Subject: Pitch: Why ‘I’m fine’ is the biggest lie we’re telling in 2026
Hi Georgia,
Pitching one of our authors, Mo Fanning, for a 700-word piece for Culture – happy to write to a shorter or longer brief if more useful.
The Mental Health Foundation found the average UK adult says ‘I’m fine’ 14 times a week, and only 19% mean it. 59% of us expect the answer to be a lie even as we ask the question. The thesis Mo wants to write into: ‘I’m fine’ has quietly become the most dishonest thing we say – the autopilot answer on Instagram captions, in WhatsApp threads, on LinkedIn humblebrags, to mums, to friends, to therapists. The performance of ‘fineness’ has become an unwritten contract: thrive publicly, fall apart in private… and never let the seams show.
Mo has just finished a novel about exactly that – a woman so exhausted by pretending to be fine that she drunkenly fake-announces her engagement on Instagram and then has to live inside the lie. The piece he’d write picks up the data and runs further with it: the rise of staged-for-the-grid engagements on TikTok, the linguistic creep of ‘thriving’ on LinkedIn, the way ‘I’m fine’ has become a tell rather than a truth. Northern voice, properly funny in places, no pretence.
A bit about Mo: he writes commercial women’s fiction with an inclusive eye. New novel ‘Lisa Doyle is Absolutely Fine’ (Spring Street Books, 18 June). Previous novel ‘Rainbows and Lollipops’ won the 2025 Page Turner Award. He’s writing the lead comment piece in The Bookseller this June.
He can turn copy in 48 hours if it lands for you.
Best,
Adrian Bedford
ABC Book Marketing
abcbookmarketing.com