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Dec 29, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
5:34 PM, Christmas Eve. Just in the nick of time, with no expectation of response for at least two weeks, I submitted the full manuscript of my second novel to my agents. To be fair, the plan had been to submit it on Christmas Eve Eve to enjoy a full day of reading (Richard Powers’s Playground has sat eagerly at my bedside for weeks now) and granola-making and last-minute card-writing, but I’d wanted to re-read a few freshly edited sections just one. more. time.
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Nov 28, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
Little brain space for anything other than book 2 this month. The editing process is nebulous, a vast galaxy that manages to feel claustrophobic at times. Everything is possible and yet, revision means whittling down the boundlessness of those possibilities. Honing into the ones that feel most right to the story. Cutting the cord on the ones that don’t fit, not right now, not just yet. It is, more or less, all I think about these days.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
fashionmagazine.com | Annika Lautens |Natalie Michie |Anna Julia Stainsby |Stephanie Davoli
Photography courtesy of Smythe Smythe Says Yes to Suits For the Holidays + More Fashion News Plus, H&M brings back some of their best designer collabs. By Stephanie Davoli Date October 31, 2024 Smythe launches their latest holiday collection Photography courtesy of Smythe November may only be beginning, but ‘tis the season to do some festive shopping — at least according to Smythe and their new holiday collection.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
No soporifics this long weekend but I’m still at a loss for words (i.e. personal essays, waxing poetic over seasonal obsessions, etc.) from the festivities (i.e. pub crawls, martinis, your classic holiday staples).
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Sep 15, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
I haven’t decided whether my recent desire to add a couple of pieces to my wardrobe is some Pavlovian response to September (ie. back-to-school shopping) or a desire to extend summer through accessories. I may be putting away the cut-offs and rolling away my swimsuits but rainbow hues and mermaid jewels feel like appropriate transition wear to pair with a fading tan.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
At the end of last summer, I took note of a trend. Neither particularly original nor oversaturated, just a light purple connective tissue in my camera roll: a pair of lilac Adidas shorts and a romantic white blouse. Although I did go through a short episode of documenting my outfits on TikTok last summer, mostly I only took photos of ones worth repeating. Some say that we photograph what we fear losing the most—according to my data, that seems to be recipes for outfits I felt most myself in.
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Jul 19, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
If you’ve read The Afterpains, you won’t be surprised to find out that growing up, I was convinced that I was genetically predisposed to teenage pregnancy. From what I’d seen on my maternal side in Honduras, the statistics seemed to read more like a guarantee than a coincidence. Years before I was even having sex, my mother would warn me of a supposed hyper-fertility that ran through the bodies of the women in our family.
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May 14, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
I used to think that you only became an adult when you started paying your own cell phone bill, but now I’m tempted to say it’s when you start tailoring your pants. A couple of weeks ago, my hairdresser was raving about a seamstress who had recently transformed some denim of hers and relieved her of even looking at, let alone purchasing, another pair since.
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Apr 15, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
Days before we said goodbye to my dad (or at least I think it was, it’s possible that it was the night before or perhaps after one of those final dinners) he gave me a gold chain. It had been purchased by my mother on his behalf, at a pawn shop down the street, and I knew immediately that after he passed, once I could bear to look at a photo of him without crying, I would want to hang a locket on it, filled with an image of the two of us.
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Mar 30, 2024 | 
neophyte.substack.com | Anna Julia Stainsby
I have been surprisingly (or perhaps just notoriously) bad at predicting how I would feel throughout the publishing process. I’d dreamt of celebratory champagne post-submission, tear-streamed unboxings of my ARCs, Christmas-morning-anticipation leading up to the release. Instead, I got rather tepid reactions to the good stuff and reactions better suited for lion chases or ledge walks to the unknown stuff.
