April 2022 Newsletter | Julie Vick

Hello Readers,

Just a quick roundup from me this month as things seem to continue to be hectic despite my continual thinking they will get less hectic at some point. Maybe next month which starts tomorrow? I will see!

Books, humor, and other distractions:

Jackie, the Stupidest Angel 🏳️‍⚧️ ✡️ @EntryLvlNut @nikostratis I use the metro a lot and it's all escalators, so it's, "An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience." Niko Stratis @nikostratis what's the Mitch Hedberg line living rent free in your head? April 28th 2022 55 Retweets 2,118 Likes

• Jokes: This Twitter thread with Mitch Hedberg jokes made me laugh. Sorry for the convenience.
• Funny Mother's Day Gifts: I love the concept of the recent adult picture book There Are Moms Way Worse Than You and I'm jealous I didn't think of the idea first. Also, Adrienne Hedger had some great funny gift ideas in her newsletter including some cards from The Onion I may try to get if it's not too late (pretend you didn't see that if you are reading this, mom). One of her recs is also getting TV-show related gifts for people, which I endorse. If you have a Gilmore Girls fan in your life, perhaps check out humorist and writer friend Kristen Mulrooney's co-authored cookbook.
• Short Humor: What would Tom Brady think of Chuck E Cheese? This humor piece answers that important question.
• TV: This month I binged Bridgerton 2 and I highly recommend it for escapism. I think I liked it better than the first season. The only downside is the song Dancing on My Own has been stuck in my head for a few weeks. I've also been making my way through some of the episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on Netflix because it fulfills two of my major TV requirements -- short and funny. And I enjoyed watching Is it Cake? with my elementary-aged kids. So basically this month's newsletter is brought to you by Netflix.

Writing-related roundup/News from me:

• Twitter news: I know there has been some panic in some circles about the Elon Musk buying Twitter news, so I appreciated Kate McKean's newsletter on the subject. I am pretty much taking a wait and see approach on this one. But I was also just literally telling another writer I had thought about trying to develop a Twitter for writers type course and am definitely putting that thought on hold for now.
• Pitching guides: Jessica Reed (editor at The Guardian) posted a recent "How to Pitch" guide for her here. She also has some older "pitch clinic" posts that basically recommend revisions to pitches up at Medium that are worth checking out.
• Twitter pitch newsletter: If you are a person that pitches a lot and don't already know about it, I also highly recommend Sonia Weiss's newsletter Opportunities of the Week, where she collects Twitter pitch calls and emails them to you. There are a wide variety of pitch calls (including humor and parenting pieces) and it is much easier than trying to keep track of these on Twitter on your own.

News from me:

• Want even more pitching help? I'll be teaching a virtual pitching and writing for mainstream publications course with Lighthouse's LitFest in June. Check out the details here.
• I wrote an essay about my lack of natural parenting instincts for Today's Parent, which you can read here.
• I have a plan to get an archive up of old newsletters, which has not yet materialized. In the meantime, you can read some of the recent issues here.

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