January ERBs (Eats, Reads, Buys)

A monthly roundup of things I enjoy(ed) (GO BIRDS!)

Jan 30, 2025

The Eagles are going to the Super Bowl!!!!

I was tempted to make that the whole newsletter because really, what more could you ask for? (A win, the answer is a win. We must not allow KC to three-peat.)

I was in Philly for LII in 2018. I watched the game with my brother and his future wife in their apartment on Broad Street, and I remember the tense silence, everyone on their feet as the ball spun towards the end zone— batted around, incomplete— and the eruption of sound that followed as our entire city collectively lost its mind.

We booked it down Broad Street before the announcers had finished calling the game, before the confetti had even left the cannons in Minnesota. Fireworks lit up our faces and singed the backs of our hoodies, and we dodged cans of PBR lobbed into the crowd from fans hanging out windows in the apartments above. People climbed garbage trucks and car-surfed police vans and shimmied up light poles. It was a specific brand of reckless, unhinged joy only Philadelphia fans know. I don’t know if any win will match what we experienced in 2018, but I hope we take this one home.

If you’d like to know more about how the Eagles and writing share space in my life, I invite you to read my essay from 2019, a year after their historic win: Everything I know about rejection in writing I learned from being a Philadelphia Eagles fan.

Please read and share my piece in Narratively

An essay based on my in-progress-book was published with

Narratively

this week. It was nearly a year in the making, from initial pitch to final draft, and I’m thrilled it’s out in the world.

It’s a vulnerable piece, as all “bad mom” narratives are, but writing about hard times— and this hard time, specifically— has given me a great deal of compassion for myself. More than anything, I wish I could go back and give 2020 me a hug. I wish I could tell her it was all going to be okay.

If you’d like to give it a read and a share (which is essentially giving 2020 me a hug), you can do so here:

Narratively

I Was the World’s Worst Cancer Mom

My truck pulled to the right, barreling over the rumble strip as my eyes drifted closed. By the time I hit the highway’s guardrail, my chin was on my chest. I snapped out of the haze of my hangover just as my truck jolted against the concrete barrier. I yanked the wheel to the left, overcorrecting so hard my tires spit gravel. If there had been a car in the middle lane, I would have broadsided them…

5 months ago · 5 likes · Elizabeth Austin

Taking my foot off the gas (on Substack)

When I started writing on Substack a year ago, I kept up a weekly publishing pace. It was manageable at the time because most of what I was doing was intaking— reading, taking workshops, learning. I wasn’t publishing externally and I wasn’t working through my book on any timeline, so I had the stamina and the bandwidth to write an essay a week for this space.

My output has increased in the last seven months. I’m writing more external pieces, and I’m on a timeline for my book. Keeping up with drafting weekly essays on Substack while juggling all of that is a challenge.

I love sharing parts of myself here. Writing a newsletter is what every writer should be doing, sure, but having a space to connect with other writers goes beyond professional platform. Each of the people I’ve connected with through this space has had an impact on my life. I’m so, so grateful for each of you reading this right now.

All that said, in the interest of continuing to maintain momentum while also easing my writing brain’s burden, my last newsletter of every month is going to be a roundup!

There is a secondary benefit to dedicating an entire newsletter each month to everything that caught my interest.

It is my emphatic, unyielding belief that we have a responsibility to lift one another up because this industry is brutal and we don’t need to make things more difficult for one another. I launched my Instrument, Surface, Setting, Story interview series as a way to highlight and promote other creatives and their work. I’m delighted to continue these efforts through my monthly roundup, Eats, Reads, Buys.

I’ll be sharing recipes I followed or restaurants I visited that I would recommend to any of my best friends, books and essays that moved me, and things I bought (or wanted to buy.) We’ll be going light on the buying because consumerism is a disease, but I do buy things (most of those things being books) and gatekeeping is for suckers.

The core of my writing life is community. My hope is that by being vocal about the work that influences me, I will do a small part to foster connection in the community that does so much to sustain me.

Eats

Made this “chocolate mousse for a party” but just for me and the kids. 10/10 recommend. Kids ate it scooped into bowls plain, I ate mine with fresh whipped cream, good olive oil, and flaky salt.

Reads

Buys

Books Are Magic loves LA! 100% of proceeds from these t-shirts will go to The World Central Kitchen Pasadena
I’m lusting after the Rosemary dress from Samantha Pleet
I bought these pants because they come in Extra Tall and they’re perfect. They sold out in my size before I could buy a second (and third) pair and now I want to cry.
I got suckered into the sneakers. I love dramatic proportions and have no regrets.
Rehearsals for Dying by Ariel Gore. I got to read an excerpt and it’s stunning. I’m going to end up reading this book in one sitting.
Local to New York? Amy Shearn will be at Books Are Magic with Emily Schultz talking about her new book Animal Instinct, another book I know I’ll read in a single sitting.

Bonus: Watched & Went To

Watched:

Sweet Tooth, a show that ticked all the boxes with Carolyn and I. We devoured three seasons in three weeks and I haven’t stopped yapping about it since. I wish I could go back and watch it anew.

Went to:

Must Love Memoir reading in NYC! I was fortunate to be one of the readers. It’s a great series, everyone who shared their work was incredible, I’m going to attend as often as I can.