Lillian Stone puts away her glitter gel pens and talks pursuit of perfection in first book

Greta Cross, Springfield News-Leader
·6 min read

Lillian Stone has been published in The New Yorker, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Reductress, Allure, Slate, The Onion and is now celebrating the release of her first book. Yet she still was excited to speak with the News-Leader, her hometown's newspaper.

Stone's book, "Everybody's Favorite: Tales from the World's Worst Perfectionist," hit bookshelves on July 18. The book features a collection of humor essays about "the pursuit of perfection, through a coming-of-age lens," Stone said. The book chronicles Stone's experiences growing up in the Ozarks in the early 2000s, stepping away from the evangelical church as a young adult and learning to manage her obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnosis.

Stone will be discussing her book alongside Springfield author Nicole Chilton (who recently released "How Dreams Speak: An Interactive Journey into Your Subconscious") at Pagination Bookshop on Friday, Aug 4 at 6 p.m. The two will discuss creativity, the publication process and answer questions from those in attendance.

Springfield native and comedy writer Lillian Stone will co-host a book talk at Pagination Bookshop on Friday, Aug. 4 at 6 p.m.
Springfield native and comedy writer Lillian Stone will co-host a book talk at Pagination Bookshop on Friday, Aug. 4 at 6 p.m.

Before the book's official release, Stone received two esteemed reviews the same week. Online magazine Glamour featured "Everybody's Favorite" in its "15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023, So Far" and Publisher's Weekly Review gave it a starred review — considered high praise.

Actor Bob Odenkirk even pitched in his thoughts: "I love to hear funny people eviscerate themselves powerfully and with cutting humor. Lillian delivers in this nonstop review of her life, inner and, mostly, outer. Funny. Enjoy."

An Ozarks girl through and through

Stone moved to Chicago in 2019 to pursue a career in comedy writing, but she was born and raised in Springfield and doesn't let people forget it.

"I am still obsessed with the Ozarks as anyone who knows me will tell you; I talk about it all the time," Stone said with a laugh. "I have romanticized my childhood there a lot just because it is just an unusual place to grow up. It's a really complicated and conflicted place and I love it so much."

Springfield native and comedy writer Lillian Stone
Springfield native and comedy writer Lillian Stone

In the book's 10th chapter, "Beware the Howler," Stone dives deep into her favorite parts of the Ozarks, including the stories of the vigilante Baldknobbers, the Uranus Fudge Factory right on Interstate 44 and even the towering Yakov Smirnoff theatre on the way to Branson.

Springfield, to Stone, is a "wildly contradictory place that feels somehow suspended in Jell-O," and it's a place she still misses often.

Stone attended Drury University, graduating in 2016 with a dual-major in journalism and Spanish. Post-graduation, she worked at 417 Magazine and then as the communication manager for the Downtown Springfield Association, helping plan events like Artsfest and Cider Days.

Two years before moving to Chicago, Stone remained in Springfield and worked as an online humor freelance writer, while also scooping popcorn and introducing indie films at the Moxie Cinema, which she described as the "best job ever."

While Stone holds a lot of fond memories from her upbringing in the Ozarks, she also recounts the "religious trauma" she endured from growing up in a non-denominational evangelical church.

"They key to the evangelical church is that you are chosen by God to go out and spread the word of God, which is not a problem in itself, but I really struggled, as I got older, that I myself was responsible for saving everyone from hell," Stone said with a laugh. "That's a lot of pressure and it was very scary."

Stone emphasized that she holds no ill feeling toward those in the evangelical church; it just wasn't for her. She added that the church serves as a perfect landscape for her comedic writing.

"I think there are a lot of objectively funny experiences that a lot of people who grew up in that church share like being a little pervert at church camp, really over the top church events and retreats and things like that," Stone said. "I think that if even if you are still a person of faith, I think it's totally possible to be like, 'Hey, these things about church are silly and fun and totally fun to poke fun at.'"

The overbearing societal pressures of perfectionism

Throughout "Everybody's Favorite," Stone marries two themes: growing up in the early 2000s and living with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Stone described the early 2000s as a "fun, silly and ridiculous time" that came with sparkly gel pens and a long list of unrealistic standards for girls and young women.

"We really did not have the type of framework for talking about our body that we have today," Stone said. "All we really had were the covers of magazines that we would see at the store when you went with your mom. The covers were like, 'Here's 35 things that are wrong with your body' or just really harsh media exposés on young women at the time."

On top of trying to wear the coolest clothes and listen to the hippest music, Stone was managing an undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder — one she would not be properly diagnosed for until adulthood.

"The Incredible Vibrating Teen," the book's ninth chapter, provides insight into life with obsessive-compulsive disorder, which for Stone, manifests as physical tics, like repetitive nose twitching, twirling her pinky finger a certain way and shoulder rolls — the later being a tic Stone still endures today.

Springfield native and comedy writer Lillian Stone's new book, "Everybody's Favorite: Tales from the World's Worst Perfectionist."
Springfield native and comedy writer Lillian Stone's new book, "Everybody's Favorite: Tales from the World's Worst Perfectionist."

"Think of the most horrible itch you can imagine; now, imagine being compelled to scratch it over and over again until it hurts," Stone wrote. "Why? I have no idea..."

Now with a proper diagnosis and the right dose of medication, Stone described her obsessive-compulsive disorder as "mostly an annoyance," one that proves to be an "ongoing exercise in manufactured peace."

Looking inward

Since starting comedy writing six years ago, Stone said where she pulls inspiration from has changed.

"When I started it was around 2017; it was an incredibly fraught political environment," Stone said. "I was still in Missouri and I was frustrated by a lot of the people that I saw around me. I think that I was writing more toward frustration at that point. Today, I think I pull more from inside myself and I like to poke fun at my own ideocracies and my own inconsistencies and just the weird, gross things that exist in my brain."

Stone said she hopes this inward type of reflection is more relatable to her readers.

Where can you buy 'Everybody's Favorite: Tales from the World's Worst Perfectionist'?

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Springfield's Lillian Stone releases first book full of comedy essays