lets me borrow her clothes and copy her makeup and dissect her conversations with her boyfriend. It's an essential service, and without it I would be simply adrift.

- Bess Kalb

The Best Bit

By Clare de Boer

Notes on appetite and recipes to delight it

Wait, What? with Aparna Nancherla

A newsletter for all who feel consistently "out of it" (fine, everyone else too)

MouthBrain

By Zoë Komarin

A place for food, stories, recipes, and all my antics

The most approachable, funny, feel-good, best vibe cooking/kitchening writing/videos I have ever encountered.

- Bess Kalb

For Dear Life with Maggie Smith

A newsletter about writing & other things that make this life dear—from the poet, not the dame

Emma Straub's Newsletter

Bestselling novelist and bookstore owner Emma Straub has a lot to say, and this is where to read it.

Butt News

By Lindy West

we're here to watch movies and talk about butts, and we have a lot of both, don't even worry about running out AT ALL

Liana’s Newsletter

By Liana Finck

A weekly selection of drawings by New Yorker cartoonist and matador Liana Finck, sent out on Wednesdays. Paid subscribers will also get a Sunday email of autobiographical comics, process drawings, and other behind-the-scenes things. www.lianafinck.com

Bright Spots

By Chris Duffy

Every Saturday, comedian Chris Duffy sends out a true story to make you laugh and then includes links to 1 great thing, 1 funny thing, and 1 interesting thing.

The Audacity.

By Roxane Gay

Writing that boldly disregards normal restraints.

Hung Up

By hunter harris

Movies, tv, the celebrity industrial complex, and personal pop culture obsessions. Delivered twice a week to your inbox, written by Hunter Harris.

Crème de la Crème

By Aminatou Sow

A delightful newsletter featuring things Aminatou Sow is reading, obsessing over and laughing at.

Snack Chat

By Katie Okamoto

a letter about appetites

Trust me on this one.

- Bess Kalb

Abortion, Every Day

By Jessica Valenti

All things abortion. Feminist commentary & community.

The Chatner

By Daniel Lavery

A newsletter about rejiggered classics, transmasculine underpinnings of the plucky heroine, and the failure-limits of graciousness, from table manners to family estrangement.

The Grudge Report

Recommended by Bess Kalb