The Lagoon Index

150+ essays, short stories, poems, and interviews by Charlotte Dune

Welcome to The Lagoon Index, a list of all my Lagoon writing organized by category from April 2022 to present. With 150+ essays, short stories, poems, and interviews, there’s something in here that you haven’t read, but would enjoy reading.

Enjoy!

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Essays on books, reading habits, book reviews, and book recs, also fiction-to-film reviews.

2025

1. In my animation era.

2. How to read more in 2025 and a free reading habit tracker

3. Spring Break, sure, but have you tried Reading Week?

4. The Best Fictional Representation of AI

2024

2. I read 54 books in 2024 and here are my favorites

3. The 2024 Holiday MBTI Book Gift Guide

4. It all started on Black Friday...

5. I read BookTube's "Most Disturbing Book Ever."

6. Hillbilly Elegy, Let's Talk About It

7. The Shutdown List

8. The Mind-Altering Book Award Medallions

9. Before I Go I Want You to Know

10. Two Post #MeToo Books to Engage Your Rage

11. The Books of Agah Bahari

12. The Best of the 41st Key West Literary Seminar

13. Lauren Groff: Sage of the Florida Stage

2023

14. The Serial Fiction Novel with a Billion-Plus Views

15. Four Horror Books Behind Me

16. An Evening with Chuck Palahniuk and 22 Inflatable Kangaroos

17. Books for "Bad" Dads (Not a Gift Guide)

18. Books for "Bad" Moms (NOT a gift list)

2022

19. Do We Really Want Email Novels?

20. Three Books for Aging Optimists

21. Reading Rodeo: High Weirdness, Surface Detail, Fault Lines, 5 AM, and What We Never Say

22. Five Books in Five Different Genres: Health at Any Size, Fruiting Bodies, Several Short Sentences About Writing, From Strength to Strength, and Stringers

23. Banana Bread Vs Writing: Inside Intimations with Zadie Smith Part 3

24. American Suffering: Inside Intimations with Zadie Smith Part 2.

25. The Monkey Paints the Bars: Inside Intimations with Zadie Smith Part 1

Hot takes, saucy bits, rants, steaming essays, foot in mouth, culture wars, CONTROVERSIAL at times.

2025

1. MAHAgamy is not Monogamy

2. Don't Die vs Die with Dignity

3. How right was I about 2024?

2024

3. Is the Future of Death Scheduled?

4. Bringing the War Home: The Red Alert App

5. Hey Future President, I've got some advice for you

6. We are all the crowd in the bleachers

7. Ezra and other autism movies

8. 2024 Oscar Films Each Described in One Sentence

9. 2024 Predictions: A Female President? Sentient Sex Dolls?

10. 2024 Bonus Predictions: AI Animals and Air Sculpting

2023

11. Toss the Link Salads? Or Eat Them?

12. 25 More Words You Need This Summer

13. 25 New Summer Words You Need Right Now

14. Barbie Movie ABCs: Approval Addiction, Branding, Committees

15. Should we still send links to friends?

16. The pursuit of "The Everything App" is making every app suck

17. Stolen Focus Summer Challenge?

18. Can the Publicly Rich Ever Be Loved? Unpacking the Perception Box of Elizabeth Koch, CEO of Catapult

19. The Rise of Galentine's Day: Because in this Recession, Corporations Need Everybody's Money.

2022

20. Current Reality Tube: Division, RevengeLaw, Metafail, Recession, and the SkinnySkinny.

21. ABCDEFG Art/Stories: Something for you, your kids, or Art Basel

22. Happy Halloween—it's been a truly frightening month, plus the kitschy stuff.

The future we imagine is the future we receive.

2025

1. I replaced my mom with AI

2. Products as Servants: MyWoks, Sunfire Birds, and an AI Helper Future

2024

2. AI Will Make "Art" and It's Fine

3. The Internet as an Otherworld

4. Plastic Surgery is Primitive

5. Elon Musk and Ian Banks

6. The Hot Age

7. The Future of Truth: Using Virtual Reality to Verify Reality

8. What a Sci-Fi Time to Be Alive

9. The Other AI Metaphor Lurking in the Three-Body Problem

10. The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet

11. The Apple Vision Pro Sucks

2023

12. Creating a reusable ChatGPT beta reader modeled on Stephen King

13. Explore Ai like Robert Frank Explored America

2022

14. What Kind of AI World Do We Want? Interview with an AI— Part 2: AI ethics, governance, and war with ChatGPT, plus the limitations of freedom

15. Interview with an AI—Part 1

16. Meta-Hell and VR Underworlds

17. Are We Really Living in 1984? Truth, Eyes, and My Favorite Quotes from 1984 by George Orwell.

18. The Age of Imagination: What is the Age of Imagination? And how will composability change our digital lives?

19. MetaRats: Imaginary friends or digital pests...

20. The Botapocalypse

Writings on entheogenic practices, mystical experiences, dreamtime, spiritual bliss, synchronicities, and psychedelics

