Krisserin and Kelton are running on fumes—and they're honest about it. Both hosts arrive at this week's accountability check-in feeling ragged: Krisserin is limping toward summer with a fried brain and a work trip on the horizon; Kelton is two years postpartum, pausing her newsletter for the month, and trying to remember what living feels like. Their respective goal updates are modest and real: Krisserin squeezed in two revision sessions (one of them in the car), while Kelton wrote 2,500 words—just not on her novel.

Krisserin and Kelton spend most of the episode answering listener mail. Kelly Barrett's six questions become the backbone of a wide-ranging conversation about AI (how they use it at work, why neither uses it for their own writing, and what happens when you catch your home assistant lying), reading life (when, how, how much, and what to do when a book isn't working), and self-publishing as a real option rather than a last resort.

Plus: dream therapy intake forms, artist dates in rural Colorado, thrift store prices that are absolutely not okay, and goals for a week when one spouse is heading into the mountains.

Books mentioned:
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Coyote America by Dan Flores
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Sevenwaters Series by Juliet Marillier

Big thank you to Kelly Barrett for her very thoughtful listener letter. She writes the newsletter Practice Not Perfect at kellybarrett.substack.com.

Write to us:
officialpenpalspod@gmail.com

Follow us:
Instagram: @penpalspod
TikTok: @penpalspod
YouTube: @PenPalsPod
SubStack: penpalspod.substack.com

Follow Krisserin and Kelton:
TikTok: @krisserin, @keltonwrites
Instagram: @keltonkin, @keltonwrites
Kelton's Substack: Shangrilogs
Krisserin's Substack: krisserin.substack.com

Music by Golden Hour Oasis Studios

The Compulsive Liar at Your Desk: A Conversation About AI and Reading