Writer Samantha Irby Doesn’t Bet on a Losing Dog

It took Samantha Irby 14 years to commit to a career in writing — a mostly practical decision driven by her upbringing, as she describes it. “It never, ever occurred to me to think of writing as a career,” she says. “It was kind of a pipe dream. I wasn’t raised with that kind of optimism. My reality was this: I only have a high-school diploma, I don’t have a safety net, I just have to work and work and work so I can take care of myself.” So instead she earned her livelihood running the front desk at an animal hospital, doing shifts while writing her second major essay collection, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, and even continuing after it was published. “I cannot bet on a losing dog,” she says.

Cassava flour and fruit kept four children alive in the Amazon for 40 days following a plane crash. Speaking of kids, the nation’s first climate trial is going down in Montana, and the youngest plaintiff is 5 years old. Flavor Flav is in his Swiftie era. Baloo, is that you? Not all trees are created equal. A mom in the U.K. has been sentenced to 28 months in jail after admitting to using abortion pills to end her pregnancy after the ten-week legal limit. New York City’s food-delivery workers will be the first in the country to get a minimum wage. And read your horoscope for the week.

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