Amy Shearn — Animal Instinct - with Chloe Yelena Miller

<p></p><p>It's spring of 2020 and Rachel Bloomstein--mother of three, recent divorcée, and Brooklynite--is stuck inside. But her newly awakened sexual desire and lust for a new life refuse to be contained. Leaning on her best friend Lulu to show her the ropes, Rachel dips a toe in the online dating world, leading to park dates with younger men, flirtations with beautiful women, and actual, in-person sex. None of them, individually, are perfect . . . hence her rotation.</p><p>But what if one person could perfectly cater to all her emotional needs? </p><p>Driven by this possibility, Rachel creates Frankie, the AI chatbot she programs with all the good parts of dating in middle age . . . and some of the bad. But as Rachel plays with her fantasy to her heart's content, she begins to realize she can't reprogram her ex-husband, her children, her friends, or the roster of paramours that's grown unwieldy. Perhaps real life has more in store for Rachel than she could ever program for herself.</p><p><br /></p><p>PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593718339?ic_referral=sBIehjqxq6zrVlt70ISUiq_9dqbyLeNX3XYRuYjgveswM1UheQYx0m_EWMZrv_LHJRrXsQqp9DICOs0wJaAdEm37iJF2l2gxizJzz7egES4G8muwiK5BNqcSFGcfsVZ_GXScnw</p><p><br /></p><p><strong>Amy Shearn</strong> is the award-winning author of the critically-acclaimed novels <em>Dear Edna Sloane, Unseen City, The Mermaid of Brooklyn, </em>and <em>How Far Is the Ocean from Here</em>. She has worked as an editor for <em>Medium, JSTOR, </em>and <em>Condé Nast</em>, among other organizations, and her work has appeared in the <em>New York Times, </em>&quot;Modern Love&quot; column, <em>Slate, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, O, The Oprah Magazine, Poets &amp; Writers Magazine, Literary Hub, The Millions, The Rumpus</em>, and other publications. Amy Shearn has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, and lives in Brooklyn with her two children.</p><p>Shearn is in conversation with<strong> Chloe Yelena Miller</strong>. Miller is a writer and teacher living in Washington, D.C. She is the author of <em>Viable </em>(Lily Poetry Review Books, 2021) and <em>Perforated </em>(forthcoming from Lily Poetry Review Books in 2026). Miller teaches workshops through Politics and Prose Bookstore and privately. She co-founded Brown Bag Lit, an online writing community, with Shasta Grant. Learn more about her here: <a href="http://www.chloeyelenamiller.com/" target="_blank">www.chloeyelenamiller.com</a></p><p>*recorded 5/10/2025</p>