Untrustworthy, one year later

Win a signed copy, plus: a versatile recipe, hedges and masonry, and more

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, and here are this week’s five items for you.

In this post, paid subscribers will receive:

1. the rest of the first item

2. adorable little detonators

3. a versatile fall dessert/bread recipe

4. some recent work

5. hedges and masonry

If you’re not already a paid subscriber, please consider upgrading to read the whole post—and to support my work:

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1. A take I haven’t written elsewhere

Untrustworthy, one year later

Today, October 11, Untrustworthy is officially one year old. The anniversary kind of snuck up on me, but once I realized, I figured I should mark the occasion.

First, birthdays come with presents, and I’ve got multiple boxes of books just hanging out in my basement, so I’d like to do a small giveaway of signed copies as a thank you to readers here. Usually there’s some element of multiple required social media tasks in this sort of thing, but that’s not something I want to monitor—and also kind of iffy in terms of the whole ethos of the book.

So, instead of setting out posting requirements, I’ll just say this:

1. Do something of your choice to share Untrustworthy and/or this Substack. Putting this post in your Instagram stories with a line or two about why you subscribe is great (tag me!). A review of the book on Amazon or GoodReads is great. A plug of the book on Twitter is great (tag me here too!). But also great—and we’re on the honor system here—is just talking, in real life, with your mouth, to your friend or pastor or mom or whomever you think might enjoy and benefit from what I write.

2. Fill out this little form. All you need to put in is the email address associated with your subscription here (only subscribers are eligible to win) and a one-sentence description of what you did for #1.

I’ll pick five winners at random, but two slots will be reserved for paid subscribers (free trials don’t count), so you’ll have a much better shot at winning if you’ve upgraded your subscription. This is only for folks in the U.S., unfortunately—I’ve tried mailing books abroad before and, beside the cost, find they don’t reliably make it. I’ll choose and follow up with winners in a week or so; if the form is still up, you can still enter.

Ok, on to the next thing: Answers to common questions people ask me about Untrustworthy (how is it selling, do I have any regrets, what’s the next book, etc.) and some general reflections on its first year out in the world.