Your Best Midwestern Girl

Feb 6, 2025 | isabellarosario.substack.com | Isabella Rosario

*** This post’s long, so if you’re reading it via email, it may be clipped. To read the full essay online, click here. ***note: the following text discusses sexual assault Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. That strange set of words has rolled around in my brain ever since I heard Christine Blasey Ford say them at Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing in the fall of 2018.

Dec 4, 2024 | isabellarosario.substack.com | Isabella Rosario

My favorite part about Christmas has always been waiting for it. Once December hits, my little corner of the world is enveloped in a warm glow, with strings of twinkly yellow lights hung from rooftop gutters and wrapped around trees. People start their fireplaces, or play YouTube videos of other people’s fireplaces on their televisions. I know this because no one hangs curtains anymore, and I’m not above peering into strangers’ uncovered windows.

Jun 16, 2024 | isabellarosario.substack.com | Emma Specter |Ashley Reese |Isabella Rosario

As I was reflecting on what to write about today, I realized my brain the past week has been fully occupied by Charli XCX’s new album, brat. I’ve either been listening to brat, or thinking about how to have my best Big Brat Summer, or reading about how other women see themselves in this hyperpop ode to modern womanhood.

Jun 9, 2024 | isabellarosario.substack.com | Isabella Rosario |THEE Nora Ephron

Not to toot my own horn but I am very impressed with myself for churning out one of these two weeks in a row. A funny and terrible thing about being a girl is you will get catcalled the most as a minor. That’s how it is for me and practically every woman I know, anyway. So when I was HEY BABY’d in the Hy-Vee parking lot this week, I thought about it longer than I did on such occasions as a teenager.

Jun 2, 2024 | isabellarosario.substack.com | Emily Stewart |Isabella Rosario

“Kill your darlings” is a common piece of writing advice.