Sob Sisters is the casual, word-of-mouth, off-the-record women-in-nonfiction club founded in 2018 by the authors Abbott Kahler (Eden Undone), Susannah Cahalan (The Acid Queen), and Ada Calhoun (Also a Poet). The club name is a reclamation of the dismissive "sob sister," used in the early twentieth century to minimize the work of female journalists who found the human element in news stories.

The group meets four times a year at the great 11th Street Bar's cozy back room for short readings or presentations (an author with a new book out, an editor with a call for submissions, a publicist sharing trade secrets, a fact-checker on best practices...), followed by a cheerful, informal hangout. The list is about 500 women reporters and authors strong, with about 50 showing up to each meeting, some with many books to their credit and others just getting started and looking for advice. Email one of us to get on the invite list.

Below is an archive of past meetings. Please shop at our Bookshop.org store so we may support our fellow authors! Any money earned on the affiliate program will go toward continuing to provide free drinks for assistants!

ARCHIVE

Inaugural meeting: March 2, 2018

Melissa Dahl: Cringeworthy

Susannah Cahalan and Karen Abbott/Abbott Kahler: read from works in progress, The Great Pretender and The Ghosts of Eden Park

Randi Epstein: spoke about the Jewish Books Council 

Margaret Talbot: schooled everyone at Buck Hunter 

April 23, 2018 

Dr. Daniela Lamas: You Can Stop Humming Now
Karen Rinaldi: read from her work in progress, Suck at Something
Tessa Fontaine: The Electric Woman

 

June 4, 2018 

Maureen Callahan: read from her work-in-progress, American Predator
Publicity guru Jill Siegel talked about media campaigns

Joselin Linder: The Family Gene
Stacy Horn: Damnation Island

Ada Calhoun: Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give 

 

September 24, 2018

Briallen Hopper: Hard to Love 
Randi Epstein: Aroused


 

October 22, 2018 

Deborah Blum: The Poison Squad
Maria Konnikova: The Biggest Bluff 

Harriet Washington: A Terrible Thing to Waste

 

November 14, 2018

Sob Sisters at the Miami Book Fair. Readers: Kim Brooks, Kristal Zook, Daniela J. Lamas, and Pulitzer winner Gilbert King giving a benediction on Mabel Norris Reese, the heroine of his book Beneath a Ruthless Sun.

November 30, 2018 

Susan Orlean: The Library Book

March 11, 2019 

Margaret Myers and her agent, Rachel Kim, discussed the proposal process
Andrea Stanley, features editor at Cosmopolitan.com

April 8, 2019

Editor Emily Firetog: LIT HUB
Sarah Rose: D-Day Girls
Alex Daly: “crowd sorceress” on launching books/Kickstarter  
Hallie Rubenhold: The Five  

May 13, 2019 

Theme: “Sucking at Something”

Ryan Leigh Dostie: Formation 

Denise Kiernan: The Last Castle 

Karen Rinaldi: It’s Great to Suck at Something

June 24, 2019

Darcey Steinke: Flash Count Diary

Betsy Goldberg: Airbnb magazine

July 31, 2019

Theme: True Crime Night 

Leah Carroll: Down City 

Bob Kolker: Lost Girls

Maureen Callahan: American Predator

September 25, 2019

Theme: Fact and Fiction 

Megan Abbott: Give Me Your Hand

Abby Ellin: Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married

Glyn Peterson: fact-checker extraordinaire 

October 28, 2019

Sara Polsky: Curbed.com 

Shannon Taggart: Séance

November 6, 2019 

Susannah Cahalan: The Great Pretender

December 16, 2019

Holiday Book Swap

Rachel Friedman: And Then We Grew Up 

January 9, 2020

Ada Calhoun: Why We Can’t Sleep

February 10, 2020

Science Night 

Kate Winkler Dawson: American Sherlock

Donna Jackson Nakazawa: The Angel and the Assassin 

Dr. Christina Montross: Waiting for an Echo

March 11, 2020 

Sob Sisters at Rough Draft: Susannah Cahalan, Ada Calhoun, Abbott Kahler—the last hurrah before Covid! 

In May 2020, we sent out a postponement email to invited readers for spring and summer: Lisa Selin Davis, Emma Copley Eisenberg, Lindsay Powers Eichmann, Alexis Coe, Judith Matloff, Lydia Denworth, and Michelle Agins.

July 14, 2020 

Sob Sisters Zoom meeting for Susannah Cahalan and Abbott Kahler with Lemuria books 

September 21, 2020: Virtual Sob Sisters! 

