Danny Lavery

The Worst Part About Publishing a Book in 2025 Is The New Kind of Spam I don’t like getting spam emails as a general rule, but they’re usually pretty easy to filter and don’t cause more than a momentary spasm of irritation:

book PR scam copy has gotten just better enough in the last year that it drives me insane. I can't handle the extra five seconds of sleuthing before sending to spam!

www.thechatner.com/p/the-worst-...

Everything the Baby Currently Believes to be Basketball The baby has recently entered into the age of fixations.

It will not surprise you to learn that our nineteen-month-old has a charming and idiosyncratic way of saying the phrase “basketball hoop”: he says “Ba-ka-baa hoo.” He says it often and with great conviction.
www.thechatner.com/p/everything...

"Every five years between 1977-1989 and 1998-2015 sees a new Sorcerer sequel set in a different country with a different method of freight handling. This includes the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles"

Life in the universe where William Friedkin’s Sorcerer beats out Star Wars: A New Hope at the box office in the spring of 1977 Roy Scheider is nominated for a record-breaking 36 Emmys for his performance on NBC’s seaQuest DSV, beating Alan Alda’s run on M*A*S*H

-Different kind of “shipping wars”
-Roy Scheider is nominated for a record-breaking 36 Emmys for his performance on NBC’s seaQuest DSV, beating Alan Alda’s run on M*A*S*H
www.thechatner.com/p/life-in-th...

before immediately realizing I’ve done six insane things that month and also started smoking cigarettes again. Nevertheless!

every year, for the last six years, I get about halfway through November thinking “wow, I’ve made it through November, the month everyone in my family revealead themselves to be part of a sinister pedophile-protecting cabal, without going insane at all this time”

tonight at 6pm at the Pegasus Books on Shattuck in Berkeley is the one and only reading I’m doing for the second Women’s Hotel book. come by!

so excited to be in convo with my brother Danny!!

Fielding Questions About My New Job's Shift Meal Policy DANIEL: The burden is easy; the yoke is light. I receive no more than two to three emails a day on average. FRIENDS: Surely not —!DANIEL: It is not unheard of to go an entire day at work without recei...

"Five days a week, should I particularly wish it, I might eat a hot lunch with gravy at no cost to myself, and without lifting a finger to prepare it."

www.thechatner.com/p/fielding-q...

I'm only doing one stop on the book tour for Christmas at the Women's Hotel -- this Monday at Pegasus Books in Berkeley with @soleilho.com. Don't miss it!

pegasusbookstore.com/event/2025-1...

that's terribly kind of you!

rescuing gooners from themselves: dazed, blue-eyed, limpid, wearing hospital gowns, ready for rehab

never! shooting is fun and low risk

It’s also very funny to sentimentalize forest porn caches as like, “Oh, you really had to work for your nut then, porn had to be earned by hard work and honest sweat.”

had a very fun time talking with these guys about online sexual kayfabe!

"But PornosexualGooner101 Died 35 Years Ago...This Very Night!" "There’s this idea that straight cis men have an entirely uncomplicated relationship to porn because they’re the most normative porn consumer demographic, but straight cis men are often surprisingly t...

"If you believe these guys are avatars of sexual ruination/failed masculinity, you’re buying into the thing they’re getting off on. Lots of trans people get off to similar ideas. Cis men just don’t have the escape hatch of calling it a coping mechanism for trauma"

www.thechatner.com/p/but-pornos...

my third novel is about a relentless string of friendship bust-ups. MEETING NEW PEOPLE comes out summer 2026

Being Asked to Join the Sacred Band of Thebes a Little Too Soon in a New Relationship We had talked about the possibility in a general way once or twice, I’m sure. Lots of lovers do. They do it in the same way you might also talk about retiring to one of your villas in the countryside,...

when is too soon to ask to join the sacred band of thebes in a new relationship open.substack.com/pub/dmlavery...

in Calvinism it’s “buy me Bonestorm and go to Hell”

Cupid and Psyche, Part IV: Somebody Get Me Some Wool Cupid, meanwhile, was grounded. Recuperating. Chores for wives, house arrest for husbands, was the order of the day.

Cupid and Psyche, part IV: “Chores for wives, house arrest for husbands, was the order of the day.”

open.substack.com/pub/dmlavery...

An Excerpt from "Christmas at the Women's Hotel" Christmas at the Women’s Hotel is coming out in about a week.

an excerpt from Christmas at the Women’s Hotel, out next week: open.substack.com/pub/dmlavery...

hell yeah girl!!! you got this, you're gonna have a great time

wait that's great and congratulations but why did I think you already did this years ago!! amazing

Fielding Questions About How Big the Bus I Get to Drive for Work is Driving the big bus at work makes me feel like a character in Richard Scarry’s Busytown, alive with purpose, and surrounded by co-laborers who manage to unite both ease and zeal in their activities of...

getting a lot of questions about just how big the big bus I'm driving for work is. happy to answer them here:

www.thechatner.com/p/fielding-q...

Fielding Questions About How Big the Bus I Get to Drive for Work is Driving the big bus at work makes me feel like a character in Richard Scarry’s Busytown, alive with purpose, and surrounded by co-laborers who manage to unite both ease and zeal in their activities of...

getting a lot of questions about just how big the big bus I'm driving for work is. happy to answer them here:

www.thechatner.com/p/fielding-q...

thank you so much! that means a great deal to me

"I am going to write a husband no one but myself will much like" -- Jane Austen writing Edmund Bertram, probably

A Mild Defense of Mansfield Park's Edmund Bertram “I am going to write a husband whom no one but myself will much like"

She is “long in finding” a replacement for him, and possibly never does, so our last image of her is a sort of reverse Miss Havisham, steeped in time and bursting with eligibility, with a wedding ready to break out every second but that never quite comes off.

open.substack.com/pub/dmlavery...

A Mild Defense of Mansfield Park's Edmund Bertram “I am going to write a husband whom no one but myself will much like"

Mansfield Park ends with both Edmund and Mary Crawford in an odd relationship with time after he accidentally puts a curse on them both in chapter twelve (I have proof of this).

Three Parents Discuss Children's Books, Part II "I think Nikki is a liar and Grandma knows exactly what happened."

huge unexpected split on Jan Brett's 'The Mitten':

"I think Nikki is a liar and Grandma knows exactly what happened."

www.thechatner.com/p/three-pare...