From July to December 2024, Adam Witkevage and I sent 68 emails. We were collaborating on a project that was a big deal to both of us: my first book, Anthology. Staying Together: Reimagining Community in an Age of DisconnectionAnd Adam’s first personal essay, about how living with his sister in his 20s helped him go from – in his words – “punk kid” to “semi-functioning adult.” Looking back at this impressive email chain, I can see how much we wanted to please each other: I told Adam that I knew he had what it took to write this piece and encouraged him to try an alternative form that he was excited about. He offered to completely rewrite it if necessary (it wasn’t) and assured me that nothing in the editorial process would hurt his feelings.
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Adam has written about books, TV, and music for more than a decade, most recently as the founder of digital media outlet Deviousful, but he felt less comfortable writing about himself. As a fan of Deviousful, I was thrilled to be a part of the launch of his career as a personal essayist. I also had a standard I wanted to maintain for the editorial experience I was giving Adam and the book’s 21 additional contributors, no matter where they were in their careers: one of genuine connection, trust, and discovery. I was looking forward to this project—which stemmed from My experience of moving back in with my parents sometime before I turned 30 And I enjoyed it so much that I stayed there for six years, plus my desire to show readers (and myself) more expansive paths toward habitat, community, and interdependence—would feel just as meaningful to my contributors, if for no other reason than the editorial relationship I was building between us.
I certainly had my own vision for the book: that it should include as many perspectives as possible across lived landscapes, identities, geographies and subjects, and that the stories should be accessible and exemplify the contributors’ approach to communal life and community. I wanted it to serve, perhaps not as a blueprint, but as a source of hope and inspiration. Additionally, Adam and his fellow contributors’ wishes for their pieces were as important as mine.
I have always been cooperative. In my senior year of college, I made a habit of walking home with my film studies professor so we could bounce ideas back and forth for our next paper; I would quickly go back to my room, humming, and write late into the night. At my first full-time job as a writers’ assistant for a TV show, I remember sitting down with a writer during lunch and asking for edits on a piece of political satire, which became mine. first paid publication. In graduate school, I think I grew tired of my friends asking for feedback on my essays for class, but I built a reputation among my teachers for being exceptionally hard-working. In all this, I was not seeking external validation; I wanted to learn and grow.
Having long benefited from the art of joint effort, I knew I wanted my first book to involve it. I made the editorial choice not to standardize the number of revisions; I gave each piece what I thought it needed, until both the contributor and I were satisfied. Along with the 68-email series with Adam, there is a 45-email series and two Google Docs with Jake Montano, who writes about how his drag family affects his sense of self. My editorial email series with Simone Gorrindo, whose essay recounts how she learned to turn outward rather than inward to a neighbor as a response to the loneliness she felt as a new military wife, is 35 emails long. I wasn’t sure what to give them after owning several books under the names of contributors like Kim Stanley Robinson, Gabrielle Korn, and Kristen Arnett, but I feigned confidence and trusted my instincts. My communication with Kristen, excerpted from How she and her chosen family provide each other with acceptance and support in ways that her original family does notSpread across 25 emails, the last of which is from him: “Thanks again for all your extremely helpful edits – I appreciate all the time you spent on this piece! <3"
This collaboration and interaction has made us all a lot smarter. I was thrilled when one of my writers had a better idea than me. Elizabeth Hart Bergstrom shared her perspective about white space – it doesn’t feel right until it’s been done at least three times – which I applied to the entire collection. Raina Cohen improved my ability to deliver a one-liner. Hannah Greco and Dani McClain reveal how to bring the most emotional moments to life.
Life can be isolating. It is very difficult to do this work alone. I find it more gratifying to share a goal, to expand on an idea through discussion, to hear someone’s ramblings in the other room, to consider a viewpoint different from my own, to walk down the hall to ask a question to a human being rather than over the Internet – just because I can do it.