2024

1. Spooky True Stories

2. Six of Swords Energy

3. Four of Swords Energy

2023

4. The Psilocybin Handbook for Women

5. Psilohuasca—Is it right for you?

6. Mid-Annus Meditate, Reflect, & Reset Writing Ritual

7. Never Forget that the CIA Tortured Black Men on LSD.

2022

8. Truthamine—The Diamond Mind Technology (DMT): Understanding Ph.D Andrew R. Gallimore's Alien Information Theory

Personal essays, group challenges, and self-experiments

2025

1. Social Media Detachment Syndrome

2. The Affirmation Mirror

3. Host your own David Lynch Film Festival

4. Intentional Watching, The Substance, and my Letterboxd watchlist

5. Brain Drizzle and Cosmic Smog

2024

5. The October Chaturanga Challenge!

6. Historic Rain, Pop-Up Lakes, Meth Labs, and Cacti Portals

7. The Mental Toil of Mother's Day

8. My Marie Kondo Money Experiment

9. My 31/30 Fitness Experiment

10. Make a Vapid New Year's Resolution

2023

11. The Body Keeps the Schedule

12. Pumpkin Space Aesthetics

13. Hearts are Breaking, but We Are Still Here

14. Wet Mall World

15. When the Mundane Feels Dated

16. Stolen Focus Fall Challenge

17. Normal Girl or Grandin State: How an Autism Quiz Messed with My Head

18. Can I "Marie Kondo" My Money?

2022

19. The Transient Call and Response of Life Goals: Dreams—they come and go. Part 3 of My So Called Middle Life Series

20. Be Honest with Yourself... Make an "Obsession Catalog."

21. My So-Called Middle Life: an exploration of what it means to be in mid-life

Poems

2024

1. Message in a Blotto

2. Why Do Our Shoes Match?

2023

3. The First Rule of Fat Club: A Poem

4. Itching Taste: A Poem

2022

5. I Need an Army Of Me

6. Misdiagnosis, Nocebo, and Two Poems

Visitors, guest posts, interviews, live talks, and featured authors and artists

2025

1. Live with Sabrina Scott

2. Is Humanity Shifting or Shitting with Aaron Force

2024

3. Double Novel Giveaway from Southern Writer and Educator, D.S. Davis

4. How to Shame a Rapist with Novelist Caitlin Avery

5. Picking a winner with author Agah Bahari

2023

6. Recovery Yoga, Life of a Seeker, and Creative Clusters with Lauren Richardson, Episode #16

7. X Workshop with Horror Author Matt Cardin

8. Part 2: An American Expat in China with Melanie Duhon

9. Part 1: An American Expat in China with Melanie Duhon

10. An American Expat in China with Melanie Duhon, Episode #15 Audio Version

11. An evening of learning and discussion, featuring three critically acclaimed writers with disabilities

12. Interview with a Vampire Author and Psychedelic Activist: Nicholas Powers

13. Ayahuasca, Birth, and Betrayal: Walking Each Other Home: A conversation with lawyer and author, Violet De Luna, about spiritual journeys, plant medicine, family constellations, marriage, infidelity, astrological parenting, and psychedelic labor.

2022

14. Guest Post: Refuse to Niche—Love, ghosts, and vintage clothes by cross-genre author Sandra Young

15. Guest Fiction Post: Turkey Day Story: A fictional account of gobbler foolery by D.S. Davis and Charlotte Dune

16. Guest Post: I don't feel cool on TikTok (but I am.) Navigating BookTok, Twitter, and IG Near Fifty with Author Lainey Cameron

17. Guest Post– Choosing Creativity In Crisis with Lauren Richardson: a Reflection on Practicing the Artist's Way Mid-Pandemic

Writing especially for writers, on creative writing, writer’s workshops, my Writers’ Support Group, and writing-related events.

2024

1. Marketing as Storytelling

2. Book Blurb Magic Workshop

3. Everyone Should Write a Novel

2023

4. Discovery Writing and Discovery Life-ing

5. Literary Ticking Clocks The Audio Version

6. What is a Literary Ticking Clock?

7. Twitter/X Workshop for Writers

8. A Women's Fiction Podcast Debate

9. WRITING CHARACTERS WITH DISABILITIES event

10. The Muse vs Mr. X

11. How do you imagine your Muse?

12. The Habits of Henry Miller

2022

13. The Shape of a Creative Thing: Delving into the book—Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative.

14. The Writers' Support Group: A two-year exploration into holding space

15. Stranger Conversations: A Cult Classic and the Simultaneous Discovery of Novels

16. NFT Research for Writers and Book Lovers

Short fiction by Charlotte Dune

2025

1. I replaced my mom with AI

2024

2. Drone Christmas

2023

3. Clock Daddy

4. Montreal Windows

5. Breaking Rocks

2022

6. Friends with Yachts

7. Void Girl

8. Free Idea Zero Dollar Store

9. I Dream of Cages, Tethers, and Chains, Peaches, bars, and Fake Mermaids.

News Splash: Author news, book updates, events, polls, and other news and newsletter admin.

2024

1. A Poll for Future Essays

2. Allow me to introduce myself

3. Poetry Portal, Dome Retreat, and Mexico Yoga Bliss

4. Which book should we talk about next? A poll and hello from the Shenandoah Valley

2023

5. Acid Christmas Giveaway and Book News

6. The Acid Christmas Cinematic Book Trailer

7. Acid Christmas is Here

8. The Acid Christmas Elves Need Your Attention

9. Calling all Fiction Reading Raccoons!

10. The Lagoon Live Readalongs

11. The Lagoon Turns One! (Still a baby)

12. News, Bibliotherapy, CampNano, and a call for questions on expat China Life

13. The Chat is Open! Join my new subscriber chat: A private space for us to converse and connect

2022

14. You wanted a Book, but you got a Blog

15. Hello from Toronto and Free Reads

16. Welcome to the Lagoon: Why a lagoon, and can this be a newsletter, blog, Tumbler, podcast, and a container for fictional stories in written and audio format — all at the same time? Let's try this experiment...

17. Test Post