A Few Things | June 14
I'm FIFTY today! Plus: Our Parenting Book Cover Reveal
Today’s My 50th Birthday
Hey there. Today I am officially 50 years old! I’ve really been looking forward to this milestone birthday. My 30s were better than my 20s, my 40s were even better than my 30s, so I can only imagine my 50s will be the best yet.
To celebrate, my kids are making 7-layer dip (I know that’s an odd birthday request, but that’s what I am in the mood for!), and we’re going to my favorite second-hand shop to look for some little containers to help me organize our newly put together Workroom at the Tall House.
The other big celebratory announcement: We FINALLY have an official title and cover design for our parenting book, and I get to share them today.
Parenting Book Title & Cover Reveal!
Introducing: The Kids Are All Right — Parenting with Confidence in an Uncertain World.
The book comes out on October 15th (just 4 months away!) and you can pre-order it now.
I have so much to tell you about this book — things like:
-What it’s about and how it’s different than the usual parenting books.
-How I sincerely hope it will help relieve your parenting stress.
-Why it’s probably going to make some people angry.
-How it had a completely different title for the past year, and then it changed just last week.
-And why I feel way more vulnerable about this book, than I did about Ejaculate Responsibly.
But I don’t want to overwhelm you, so today I’ll just talk about the cover design, which I adore. The cover was designed by the legendary and talented Bonnie Seigler.
Bonnie designed my last book, and I was cheering when I found out she said yes to designing this one as well. The Kids Are All Right, and Ejaculate Responsibly, are both the same size and shape, and Bonnie designed them like a little set — including using the same headline font, plus big, bold, headings for each chapter.
It makes me laugh to think of both books together — the first one tells you how to avoid having kids, and the second one tells you what to do if you have kids anyway. Hahahah.
The color palette of The Kids Are All Right is one we considered for Ejaculate Responsibly, but I’m glad we ended up saving it for this one, because it fits wonderfully. The cover is so happy and inviting. I love it! I hope you love it too.
As you’ve already heard from probably every author you know, pre-orders make a huge difference in how widely read a book is, and how it’s marketed and reviewed by the media. We want every parent to read this book — we really think it will help any parent who is feeling overwhelmed about raising kids.
A pre-order would be the best 50th birthday present ever! You could order one for yourself, or for a parent in your life.
Thank you in advance for supporting this new book. I appreciate you so much.
In The News
Looking for some weekend reading? Here are a few things I’ve saved for you:
-From The Cut — Actually, Having a Baby Changes You Forever. The lasting biological and psychological metamorphosis is part of a life phase known as matrescence.
-From The New Yorker — The New Generation of Online Culture Curators.
-From The Atlantic — “We aren’t 'in danger' of following European voters in an extremist direction, because we are already well past them.”
-From The Wall Street Journal — Elon Musk’s Boundary-Blurring Relationships With Women at SpaceX.
-From The Guardian — A drug that ‘melts away’ tumours hailed as ‘gamechanger’ for some bowel cancer patients.
Author Photos as a Couple
Since Ben Blair and I wrote this parenting book together (that’s another thing I want to tell you about — what the experience of writing together was like), our publisher requested a photo of us together for their marketing materials.
I can’t remember the last time we had a professional photo taken of just us as a couple, and we don’t have anything current. So our daughter, Flora June, took some photos of us in the garden yesterday.
Here are two that we submitted:
That’s all for now. I hope you have a fabulous weekend. Feel free to comment on anything I mentioned above, or whatever’s on your mind. And thank you, thank you, thank you, for the birthday pre-orders!
kisses,
Gabrielle
Happy birthday!! I cannot wait to read this book. How fun that they’re designed to work as a set! Earlier today, I was scrolling Threads and someone (commenting on Gen Alpha slang) said “The kids are not all right” and I immediately thought, “Yes they are! The kids are being kids and they are wonderful!” So I couldn’t have been more delighted to open my email and see this title. A breath of fresh air, as always.
Happy birthday, lovely! And I am just over the moon for you -- both for your joyful step into this next (awesome!) decade, and this collab with Ben Blair!