Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

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Rock Out with the Duchess of Rock

May 3, 2015 | xoxoafterdark.com   Of all the many fun tasks I took on surrounding the publication of my debut memoir, Good Girl, perhaps the funnest was creating a Spotify playlist of the songs that inspired my book, from the Bob Dylan song that gave me my name, through The Misfits and Becky Stark. […]

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Don’t Look Back (in Anger)

It’s been a year of looking back, literally and figuratively, while writing my memoir and going through all of the supporting materials that come in handy for double-checking dates, locales, and past states of mind. So grateful to those who talked me off the ledges as I wrote, and those who climbed up on the […]

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DEAR SANTA (I NEVER GOT MY TEMPORARY TATTOOS)

Dear Santa, I know I haven’t written to you in a few years (okay, so like thirty), and it probably seems a little fair weather of me to turn up now, but I only want two things this holiday season, both kind of hard to ask for, so there’s nowhere else to go. May I […]

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20th Anniversary Memorial

For twenty years, we were mostly silent. Hardly even speaking with each other about “the shooting” this black hole, which we moved away from in time, and yet, which we never really seemed to get further away from. Still shadowing our lives as it did with the fact that one of our own had hated […]

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NEW WRITING

My essay, OUR SCHOOL SHOOTING, is up on Salon this week. I felt a familiar, creeping dread when I saw the first mention of the July shooting in Aurora, Colorado, on Twitter and again not two weeks later when I read newspaper reports about the massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. It had been even […]

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Conor Oberst Is My Co-Pilot

It’s true. I listened to nothing but Conor, all the way from Los Angeles to Nashville. And he was an excellent companion. Not a back seat driver at all. More like a back seat therapist. Mostly the trip was lovely. Except for the rain storms in Arizona during the first day. But, hey, it’s just […]

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It’s the New Economy

A new year. A new decade. A new economy. At least that’s what they’re telling us. Read my thoughts on the matter on The Huffington Post. Yes, I’m very excited to be writing for Ms. Huffington and co. Become a Fan. What the hey, right? My mom is. In other news, ALL ABOUT ME, I just […]

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The Great American Novel, Take Two

Drum roll please: I’ve dared to begin my second novel after eight years spent working on, and obsessing over, my as-yet-unpublished first book “Because the Night.” The fresh start is exhilarating and scary; I’d imagine it feels something akin to dating during a trial separation. I can’t quite let go of the potential of the […]

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Brash Tacks: Longwave resurfaces with a fresh sense of excitement

LOS ANGELES – It was hard to tell who was having more fun at Longwave’s show at the Troubadour in December – the fans or the band. The indie rockers, decked out in the vintage boots and fitted black attire of their hip Brooklyn neighborhood, were playing moody, symphonic music more appropriate for breaking up […]

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Friday Night at the Legion Hall

When the cherry cigar-smoking security guard outside the Legion Hall in Highland Park on Friday night asked if I had ID, I momentarily feared I was going to be deemed too old for the lo fi debauch inside. But the show, which I was invited to by my amazing writerly friend Jen Sincero of “Don’t […]

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