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2025-10-08 10:00:00| Fast Company

For many stars, writing a children’s book is a fun side project they do to capitalize on their fame. Kate McKinnona Saturday Night Live alum who has starred in recent movies like Barbie and The Rosesis certainly famous. But the truth is that she had dreamed of writing a novel for middle schoolers since her mid-twenties, years before she even auditioned for SNL. As a child, McKinnon had loved books about slightly oddball characters, like those found in Roald Dahl books. Her favorite heroine was Pippi Longstocking, whom she played in a kindergarten performance. She loved the character so much that she would show up at school for years in a full-on Pippi costume, complete with pipe cleaners in her hair to mimic the heroine’s iconic protruding red pigtails. After graduating from Columbia University, between auditioning for sketch comedy roles, McKinnon sat down to write a middle-grade novel of her own. Holed up in her apartment, she plotted out a story about a trio of sisters in the Victorian era who don’t fit in in their stuffy town, where girls are meant to be prim and proper. The problem was that she could not get past the first chapter; she just wrote and rewrote it, frustrated that it wasn’t quite hitting the right notes. Then, in 2012, at the age of 28, McKinnon snagged a spot on SNL and quickly became one of the show’s biggest stars, leaving very little room for her novel. “It was very much at the backand the middleof my mind,” McKinnon recalls. “Every time I had a week off, I would work on it.” [Cover Image: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers] In 2022, McKinnon departed SNL and finally had time to devote to the novel. After marinating on it for more than a decade, it came together, and she landed a book deal with Hachette. Her book, The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science, debuted in 2024 and became an instant New York Times bestseller. She’s just released the second book, called Secrets of the Purple Pearl, in what will eventually become a series. I sat down to speak with her about her creative process, and why we should feel free to pursue several dreams at the same time. Here are three things I learned. [Cover Image: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers] She Didn’t Let A Lack of Expertise Stop Her McKinnon studied theater in college and had spent years training as an actress and comedian. She had never studied creative writing, but she didn’t let that stop her from taking a stab at writing a novel. “I didn’t know anything about writing,” she recalls. “I didn’t know you’re supposed to write a whole draft before going back and fixing the first chapter. So I just fixed the first chapter, probably 500 times.” Many writing instructors urge their students not to get hung up on the details so early on. But McKinnon’s approach was actually helpful because it allowed her to figure out many aspects of the plot and the characters. It was an unconventional approach to character development, but it helped her create her first three characters, the sisters Gertrude, Eugenia, and Dee-Dee. [Image: courtesy Little, Brown Books for Young Readers] But after writing several drafts of the first chapter, she felt like something was missing. “My big problem was that I was writing about three oddball girls who had no adults in their life validating them,” she says. “It ended up being sad every time I wrote it. Then I felt there needed to be a mentor figure who recognized the good in these girls.” This figure ended up being Millicent Quibb, the title character of the series. McKinnon was also noodling through the broader themes of the book she wanted to communicate. While she was very interested in painting these quirky characters, she also wanted to say something more profound about identity, and how hard it can feel not to fit in. “The themes eluded me for the longest time,” she says. “I needed to know what I am actually trying to say here.” Ultimately, McKinnon didn’t let her lack of formal training prevent her from throwing herself into novel writing. In fact, it’s the process of trial and error that has allowed her to hone her craft. Now, McKinnon has novel writing down to a science. It took her more than 12 years to write the first Millicent Quibb book, but she wrote the second one in a matter of months. “Left to my own devices, I would never complete anything because I am so hard on myself,” she says. “But being under a deadline is what allowed me to complete this.” [Image: courtesy Little, Brown Books for Young Readers] She Wove Her Other Passions Into This Project While McKinnon hadn’t trained as a writer, she did have other skills that most writers don’t have: an ability to build quirky, complex characters from the ground up. To create the characters in her book, McKinnon would pace around her room speaking in funny voices, which is something she’s enjoyed doing her whole life (and that eventually became her full-time job on SNL). “In my mid-twenties, before getting on SNL, writing this book was almost like doing sketch comedy, without anybody there to watch you,” she says. “I was just doing it alone in my room.” It’s been a very effective strategy. All of her characters are memorable and hilarious. Eventually, she was able to bring all of these characters to life in the audiobook of the series, which she voices along with her sister, Emily Lynne. [Image: courtesy Little, Brown Books for Young Readers] It’s Important For Her To Speak To Children Most of McKinnon’s career has targeted adult audiences. Her first acting jobs were in comedy, starting with The Big Gay Sketch Comedy Show and then SNL. And much of her acting has been in movies targeting adults, like The Roses, Bombshell, and the TV series Joe vs. Carole on Peacock. But McKinnon is also eager to reach children, particularly at this moment when the world feels so volatile. Writing the Millicent Squibb books has been meaningful to her because it has allowed her to connect with children and give them hope. Indeed, the Squibb character is inspired by the many mentors in her own life who believed in her and helped her find her path. But looking back, her childhood seems idyllic compared with what children are dealing with today. “Young people today are up against a whole host of problems I could not even conceive of when I was in middle school in the 90s,” she says. Her hope is that her voice gives children some joy in a stressful time, but also empowers them to act to make things better for themselves and others. “I think this genre is not just fun, but hopeful, because it focuses on questions of identity and moral engagement in society,” McKinnon says. “It’s about figuring out who you are so that you can help other people. That’s something young people today can’t ignore the way I could.”


