Eavesdrawing the New York Literati

Slyly sketching attendees of a book launch on the Upper East Side

21st October 2025
Upper East Side, New York

Last night I found myself at a beautiful big home across from the Met- the kind of place where the light fixtures look like they’ve won awards. The occasion was a double book launch for Kimberly Warner’s Unfixed and Kirsten Miller’s The Women of Wild Hill, hosted by my favourite Upper East-siders, David and Deborah Roberts. I was there to Eavesdraw.

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When I say “Eavesdraw,” I mean: sit quietly in the corner with a clipboard and the posture of a Victorian ghost while strangers nervously pretended not to look at me. My friend,

Lou Bahet

, Executive Editor of The Metropolitan Review, sat beside me as I sketched the room, stifling laughs whenever she glanced over.

At one point, a server paused beside me, squinting at my nametag like he was trying to read the fine print on a contract. “From ten feet away,” he said, “your name looks exactly like mine.” I told him that if we were ever on the same flight and it went down, and our names ended up on the manifest, I’d live the rest of my life as him. He froze, blinked twice, and walked away without another word, like he’d just realised I wasn’t joking. I went back to sketching a man in the corner, holding court with a couple of publishers.

The crowd was a swirl of writers, publishers, editors, and people who’d clearly been to Paris more recently than I had. Across the room,

Ross Barkan

chatted near a wall of framed modern art, while

Nan Tepper

-with whom I’d recently helped rebrand David’s Sparks from Culture Substack- leaned in to listen. I was in good company.

Kimberly’s Unfixed is a memoir about living with chronic illness and the disorienting beauty of building a life that doesn’t follow the usual structure. Far more eloquent people have called it a work of vulnerability, clarity, and grace. Kirsten’s The Women of Wild Hill is her fictional answer to the patriarchy, a novel about women reclaiming power (and maybe, just maybe, a sense of humour about it). The juxtaposition was ideal: one book about surviving the body, the other about refusing to be tamed by it, sprinkled with just the right amount of references to witches and magic.

David moderated a lively conversation between Kimberly and Kirsten, as their small dog, Sophie, leapt onto her lap halfway through, surveying the room like a tiny duchess.

As people mingled, I started handing out the portraits. Reactions ranged from “Oh my god, that’s me!” to the more existential, “Oh my god. That’s… me?” One woman stared at her portrait as if it had unlocked a memory she wasn’t ready to process. Another asked if I could “just make her look a little more like herself,” which is art director code for erasing the chin.

The house itself was something out of a Nancy Meyers fever dream: artfully decorated walls, impeccable lighting, and a bookshelf so symmetrical it made me sit up straighter. Drawing there felt less like live art and more like light vandalism.

By the end of the night, my lap was covered in ink stains and my hand had stopped moving properly. I’m not sure if it was the RSI or the scotch. Deborah thanked me warmly, Sophie gave me one final sniff of approval, and Lou clinked my cup, knowing full well I’d be slinking back downtown to my drawing board that night to finish a very intense deadline on something we’ve both been working away on. I’ve been pulling late nights to get it done just right. (I can’t wait to show you next week!)

Everyone else left clutching signed books. I left clutching on to wakefulness and a glass of Chardonnay, with the smug satisfaction of an adult who managed to draw the literati without smudging the furniture.

‘til next time,

Your pal,

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