Let Yourself Rage With Poet Laureate Ada Limón

It’s been almost a year since Miranda July released her hit novel, “All Fours.” The novel features a woman in her mid-40s who heads out on a solo road trip across the country, only to stop at a roadside motel 30 minutes from her home. She winds up staying there for three weeks, exploring and questioning what she actually wants and needs out of midlife, things she can’t really focus on when she’s busy being a wife, a mom and a working artist. In the motel, she redecorates the room, designs her days the way she wants to and gets in touch with her changing desires. In the past year, this book has become a touchstone for how our culture addresses women in perimenopause. It’s expanded beyond the page to a kind of movement. Soon after the book’s release, women started writing to July with their own stories. She started a Substack to keep those conversations going. People organized discussion groups all over the world called All Fours Group Chats. Hats were made. “All Fours” was shortlisted for the National Book Award, and it’s currently being adapted into a limited TV series. The paperback version of the novel will be released May 13. In this week’s episode of Modern Love, July talks about the anger and desire that shaped the writing of “All Fours.” And she reflects on why this novel is inspiring to some, and threatening to others, in this cultural moment. Listener Callout: How did your dad express his feelings? Tell us your story in a voice memo, and you might hear yourself in a future episode. For Father’s Day, the Modern Love team is looking at different ways dads show their feelings, and we want to know about a moment when your dad opened up to you. Where were you? What did he do or say? How did you react? Did it have a lasting impact on you? And if you’re a dad, how do you think about showing emotion or vulnerability when you’re with your kids? Is it something you do intentionally? Does it feel easy? Hard? The deadline is May 15. Submission instructions are here. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

KC Davis is a therapist and author known for her practical, empathetic advice on dealing with clutter, even when you are feeling like too much of a mess yourself to take care of the mess in your home. Her TikTok videos on the subject have been viewed millions of times. But lately, Davis has been talking and writing about our relationships not just to the objects in our lives, but to the people, too. In her new book, “Who Deserves Your Love: How to Create Boundaries to Start, Strengthen, or End Any Relationship,” Davis tries to disentangle the popular understanding of boundaries, saying the concept is widely misunderstood. She offers a guide to forming and keeping boundaries that help readers better navigate their conflicts with other people. On this episode of “Modern Love," Davis tells us what she thinks we get wrong about boundaries and how we should be thinking about them instead. She reads the Modern Love essay “Is My Husband a Doormat?” about a sudden argument between a couple 20 years into their relationship and talks about how boundaries can help defuse such situations. Davis also tells us how boundaries helped heal her own relationship with her father. The author of today’s featured essay, Lidija Hilje, has a new novel coming out in July called “Slanting Towards the Sea.“ For an upcoming episode about location sharing, the Modern Love team wants to hear your location-sharing story. Did something happen that made you regret sharing your location with someone? Was there a moment when you were thankful that you had? Where were you? What happened? How did your relationship change as a result? The deadline is May 1. Submission instructions are here. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story

Mireille Silcoff recently wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine titled “Why Gen X Women Are Having the Best Sex.” At a time of life when many women describe feeling less visible and less desirable, Silcoff said, her life instead “exploded in a detonation of sex confetti.” On today’s episode, Silcoff shares the juicy back story to her popular article, from her coming of age in Montreal to the surprising sexual resurgence she experienced after her divorce. Silcoff reflects on what it feels like to be a highly sexual person in her early 50s and tells us how being part of Gen X is central to her newfound freedom. For an upcoming episode about location sharing, the Modern Love team wants to hear your location-sharing story. Did something happen that made you regret sharing your location with someone? Was there a moment when you were thankful that you had? Where were you? What happened? How did your relationship change as a result? The deadline is May 1. Submission instructions are here. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Growing up, Jamie Shandro was interested in science, while her younger brother, Tim, liked art. When they were in their twenties, they both landed in Seattle: Jamie for medical school and Tim for art school. They were closer than ever. But as Jamie was finishing up a rotation in psychiatry, Tim started behaving strangely. In this episode of Modern Love, Jamie tells the story of the frightening onset of her little brother’s mental illness and the parts of his personality and creativity that remain. Plus, she talks about how helping Tim has shaped her, as a person, and a doctor. This episode is adapted from Jamie Shandro’s 2025 essay My Brother Has Schizophrenia. This Is How I Love Him. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story

If you know one thing about Orville Peck, it’s probably that he wears a mask. The country musician has long kept himself shrouded in mystery, shielding his face from the public and revealing few details about his past. His music, however, is full of emotional honesty and vulnerability — he told the Modern Love podcast that most of his lyrics are about his life — and his songs are imbued with a deep sense of longing. In this episode, Peck talks about why country music uniquely captures our complicated feelings about love, and why love and pain are so often intertwined. He reads a Modern Love essay, “Strung Out on Love and Checked In for Treatment” by Rachel Yoder, about love addiction, and discusses what it takes to pull yourself from its distressing grip.