Cannonball!

The Sophia Petrillo and Rose Nylund of newsletters is making HARD CHOICES from the sweltering pergola.

We’re here to reclaim the “women’s magazine.” Every week, two veteran editors read it ALL to bring you everything we believe women’s media should be: juicy yarns, big ideas, deeply personal essays, hot goss, and the odd shopping tip—aka, the full Spread. Plus: original interviews, podcasts, and more. Come hungry!  

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Young Kamala, our favorite extra from Some Kind of Wonderful.

Our Fellow Future Canadians, 

In an early Spread, we shared this photo with you and high-fived America for having a woman who is this cool thisclose to the Oval. And in a week of discombobulating pendulum swings, in the midnight of our curdled souls—please direct all questions to the Parkinson’s specialist who may or may not have 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. starred in his Google Maps—we’ve found ourselves squinting through the impenetrable gloom, back toward…Ms. Harris. A moot point? According to the SWAT team surrounding POTUS, who are “swallowing their fears” at this very moment (inspiring!) yes. According to m’lady Common Sense—which knows all too well the racist/misogynist hurdles Harris would have to clear—also, probably, yes? But before we get our hopey dreamy changey feelings stomped on all over again, allow us please a quick moment of rash optimism, fueled by two things: 

The Atlantic’s chief Kamala correspondent Elaina Plott Calabro, whose definitive Kamala profile we Spreaded big in October (and who was very polite when Rachel overzealously approached her out of nowhere at a UVA cocktail party shortly thereafter), spoke with Biden-Dumping Prophet Ezra Klein¹. Together, they go deep on the Veep’s bio, what went wrong in her first presidential campaign, and how the Biden administration has (accidentally) done her dirty. (Check out “Is Kamala Harris Underrated?” here.)

New York politics superstar Rebecca Traister and Rutgers professor Brittney Cooper’s got together for a back-and-forth on Harris that is chock full of important historical context, plus zingers. (Check out “Why Not Kamala?” here.) 

And, just like that, we’re back in the game. Or not—who knows.

Here’s hopin’, 

Rachel & Maggie 

P.S. We were profiled in the Wall Street Journal! OK maybe “profiled” is a stretch. Read “It Has Never Been Harder, or More Essential, to Have a Work Best Friend.” 

P.P.S. Shockingly, we have nary a subscriber in North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, or Wyoming. Y’all, we are not even remotely home on the plains! Refer a friend from one of these abortion deserts, and we’ll give them—and you—a two-month subscription to our paid subscribers’ edition…absolutely free! (Email us at rachelandmaggie@thespread.media about this—or anything, really—and we’ll sort it out.)

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Miss June: More people should be named for months. What’s not to love about 94-year-old June Squibb, star of Inside Out 2 and Thelma, which is—to rip off, er, quote Rachel Handler’s smile-inducing squib on Squibb (geddit)—“a warm and moving comedy about a Jewish grandma who gets phone-scammed out of $10,000 and, much to the anxiety of her close-knit family…sneaks off on a renegade quest across Los Angeles to retrieve her money and her dignity.” Squibb gives Handler a lift around her apartment complex on her cherry-red mobility scooter because OF COURSE she does. Don’t miss the archival photos of Squibb as a young and beautiful actor—which somehow only underscore the point that youth and hots truly aren’t everything. Read it here.

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Here’s what paid subscribers are poppin’ like Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, fresh from the freezer…

• Menses = magic! And we don’t just mean that in a hippie-dippy sense!

• The woman the British press is busy vanishing.

• The counterargument to procreational angst.

• The celebrity book club industrial complex, explained.

• And rage-fueled inappropriate midlife sex aplenty!