Maddie Connors will be performing at the January 16 edition of The Difficult to Name Reading Series

You've written for a lot of amazing publications such as The New York TImes, The L.A. Times and BookForum, but all I want to talk about is your Substack, which featured reporting from your friends parties and now I'm seeing that you wrote a few dispatches from book launches in 2025. (I didn't realize Jeff Weiss wrote a book about Britney Spears. I must read it.) What draws you to this sort of boots on the group and -- dare I say -- hyperlocal kind of reporting and will someone reading this please hire you to do it full-time?

First of all, thank you, thank you! This is so nice of you to say. I got into non-fiction writing because of writers like Joan Didion, Eve Babitz, and Elaine Dundy, who were always getting in trouble around town, and that type of writing has always really moved me. Like most people, I write to make sense of the world, and it's felt natural to write about the city, the social scene that I'm in. Also, I think New York gets so much credit for being a cultural juggernaut, and L.A. has so much to offer that remains largely untapped, in my opinion. I think it's fun to do literary profiles and scene reports for Eastside L.A. 

I saw on your website that you have an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Bennington College. How did that experience inform the way that you approach writing today?

So, I never intended to get an MFA, but during the pandemic —like everyone else — I was searching for purpose and something to spend my anxiety on, so I enrolled. (lol) The biggest takeaway was that it made me a more serious, literary writer. I'm really grateful for my time in my MFA! I feel like I developed my voice and perspective. I think what I find interesting is investigating something low-brow or sleazy in an elevated, literary voice, and I think that's something I stumbled on in my MFA. 

2026 has just started and a lot of people have goals and resolutions. Why do you think people do that?

I'm easily seduced by self-help talk! I do find it soothing to reflect on my past year and try to imagine a future. That being said, there's something vaguely troubling about this rhetoric that we constantly need to be improving, optimizing getting better. Have fun! Live a little!