I am absolutely thrilled that my fourth book of creative nonfiction, Frivolity: A Defense, has been accepted for publication by Columbia University Press. Frivolity is a book-length essay in 101 sections that argues for the value of frivolous objects, pursuits, and ideas, especially in times of political conflict or upheaval. The book will appear in a series called No Limits (the same philosophical series that published my second book of nonfiction, Taste: A Book of Small Bites). I don’t have an exact release date yet, but it will likely come out the end of 2026 or the start of 2027.

Keeping with the mission of the No Limits series, Frivolity is intended for a non-specialist, general reader, someone who seeks out nonfiction that is both literary and informative. Frivolity blurs or troubles the line between scholarly writing and personal essay, often experimenting with form and the voice that a critic assumes on the page. Frivolity contends that some frivolous things are perhaps less trivial than we might imagine and that even the utterly shallow parts of our lives may offer beneficial, necessary diversions.

I loved writing Frivolity. I worked on the book at the same time as I was revising The Wounded Line: A Guide to Writing Poems of Trauma, and it was often such a relief, a joy to focus on fashion or desserts or romantic comedy, after a few days of thinking about the challenges of representing psychic pain through verse. I hope readers will find Frivolity delightful, a small, delicious palate cleanser in these dark times.