Category: E-Commerce

 

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2025-10-08 09:30:00| Fast Company

Camping. Why anyone would put themselves through an odyssey of gross insects and pooping in holes is beyond me, but you do you, Steve. I’ll do me. However, if I were forced to go sleep in the woods, I would like to use this new camping mattress by Chinese sleep startup Mazzu created in collaboration with London-based design studio Layer. It looks like the closest thing to a Four Seasons bed this side of the Rio Grande. Or any río (just don’t get me close to a river). [Image: courtesy Layer] The Mazzu Camping Mattress isn’t your typical inflatable pad that promises comfort on-the-go but delivers back pain for a week. It’s built around 72 precision-engineered elastic spring unitspre-compressed coils encased in durable jackets that adapt independently to your body’s contours. Each unit flexes on its own, providing ergonomic support whether you’re lying flat or curled up on your side (you know, like in an actual bed). [Photo: courtesy Layer] Layer tells me via email that people want “the comfort of home when they’re outdoors, and traditional inflatable or foam mats just don’t deliver that.” Which, yes, that’s exactly my point. The company says conventional options are bulky, unreliable, or simply uncomfortable. And many are unsustainable. Layer and Mazzu saw a clear gap to create a sustainable, portable system that offers bed-like comfort without compromise, bringing “a real sense of restfulness to the camping experience.” [Photo: courtesy Layer] Come together, right now The collaboration between Layer and Mazzu wasn’t just about slapping springs into a camping format. Mazzus engineers have been developing elastic spring technology since they started their sleep company in Fujian, China, in 2024. Layer worked closely with Mazzu to translate that into a modular outdoor system. The design studio says there were many rounds of prototypingexploring different spring densities, connection systems, and layoutsuntil they arrived at something simple and robust that’s also intuitive to use. [Photo: courtesy Layer] The pieces click together like Lego bricks and are secured with a strong cord. When the mattress base is assembled, you add a thin, 100% cotton cushion on top to smooth everything out. Layer tells me it gets assembled “in just a matter of minutes,” and you can be set up and ready to rest almost as quickly as rolling out a standard mat, “but with a completely different sleep experience.” The other advantage of this design, the company points out, is that its not harmful to the planet. Layer says the portable coils structure is built without foam or glue (Mazzu, however, points out that the pad on top uses polyester fiber and high-resilience polyurethane). Layer says the mattress is built to last: “Every component can be replaced, repaired, or upgraded individually, which extends its lifespan and reduces wastesomething that’s very rare in camping gear.” [Photo: courtesy Layer] Packed in a cooler The complete mattressincluding foldable base, spring modules, and topperpacks into a wheeled case no larger than a cooler. Once emptied, Layer says, that case doubles as a nightstand or storage box at the campsite. So it’s not just about better sleep, the company says, it’s about circularity and smart use of space. The color palette takes cues from outdoor gear: foliage tones and bright accents for visibility. The open structure showcases the engineering inside, which I appreciate(if I’m paying for 72 independent spring units, I want to see them). The Mazzu Camping Mattress launches this month. Pricing in China is about 2,259 yuan (about $320), but no official price has been announced internationally. If it actually delivers on the promise of bringing regular mattress comfort into the wilderness, it might be worth whatever they’re charging. Maybe then I’ll consider camping. (LOL! No.)


