No F*cks Given® Newsletter | 10.13.23
Aaaaand, WE'RE BACK!
My cherished fucklings, it has been a WHILE since you got a real, live newsletter from me. You see, after publishing and promoting Grow the F*ck Up this spring, I went into a bit of a hidey-hole—I called it my “Burnout Break”—and it was about three years overdue. Oopsie. But I’m back in action, I’ve moved from Mailchimp to Substack, and I’ve redesigned the NFGN so it’s simpler, classier, easier for me to write and, hopefully, for you to read.
FYI: the NFG deals, news, and links are sprinkled throughout, and your NFG Tip for Today lives at the end. (Feel free to skip ahead. I won’t tell.)
Let’s get to it!
What’s up?
First and foremost, this always-free newsletter is now part of a larger project: No F*cks Given® with Sarah Knight. If you haven’t already, you can read the official launch announcement here, but briefly:
ALL subscribers to my Substack get the monthly-ish NFGN and occasional free posts straight to their inboxes.
PAID subscribers get full access to everything I’m doing under the larger NFGWSK banner—including private discussion threads with me, participation in the comments and community, personal essays, audio content, and more. Paid peeps hear from me every week, sometimes twice, if I’m feeling saucy.
Second—and as the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed—I trademarked this shit! Yup. It took two years, but according to the US Patent & Trademark Office, I now own the exclusive rights to use No F*cks Given® as pertains to books, podcasts, newsletters, and other stuff. Shout-out to trademark attorney extraordinaire Francesca Witzburg for making the magic happen; she is terrific.
(In related news, typing that phrase every time with the fancy li’l ® symbol is super annoying, but I guess it’s the price we pay for legitimacy.)
NFG DEALS
Calm the F*ck Down is on sale for 20% off in hardcover at Amazon US. I don’t know how long this deal will last, because nobody tells me anything!
In June, I did something else that was years in the making—or at least in the dreaming. My husband and I went to Greece, where we’ve wanted to travel ever since our friends went for their honeymoon, oh, twenty-ish years ago. The highlight was definitely our time spent on Santorini, especially taking a sunset catamaran cruise around the dormant volcano that formed the island. Just absolutely spectacular.
(Before that, in Athens, we did a tour of the Acropolis. Less glamorous, but it was pretty cool to bear witness to the site where democracy was, like, invented.)
We also checked out Paros, which was cute in an “ancient civilization meets modern seaside tourist trap” kind of way; then did a little island-hopping throughout the Cyclades, part of the Aegean Archipelago. And by “island-hopping,” I mean that a nice man in a speed boat picked us and our luggage up at 9:00am on a dock in Paros, took us out for a few dips in the impossibly cerulean sea and lunch at an impossibly picturesque restaurant on Schinoussa, and deposited us in Santorini before dark. I love a boat day, and this was one for the ages.
Oh, and back on Paros, I was the recipient of a sick burn from our tour guide, Georgia. After I stopped to photograph my seventeenth cat of the day (which, in my defense, I did warn Georgia was going to be an integral part of our vacation), she said, “Ah, my granddaughter also loves to take pictures of the cats. It takes us a while to get anywhere, haha. She’s four.”
In July, I gave the keynote address at Biz417 Magazine’s Ladies Who Launch event in Springfield, Missouri. It was a terrific day of programming with more than 500 attendees—in fact, the event sold out almost immediately and had to be moved to a larger venue to accommodate additional demand! That venue wound up being the White River Conference Center, which is part of the Bass Pro Shop empire. (I didn’t know about Bass Pro before I went to Missouri, but I gather it’s kind of major in the world of “outdoorsy shit.”) In any case, my “Sorry, NotSorry” talk went over very well, and it was the first time I’ve ever shared a green room with a raccoon.
Afterwards, some local friends took us out to Table Rock Lake and we made a whole Ozark weekend of it. Fortunately, and unlike Ozark, the TV show, nobody got murdered by the cartel.
