Thank you to everyone who tuned in to my Live with Catherine Baab this afternoon!
Click here to subscribe to Cat’s Substack and follow her on Instagram here
If someone as glaringly brilliant as Mary Shelley can be overlooked, what else are we missing? How much of what we “know” about history is skewed, partial, or outright wrong? Maybe this question seems banal, like a faddish line of inquiry from the ‘70s, from a time when people wore a lot of polyester and smoked pot at potlucks, but I think it’s profound, expansive. And more than that, it’s not just a question of hindsight—each generation thinks it sees the full picture, but we keep discovering massive blind spots.
— In a marriage of geniuses, who’s the main character?
Further Reading & Links
Check out Cat’s first book Poe for Your Problems: Uncommon Advice from History’s Least Likely Self-Help Guru
The obscure academic discipline that could help you land a book deal
Here’s the story of how her viral Substack Note led to a book deal
If you want to feel more confident creating content on Substack or Instagram
The next session of Hype House begins on September 13th!
Hype House includes:
Weekly classes on how to identify your audience, build your content pillars, learn new content formats, find your author comps, revamp your social media bio, and get more engagement on your posts
Live Office Hours every Friday, so you can get personal feedback on your content and troubleshoot problems as they come up
A workbook
A student directory so that you can meet other writers and find collaborators
A detailed rundown of all the marketing and content strategies I used to hit spot #27 on the USA Today bestseller list, including my two pre-order campaigns, the three social media platforms I focused on and why, what I learned from doing live events in 2025, and how much I actually spent on marketing.
“Leigh Stein demystifies the Internet, making it seem like a rich playground for experimentation, even for middle-aged women like me. She knows what she's talking about, which puts her ahead of most of the people who teach courses about the Internet. Everyone should take a Leigh Stein class.”
— Christie Tate, age 52.5, Hype House alum, and New York Times bestselling author of Group