Category: E-Commerce

 

2025-10-08 09:00:00| Fast Company

The Trump administration is spending more than half a billion dollars to help prop up the dying coal industry. Its also weakening pollution regulations and opening up more federal land to coal mining. All of this isnt likely to save the industryand also isnt likely to do much to meet the surging demand for power from data centers for AI. Coal power is expensive, and that isnt going to change Aging coal power plants are now so expensive to run that hundreds have retired over the last decade, including around 100 that retired or made plans to retire during Trumps first term. Offering relatively small subsidies isnt likely to change the long-term trend. I dont think its going to change the underlying economics, says Michelle Solomon, a manager in the electricity program at the think tank Energy Innovation. The reasons why coal has increased in cost will continue to be fundamentally true. The cost of coal power grew 28% between 2021 and 2024, or more than double the rate of inflation. One reason is age: the average coal power plant in the U.S. is around 50 years old, and they arent designed to last much longer. Because renewable energy is cheaper, and regulation is likely to ramp up in the future, investors dont see building new coal power plants as viable. But trying to keep outdated plants running also doesnt make economic sense. The new funding cant go very far. The Department of Energy plans to spend $625 million on coal projects, including $350 million to recommission and retrofit old plants. Another $25 million is set aside for retrofitting coal plants with natural gas co-firing systems. But that type of project can cost hundreds of millions or even a billion dollars for a single plant. (The $25 million, presumably, might only cover planning or a small pilot.) Other retrofits might only extend the life of a power plant by a few years. Because the plants will continue to be expensive to run, some power plant owners may not think the subsidies are worth it. Utilities want to move on If coal power plants keep running past their retirement age, even with some retrofits, costs keep going up for consumers. Thats something that you really see in states that continue to rely on coal for a big part of their electricity mix, says Solomon. Like Kentucky and West Virginia, who have had their cost for power increase at some of the fastest rates in the country. In Michigan, earlier this year, the DOE forced a coal power plant to stay open after it was scheduled to retire. The DOE cited an emergency, though neither the grid operator nor the utility said that there were power supply issues; the planned retirement of the plant included building new sources of energy to replace it. The utility reported to the SEC that within the first 38 days, alone, it spent $29 million to keep the plant running. (The emergency order is still in place, and being challenged by multiple lawsuits.) The extra expense shows up on consumers bills. One report estimates that by 2028, efforts to keep large power plants from retiring could cost consumers more than $3 billion a year. Utilities have long acknowledged the reality that there are less expensive energy sources. In the first Trump administration, in 2018, utilities resisted Trump’s attempts to use emergency powers to keep uneconomic coal plants open. When utilities plan to retire a power plant, there’s a long planning process. Plants begin making decision to defer maintenance that would otherwise be necessary. And many won’t want to reverse their decisions. It’s true that demand for power from data centers has led some utilities to keep coal plants online longerand electric bills are already soaring in areas near large data centers. But Trump’s incentives may not make much difference for others. The last coal plant in New England just shut down years early, despite the current outlook for data centers. “Utilities do have to take a long-term view,” says Lori Bird, director of the U.S. energy program at the nonprofit World Resources Institute. “They’re doing multi-year planning. So they consider the durability and economic viability of these assets over the longer term. They have not been economic, and they’re also the highest-emitting greenhouse gas facilities.” Even if the Trump administration has rolled back environmental regulations, she says, future administrations could reverse that; continuing to use coal is a risky proposition. In most states, utilities also have to comply with renewable power goals. There are better solutions It’s true that the U.S. needs more power generation, quickly. It’s not clear exactly how much new electricity will be neededsome of that will depend on how much AI is a bubble and how much tech companies can shrink their power usage at data centers. But the nonprofit Rewiring America calculated that data centers that are under construction or in planning could add 93 gigawatts of electricity demand to the U.S. grid by the end of the decade. The nonprofit argues that some or even all of that new capacity could be covered by rooftop solar and batteries at homes. Cheap utility-scale renewable power plants could obviously also help, though the Trump administration is actively fighting them. Battery storage can help provide 24/7 energy. One analysis of a retiring coal plant in Maryland found that it would be less expensive to replace it with batteries and transmission upgrades than to keep it running. Temporarily saving a handful of coal power plants won’t cover the new power needs. It would add to air pollution, water pollution, and climate pollution. And it would significantly push up power bills when consumers are already strugglin. Real support for an “energy emergency” would include faster permitting and other work to accelerate building affordable renewable energy, experts say. “Making sure that resources can compete openly is really important,” says Solomon. “It’s important to not only meet the demand from AI, but make sure that it doesn’t raise costs for electricity consumers.”


Category: E-Commerce

 

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