Earlier this year, sociologist and author Katherine Jezer-Morton wrote in her newsletter cut Recent technological advances have led to an aversion to “inconveniences” such as reading, thinking, and dealing with other people’s unpredictable reactions. These things, she writes, “are not generally inconveniences, but rather the uncertainties of being a person living with other people in spaces that are impossible to completely control.” She determines that the antidote is, “friction-max“: Deliberately exposing yourself to things that feel “uncomfortable” in order to better tolerate and ultimately enjoy them. “Maybe this is an opportunity to think more clearly than ever before about what is interesting and essential about being human,” she says.
Editing this collection was, in a way, an exercise in “friction-maximization”. It was 100% human effort, non-optimized, sometimes uncomfortable, and always challenging. The years of effort required to write any book are at odds with the effort-reducing goal of AI, and the collaborative approach to editing an anthology is even more typical. But when we reduce human effort, we also lose the rewards of hard, collaborative effort.
I certainly couldn’t have written these essays without my contributors, but I also don’t think they could have written these essays without me. Many of the drafts I received were already, as Adam likes to say, banged up. But conversations going back and forth, criticizing each other in comments, sending voice notes back and forth, sometimes hanging on to calls when we knew the work would benefit from real-time discussion (imagine that!) resulted in the versions of the essays that appear in this book. I struggled with the suggestions I believed would make the essays more accessible to readers, from restructuring paragraphs to placing commas, and I’m glad I did. Ultimately, we figured out the right structure, anecdotes, and language for each piece as we were able to expand on each other’s ideas.
The fulfillment and joy I felt with the contributors extended onto the page. In Simone and Alex Alberto, I have recognized lifelong editorial friends. From the way we responded to each other’s suggestions, I could tell that we pushed each other in the right way. I suggested a major cut to Simone’s essay, praying she wouldn’t be offended, and she responded, “Yeah, love it!” There were instances where Simon and Alex saw opportunities that I didn’t, which opened doors for essays for me and allowed me to offer more as an editor. When Simone thanked me for “embracing my editorial taste” and Alex said that my edits “always feel like a collaboration,” I knew we’d shared something special, something I hope we’ll share again.
The question people have asked me most over the years is: How did I live with my parents for six years in my thirties and why did I create an anthology instead of my own book? The details of these answers vary, but fundamentally they are the same. Sara Thankam Mathews has also highlighted the same point living together Essay “The Opposite of Loneliness.” Reflecting on the difficulties of creating and maintaining Bed Stuy Strong, the mutual aid organization she founded six years ago, she says, “Many of us are driven to find something other than the pure and the prosaic. ease…People are beautiful, damaged, powerful, exhausting, frustrating, and, most of the time, worth it anyway.
In many ways, it’s easier to live alone, limiting interactions with neighbors to impersonal waves, or working alone on a project. In these cases, you don’t have to consider other people’s needs or opinions. There is nothing to negotiate, no quarrel. But it’s so quiet, so uninspiring. Life can be isolating. It is very difficult to do this work alone. I find it more gratifying to share a goal, expand on an idea through discussion, listen to someone ramble in the other room, benefit from another person’s experience, consider a perspective different from my own, walk down the hall to ask a question to a human being instead of the Internet – anything that arises casually, just because I can.
This act of writing is human. It’s dirty. This makes sense. And in every essay living together This work is a product of joining together(!). The anthology’s 22 authors range in age from 25-91 and represent every region of the country as they cover topics including loneliness, friendship, aging, illness, parenting, chosen family, queerness, love, financial hardship, inter-generational relationships, sibling relationships, artist communities, colonization, climate change, immigrant communities, and of course, housing. When author Emma Copley Eisenberg said the book made her feel “10 percent more hopeful about how we will live now and 10 percent less dead inside,” I knew this collaboration had resulted in exactly what I had intended.
Perhaps these essays and my experiences don’t explore the easiest paths, but my time spent living communally and writing communally about it has shown me that spending effort on meaningful things is a privilege.
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Staying Together: Reimagining Community in an Age of DisconnectionEdited by Samantha Paige Rosen, available through Beacon Press.
