I've had Taylor Swift on repeat again, which used to mean something specific, a bridge on loop like a diagnosis, or a lyric doing the emotional work I couldn't. Lately, it's one song in particular: "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived," her quietest, most clinical takedown, off of an album largely about being entangled with someone who performed depth without ever having it. It isn't really about height. It's about a certain kind of smallness, the refusal to be accountable, the a

On a phone call home, I tell a friend that the language barrier might be a good thing. I think it makes me talk less on dates. I’ve also started saying that I write about love. It just sounds more poetic, more romantic that way. “Un verre de Sancerre.” I don’t need another glass of wine… Me: I write about Lamoooghr. Him: You write about death? Me: Um no, l’amouuuur. Him: Oh, you mean love? L’amour, he says with the graceful ease of a native speaker. I hear la-meeeuure

What Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey reminded me about temptation, identity and the long journey home.

Lately, it feels like every one of my girlfriends has a partner. Whenever we meet, the conversation inevitably drifts toward relationships. Most of them have these sweet, almost cinematic stories about meeting their partners on dating apps. They admit it’s rare, but somehow it happened to them. Meanwhile, every attempt I make at online dating turns into material for my friends’ group chat an endless sequence of absurd, tragicomic episodes that feel more like a sitcom than rea

Almost every other book seems destined for the screen. From glossy YAs like The Summer I Turned Pretty to campus dramas like Off Campus, stretching back to reimaginings of classics like The Odyssey. But now it raises a sharper question: are these novels being written less as literature and more as blueprints for adaptation? Increasingly, authors appear to craft stories with an expectation that an agent or studio will eventually scoop them up, while Hollywood leans on these re

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had an overwhelming desire to see others and understand what they’re really like. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to walk in their shoes. To be who they are and understand why it is they do the things that they do. I believe it’s the most magical feeling of all time, to see others from their perspective and not just mine. I don't think I know who I am without the empathy that sometimes consumes me. I believe it makes me more human, t

My curiosity does not care about calendars or timelines. It will happily consume everything. I want to make every mistake, explore every passion, not as hobbies but as their own brief lives. I want to sketch futures that feel urgent and fleeting, where every possibility feels like the real one in the moment it arrives. I want to work in corporate marketing. I want to travel to France to study civil law. I want to study computer science. I want to write a screenplay and see it

So, what are we waiting for? Are you dating a Haas avocado? Rarely in season, ripe for about five minutes before it starts to rot, waiting for its time to shine. Waiting is an unfortunate part of women's lives. We are told to wait for that career opportunity, to wait for the right love, to wait until we feel ready to have children, only to reach our childbearing years and realise that pregnancy isn't as simple as our high school teachers made it seem. But I digress. Did you k

She walks into the boardroom. The click-clack of her black stilettos against the polished floor isn't just a sound—it's an announcement. She's wearing the uniform of the modern victor: a perfectly tailored blazer, razor-sharp red lipstick, and a presence so calculated it could pass for a business strategy. Every head turns. Every conversation falls silent. She is the archetype. The blueprint of female success. Effortlessly dominating a room full of men who don't quite know wh