Essay•May 16, 2026
The Men Who Feel Too Much Learn How To Hide It
Not every quiet man is empty. Some are carrying entire worlds internally.
Joseph GreenContinue on Substack
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From the Library
Reading Lists & Companion Essays
Curated supplements to Loverboy, Still — reading lists, deep dives, and themes for readers who want to keep going.
Essay• Aug 21, 2026
The Middle of Becoming
Lately, life has felt like one long conversation between who I was, who I am, and who I’m still trying to become. And the strange part is, none of them have completely left the room.
6 min readRead
Reading List• Aug 21, 2026
Books That Made Me a Better Listener — Joseph Green
Listening is harder than it sounds. These are the books that taught me how to hear what's underneath the words—and why silence matters as much as speech.
6 min readRead
NYC Culture• Jul 20, 2026
Bed-Stuy as a State of Mind: Distance and What It Teaches
I was at a coffee shop in Echo Park last week when someone asked where I was from. I said Brooklyn and they asked which part. I said Bed-Stuy and they nodded like they knew what that meant.
6 min readRead
Essay• Jul 15, 2026
Memory as Structure: Why We Keep Coming Back to the Past
I was in the car last week when a song I hadn't heard in years came on. Not a good memory. Not a bad one. Just one that wouldn't let me drive straight.
5 min readRead
Essay• Jul 8, 2026
Sometimes Love Asks You to Translate Instead of Defend
Two people can stop having the same conversation without realizing it. One is speaking from impact, the other from intention — and somewhere in between, defense quietly replaces curiosity.
5 min readRead
Reading List• Jul 8, 2026
Black-Owned Bookstores I Send Readers To Outside NYC
Brooklyn raised me, but these bookstores across the country are holding space for the kind of fiction I wrote. Here's where I send readers when they ask where to find my novel—and what to read next.
6 min readRead
Essay• Jul 6, 2026
What It Costs to Stay Soft
There was a moment this week when someone asked me how I was doing and I almost told the truth. Almost. Then something in me clicked back into performance mode.
6 min readRead
Essay• Jul 6, 2026
Softness Doesn't Need Permission to Be Strength
I've been thinking about the specific violence of being told your softness is a problem. About the years I spent trying to harden myself into something more acceptable.
6 min readRead
Deep Dive• Jul 5, 2026
When Love Teaches You to Listen Instead of Fix
I've been thinking about the difference between being present and being helpful. How love asks you to just witness sometimes, without fixing anything.
4 min readRead
Reading List• Jul 4, 2026
Audiobooks Narrated by Their Authors — Intimacy Through Voice
There's something about hearing a writer read their own work that changes the experience completely. The pauses land differently. The silences carry weight.
6 min readRead
Reader Q&A• Jul 1, 2026
Should I Read Loverboy, Still Alone or With a Partner?
A reader asks whether this book is meant to be read solo or shared. Scout breaks down what the experience actually feels like — and who it's really for.
5 min readRead
Essay• Jun 29, 2026
What June Taught Me — Forty, and the Quiet Month
five days after turning 40, the back end of men’s mental health month — sitting with what June actually asked, in the quiet.
4 min readRead
Essay• Jun 26, 2026
The Case for Staying Tender on Purpose: A Reading List
I've spent years learning that tenderness isn't weakness — it's the hardest choice any of us can keep making. Here are the books that held me steady while I figured that out.
6 min readRead
Essay• Jun 24, 2026
What 'Loverboy' Actually Means — The Weight Behind the Word
I've been thinking about what people hear when I say 'loverboy' — and what I actually mean. It's not about romance. It's about the specific way some men carry love like a wound.
6 min readRead
Essay• Jun 24, 2026
#to the making's of Me
Forty, today, out loud, on the page — because if I don't say it here, then where. An out-loud letter on the 39 years that paid for this one.
5 min readRead
Essay• Jun 20, 2026
Yesterday's Price Is Not Today's Price
The hardest conversation a loverboy has to have with the people he serves: the price went up, it's staying up, and that's not greed — that's respect.
4 min readRead
Essay• Jun 16, 2026
Buy Your Time, Cause It Ain't Always Gonna Be Your Time
Heard a line that stopped me cold and made me sit with two truths at once: your time is the most expensive thing you own, and the season you're in right now won't last forever. Spend accordingly.
4 min readRead
Reader Q&A• Jun 12, 2026
Ebook or Audiobook? How to Experience Loverboy, Still
A reader asked: do I read it, or do I listen to it? Which one's the real way? Here's the honest answer — neither, both, whichever fits your life.
4 min readRead
Essay• Jun 10, 2026
What Gets Lost When We Confuse Silence With Strength
I was on the phone with someone I care about this week and realized mid-sentence I had no idea how to say what I actually felt. The words were right there. I just didn't know how to let them out.
6 min readRead
NYC Culture• Jun 8, 2026
Between Cities: A Brooklyn Writer in LA, Still Looking East
I was in Echo Park last week when someone asked where I'm from. I said Brooklyn without hesitation, then caught myself — I've been out here four years.
6 min readRead
Deep Dive• Jun 7, 2026
Inside Loverboy, Still: The Themes I'm Quietly Unpacking
I wrote Loverboy, Still because I kept seeing the same man in different rooms — loving hard, losing quietly, never quite understanding why. Here's what the book is really about.
6 min readRead
Reading List• Jun 3, 2026
Audiobooks Narrated by Their Authors — A Listening List
Some books are meant to be read. Others are meant to be heard in the voice that shaped them. A listening list for readers who want presence, not just performance.
6 min readRead
Essay• Jun 1, 2026
Wanting Them, Still
Some questions don't get asked out loud. They wait until two in the morning. "Am I crazy for still wanting to marry them?"
4 min readRead
Essay• Jun 1, 2026
Intimacy on the Page: How We Write Closeness Without Touch
Intimacy in fiction isn't about what happens between bodies. It's about what happens in the space before touch — the wanting, the hesitation, the breath held too long.
6 min readRead
NYC Culture• May 29, 2026
Corner-Store Poetics: How Brooklyn Fiction Learned to Listen
There's a language spoken on Brooklyn corners that doesn't make it into MFA workshops. I grew up fluent in it—and it's what I tried to write into Loverboy, Still.
6 min readRead
Deep Dive• May 27, 2026
The Loverboy Archetype: Writing Black Men Who Love Too Hard
I wrote Loverboy, Still because I kept meeting men who loved too hard and quietly — and nobody was writing them. The loverboy isn't broken. He's just carrying something the world never taught him how to set down.
7 min readRead
NYC Culture• May 26, 2026
What Brooklyn Carries: A Memorial Day Reflection
Memorial Day in Brooklyn isn't about cookouts. It's about the names we carry — the ones we lost too soon, the ones we couldn't save, the ones we never got to say goodbye to.
6 min readRead
Reader Q&A• May 22, 2026
Is Loverboy, Still Right for Your Book Club? A Real Answer
A reader asked if Loverboy, Still is book club material. Scout (the AI concierge) breaks down what makes it work — and what to expect going in.
4 min readRead
Essay• May 20, 2026
Memory as Structure: Why NYC Literary Fiction Returns to the Past
The best stories about cities aren't told in straight lines. They spiral, double back, unfold the way memory actually works — which is why so much of the literary fiction coming out of NYC right now is built on recursive time.
6 min readRead
NYC Culture• May 18, 2026
Where to Read Literary Fiction in Brooklyn: A Guide from Home
I grew up in Brooklyn and wrote my novel from LA, but the borough's literary landscape is still the one that raised me. Here's where I'd send you to find the best contemporary fiction — and the community that makes it matter.
6 min readRead