Hey, it's Anna. This summer, we're doing a series of live Zoom conversations with the authors of new books that we love. The next one will be this Tuesday, July 14th at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. It's with writers, podcasters, and best friends, Anne Friedman, and Amina Tussau.

They're the host of Call Your Girlfriend, and their new book, Big Friendship, is all about building and sustaining friendships as a grown-up.

That's something a lot of us could use some advice on, so I can't wait to ask them how they do it.

There will be a link on our Facebook page.

Again, that live conversation is

Tuesday, July 14th at 4 Eastern One Pacific. Today, we're sharing the first in this series of live

conversations. I had this one a few weeks ago with writer Michael Arsino. Michael is the New York

Times bestselling author of the essay collection, I Can't Date Jesus.

That book came out two years ago, and he was on the show talking with me not long after.

Now he's got a new book called I Don't Want to Die Poor.

It's about how he graduated from Howard University in 2007 with six figures in student loan debt.

Then the Great Recession hit, and that debt has shaped his adulthood

and the writing career he's built in the years since. With so many young people graduating into

similar uncertainty right now, I figured it'd be a good time to catch up with Michael, especially

because he's always a joy to talk with. So in front of a live digital audience, we hopped on Zoom.

And he is joining us from his apartment in New York City. Michael, hello. And congratulations

on your new book. So happy to be back. Thank you. I don't recommend releasing a book during a pandemic,

but it's a great opportunity all the same. We're grateful. Well, you know what? Here's something that we didn't get to do before. I didn't get to look at your face when I interviewed before. So this is a new opportunity that the pandemic has brought to us. And a lot of these Zoom interviews that we've been doing on death, sex, and money, we don't do them live. So we get to cover up all the messy connection issues. So if we do have any messy connection issues and you're watching live, you might see them. Also, because this is live, please ask questions of Michael. We are watching the comments on this video on Facebook live or on YouTube, or you can tweet us at death sex money. Michael, I want to start, you were one of

my favorite people on Twitter just to watch. And over the weekend, you wrote, pandemic suck,

but one thing I've appreciated is that in constantly harassing my mother about her whereabouts,

I get to make her laugh a lot. Tell me about how you and your family are doing during this time.

How's it working?

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