Emily Matchar / writer

I’m now blogging about all things women- and domesticity-related at my new blog, New Domesticity. I’ll be talking about everything from “why do women have such a love/hate thing for The Pioneer Woman?” to “should we bring back home ec class?” to “why is jam-canning so cool again?” and linking to interesting stories about women and homemaking. Please join me, and please jump in with any and all opinions.

I’m writing a nonfiction book! Title TBD, it will be published by Free Press at Simon & Schuster in 2013 (2013!).

The book is a look at the social movement I call ‘New Domesticity’ – the fascination with reviving “lost” domestic arts like canning, bread-baking, knitting, chicken-raising, etc. Why are women of my generation, the daughters of post-Betty Friedan feminists, embracing the domestic tasks that our mothers and grandmothers so eagerly shrugged off? Why has the image of the blissfully domestic supermom overtaken the Sex & the City-style single urban careerist as the media’s feminine ideal? Where does this movement come from? What does it mean for women? For families? For society?

Any and all opinions are most welcome. If you’re a knitter, a mom blogger, a banker-turned-baker, a neo-homesteader – or if you simply have an opinion about women and domesticity – I’d love to hear from you!

I have finally met my longstanding life goal of being featured in an anthology alongside Anthony Bourdain! Sadly, my essay does not include the phrase “bull testicles” even once.

Morelia, the Pink City. If this were in Italy, it would be CRAWLING with travelers.

Just got my author copies of Lonely Planet Mexico. I wrote the Western Central Highlands section, whose highlights include Guadalajara, Lake Chapala, Patzcuaro,  Morelia and the massive monarch butterfly wintering grounds in eastern Michoacan. I know a lot of people are scared of going to Mexico these days, but don’t be! Just don’t, you know, try to smuggle in cocaine or sleep with a Zeta’s wife, OK?

Memphis. Truth.

Just got my advance author copies of Lonely Planet USA, out in stores April 1. For this edition, I covered the awesomest part of the country, the Dirty South! Buy the book, then go to Nashville and get some Prince’s Hot Chicken.

Lonely Planet Best in Travel 2010 is out – check out my Charleston and Oaxaca chapters!

The book, Carolinas, Georgia and the South Trips, is part of a new Lonely Planet US road trip series. It’s got 65 themed itineraries for short Southern road trips – BBQ trips, Civil War trips, music trips, etc. You can read one of my chapters – “A Taste of the South” – on the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon. But you should really buy one, and plan a road trip! Cuz ain’t nobody going to Tahiti this year.