A virtual reading for Word Bookstore for the (temporarily virtual) Books Beneath the Bridge festival, featuring: 

Judith Matloff: How to Drag a Body and Other Safety Tips You Hope You Never Need 

Lydia Denworth: Friendship 

Emma Copley Eisenberg: The Third Rainbow Girl

Lindsay Powers: You Can’t F*ck Up Your Kids

Then we took a hiatus on virtual stuff because “everyone is sick to death of Zoom.”

December 6, 2021: Back in person! 

Three-minute readings from:

Biz Mitchell 

Lisa Selin Davis 

Joanna Scutts 

Lila Nordstrom

Jessica DuLong 

Anne Elizabeth Moore

Then another hiatus, until: 

May 23, 2022

Sarah Weinman: Scoundrel 

Annabelle Gurwitch: You’re Leaving When?

Rachel Gross: Vagina Obscura

Elizabeth Greenwood and Gallery Books editor Karyn Marcus: Love Lockdown (and publishing during a pandemic).

August 8, 2022

Isabel Vincent of the New York Post on investigative journalism 

Debby Applegate: Madam 

October 17, 2022 

Jessica DuLong spoke about trauma reporting

Elissa Bassist: Hysterical

Adrienne Green, editor for the New York Times Magazine

Celia Gorman, editor for WebMD

January 9, 2023

Alice Robb: Don’t Think, Dear

April White: The Divorce Colony

Maria Teresa Hart: Doll: Object Lessons

Katherine Morgan Schafler: The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control 

April 24, 2023

Helen Ellis: Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge 

Rebecca Fogg: Beautiful Trauma
Jenny Powers will discuss her recent piece for The Cut, “Outsourcing My Orgasm” 

Jennifer Michael Hecht: The Wonder Paradox 

Alexandria Goodson: Writer for Good Morning America and founder of the GMA Book Club 

 

July 24, 2023 

Elizabeth Silver: The Majority

Margi Conklin: editor at The Free Press 

Rachel AG Gilman spoke about her WIP memoir and life as a “Young Person” in publishing

October 23, 2023 

Elyssa Maxx Goodman: Glitter and Concrete 

Lindsay Powers: nonfiction editor for the Amazon Books Editorial team and author of You Can’t F*ck Up Your Kids 

Alexandria Goodson, GMA book club founder 

 

January 8, 2024

Abbott Kahler: Where You End 

Vivian Manning-Schaffel: reporting for The Cut about what it means for women to live with HIV long-term.

April 8, 2024

Meghan Sullivan: The Birth of Seton  

Ace fact-checker (and journalist in her own right) Rachel Stone 

Sarah Weinman: Evidence of Things Seen 

July 15, 2024 

Dr. Naomi Extra: workshopped her first book proposal 

Maureen Callahan: Ask Not

Melissa Dahl on her viral New York magazine piece about quitting therapy 

 Brianna Zimmerman, international scout, explains her job 

October 14, 2024

Heather Won Tesoriero: Audible editor and author of The Class 

Julia Dahl: crime reporter turned crime novelist 

Abbott Kahler: Eden Undone

January 6, 2025

Nicole Treska: Wonderland 

Nancy Reddy: The Good Mother Myth

Kelly McMasters on her NYT Guest Essay, “Why I Write My Own Obituary Every Year”

Allison Malecha: foreign rights director and literary agent 

April 7, 2025

Susannah Cahalan: The Acid Queen 

Ruthie Ackerman: The Mother Code

 

July 7, 2025 

Laurie Gwen Shapiro: The Aviator and the Showman 

Margaret Grace Myers: The Fight for Sex Ed

Jean Hannah Edelstein: Breasts: An Unexpectedly Brief Relationship w

Bethanne Patrick: DC book maven 

October 27, 2025 

Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo of Greenlight talked about the current state of bookselling 

Teresa Svoboda: Hitler and My Mother-in-Law 

 December 5, 2025: Sob Sisters New England 

Susannah Cahalan led this inaugural event 

Annie Hartnett: The Road to Tender Hearts 

Pria Anand: The Mind Electric 

Sara Shukla: editor at WBUR and author of Pink Whales

Molly Birnbaum: editor-in-chief at Ten Speed Press and memoirist (Season To Taste), dished about publishing trends 

January 19, 2026 

Ilise S. Carter (aka The Lady Aye): When We Spoke to the Dead 

Natalie Dykstra: Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner 

Krishan Trotman at Legacy Imprint and author Amy Littlefield: Killers of Roe 

Michele Filgate: What My Father and I Don’t Talk About

April 13, 2026 

Jo Gohmann and Emily Flake: All Toddlers Are Scorpios 

Julia Cooke: Starry and Restless

Darcey Steinke: This is the Door

Casey Scieszka: Innkeeper of the Spruceton Inn and author of The Fountain