NFG NEWS
The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck film script is back on track! When the Writers Guild of America went on strike this spring, all work was paused until union members could negotiate a fair contract with the studios. I’m thrilled that the WGA recently reached a deal—including protections against the use of AI to replace ACTUAL HUMAN WRITERS WTF—and of course it also means our writers can get back to doing what they do best and maaaaaybe I’ll have even more movie news to share later this year. Cross your middle fingers, my little fucklings!
What else?
Apart from my speaking gig, I was busy trying to not be so busy this summer, while my husband Judd did most of the household hustling—promoting his first album as a solo artist, The Beach EP! It’s hard for me to pick a favorite song, but this track was inspired by our 2016 move from Brooklyn to the Dominican Republic and will always hold a Hispaniola-sized place in my heart.
If you like a relaxed vibe, catchy harmonies, and velvet vocals, you can find Judd in all the usual places, including Spotify and lately, TikTok Live. (I asked if I could be a backup dancer. He looked at me with love in his eyes and said, “Absolutely not.”)
NFG LINKS
My How-To Academy event is now available on YouTube! This was such a fun conversation, chatting with the great Hannah MacInnes about all things adulting. You can watch the video HERE.
My podcast interview with Kylie Lately (of The Frae and I am. with Kylie Lately) is live HERE.
Book Recommendations
As longtime readers know, before I fled corporate life in NYC for freelancing from the white sand beaches of the D.R., I was a book editor for fifteen years. Which means I know how hard it is for most authors to get any attention (unless your name rhymes with “Even Sting” or “Ball-peen Groover”), and it pleases me to be able to use my newsletter to shout out my recent favorite reads. I don’t take requests or PR trades or anything like that—whatever I recommend is because I truly enjoyed it and think other people will too!
Fiction:
She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb. A classic novel that I somehow missed out on for thirty years. It holds up, and it also inspired quite a conversation with my therapist…
Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens. A queer, feminist Western set primarily in a Dodge City bordello. I loved these characters, and the ending was deeply satisfying—always a plus.
Heat 2 by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner. Whether or not you’ve seen Heat, the movie that this book is somehow both a prequel AND sequel to, this is a perfect thriller. I absolutely devoured it and wished there was a three-quel!
Nonfiction:
Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge: Intimate confessions from a happy marriage by Helen Ellis. I don’t know what it is about Ellis’ essays (actually, I do: they’re hilarious, profound, and a little bit kooky), but I will read anything she writes. Unsurprisingly, I especially loved the one titled “An Email to Our Cat Sitter.”
Spare by Prince Harry. Honestly, I don’t give two puddings about the Royal Family, but I decided to get this book after reading a fascinating interview with Harry’s ghost writer, J.R. Moehringer. And you know what? I loved it. #NotSorrry
And that’ll do it for today, my feisty fucklings. As always, thank you for your support, for reading the books and listening to the podcast and subscribing to my ridiculous newsletter.
I see you, I appreciate you, and I hope you’re out there giving fewer, better fucks and living your best life!
Sarah
NFG TIP FOR TODAY: Stop giving a fuck about what other people think.
If you have a hard time making decisions or living your life because you’re worried about being judged by others, I have good news for you: most people don’t care nearly as much about what you’re up to on a daily basis as you think they do!
But beyond that, you cannot control what other people think, which means worrying about it is a waste of your precious resources. Some people won’t like you because they happened to be in a bad mood the first time you met, and they will forever associate you with their dick boss Bryan talking over them in a meeting. Some people won’t like you because they’re jealous of something you have, like good hair or a rent-controlled apartment. Some people won’t like you because you look like someone else they don’t like. People are ridiculous!
The only thing you CAN control are your actions and behavior, and that’s what you should spend your time, energy, and money focusing on. Be the person YOU like and do the things YOU want to do, when and how YOU want to do them, without worrying so much about the approval (or disapproval) of anyone else.
—from The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck
Ooooo I’d totally forgotten the film . . . looking forward to hearing more progress on that in the coming months