Happy false spring, Chicago!

I'm happy to return to @writingco-lab.bsky.social on Wednesday, March 11 for my one-night class Triangular Relationships as Engines for Tension and Conflict! Join us: www.writingco-lab.com/classes/tria... #booksky #amwriting

I'm happy to return to @writingco-lab.bsky.social on Wednesday, March 11 for my one-night class Triangular Relationships as Engines for Tension and Conflict! Join us: www.writingco-lab.com/classes/tria... #booksky #amwriting

"I get the gold medal, Daddy gets silver, and Mommy gets rust." The patriarchy gets going early...

You may find yourself with a beautiful house, and a beautiful wife, and you may ask yourself, "Was 'shitbarf' the tag I saw all over Seattle or all over Brooklyn?"

You may find yourself with a beautiful house, and a beautiful wife, and you may ask yourself, "Was 'shitbarf' the tag I saw all over Seattle or all over Brooklyn?"

10% of classes purchased through Monday will go to a member of the co-lab community on the ground in Minneapolis, providing groceries & rent support to families who are essentially on house arrest because of ICE. Please spread word & help support artists & grassroots resistance www.writingco-lab.com

Want to support equitable arts education at Peirce Elementary? Lots of fun items are on auction, including a signed copy of each of my novels. If you're in Chicago (& 21+), join us at Hopleaf on Sunday; all profits will be donated to Friends of Peirce. auction.biddingforgood.com/auction/3418...

Want to support equitable arts education at Peirce Elementary? Lots of fun items are on auction, including a signed copy of each of my novels. If you're in Chicago (& 21+), join us at Hopleaf on Sunday; all profits will be donated to Friends of Peirce. auction.biddingforgood.com/auction/3418...

What are you reading these days? I'm loving BITTER ORANGE by Claire Fuller and WOLF HALL by Hilary Mantel. #FridayReads #booksky

Who do I know here who will be at #awp26?

"rose sometimes lingers in the mouth when eating pear." from "Scientists Confirm Most of the Universe Is ‘Darkness and Nothing More’" by @jillmccabejohnson.bsky.social www.dmqreview.com/johnsonf25

Adult Education registration now open! ⬇️

Always a thrill when someone joins a class from the other side of the globe.

Registration is open for winter/spring classes @newberrylibrary.bsky.social I’m happy to teach a four-week online seminar on the wonderful stretchiness of fairy tales. Class begins March 31 at 6 pm CT. www.newberry.org/calendar/tra...

Registration is open for winter/spring classes @newberrylibrary.bsky.social I’m happy to teach a four-week online seminar on the wonderful stretchiness of fairy tales. Class begins March 31 at 6 pm CT. www.newberry.org/calendar/tra...

Child's tooth is wiggly & he requested soft food. I seized on the opportunity to buy chocolate pudding for the first time in half a decade. TBH, I was thinking, feels like end-times, don't delay pudding enjoyment further.

After all the warnings about unsafe temperatures, I am greatly relieved the CPS schools are cancelled tomorrow. Time to get creative with pillow forts!

Chicago, come to Uptown this Saturday night at 7-8 pm for @anotherchicagomag.bsky.social 's reading & open mic. I'll read an essay I've never read before! I'm joined by Michael Kent & James Stewart III. Open mic to follow. Nabala Cafe, 4660 N. Broadway, Chicago, IL, 60640.

Survey: The Illinois primaries are coming up on March 17, and candidates are running for local, state and federal offices. Our journalists will pose some of your questions to the people running for office in 2026. Tell us what we should be talking to candidates about! www.wbez.org/elections/20...

Having received a number of mailers for the upcoming primary, for IL-09 and for Senate, I'd love to see more candidates talk about what they'll do about climate change. None of the mailers thought it worthy of a bullet point. #Illinois #primary

Chicago, come to Uptown this Saturday night at 7-8 pm for @anotherchicagomag.bsky.social 's reading & open mic. I'll read an essay I've never read before! I'm joined by Michael Kent & James Stewart III. Open mic to follow. Nabala Cafe, 4660 N. Broadway, Chicago, IL, 60640.

Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, post the second sentence. "Can you imagine the problems from having as much clean water as you wanted but being able to flush your toilet only once a week?"

It has come to my attention that the only way I'll get any aerobic exercise is if I do Danny Go videos with the five-year-old. This is fine by me. This is my doing.

TOMORROW: We’re connecting voters in key states with their senators ahead of the upcoming vote on the Homeland Security funding bill. If you want to do more than demand ICE Out For Good from your Members of Congress, then this is the phonebank for you. 👇

Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace.

Finished Daniel Mason's NORTH WOODS this morning. Wow! So good. #booksky #ecofiction

"'Isn’t caviar expensive?' I had often asked my grandfather, as the little translucent orange spheres burst beneath my tongue and soaked into the soft, buttered bread. 'Yes,' he would reply, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Nu i chto? So what?"" www.threepennyreview.com/my-grandfath...

The letter from Bill and Hillary Clinton to James Comer explaining their refusal to testify in his Epstein investigation is really remarkable, not like any letter of this genre I've seen. It's signed by them, not a lawyer, and the arguments are not legal ones. Reprinted from their X account:

My kingdom for a chip clip.

I can't do hot yoga, but I would leave my drafty home for warm yoga; 74 degrees sounds good to me.

let yourself feel the grief, the rage, the fear, the frustration, all of it, because if you can feel it, if you aren’t numb to the horrors, then they haven’t won. they haven’t stripped you of your humanity. they want everyone to be as heartless and cruel as they are. let’s show them we’re not

a reminder when hearing people talk about apples today: usually when you have a lot of bad apples in a barrel you throw the fucking barrel away because you can expect the rest to get rotten. and if the apple grower continues to send you bad apples, you would stop using that supplier.

"The greens will decompose and feed the soil; the paper, which I soaked, will suppress weed seeds and break down in no time; and the worms from the top and bottom will churn the whole thing into a heaven for the roots of my plants." poetrysociety.org/poems-essays...

"Set in the Mountain West, place is not just a backdrop; it is a provocation..." Count me intrigued!

Aroma report: it smells good.

May 2026 have fewer instances of "What the hell did I just step in?"

Sealing in 2025 with a cholent.

Child has strong opinions about which parent does what. Hubbo must always fetch him his breakfast. And I...must always wipe his boogers.

Treated myself to a semi-annual massage. The therapist found bags of rocks in my shoulders.

Highlights in my writing life in 2025, a little look-see: ✨"Little Earth-Cow," a story about a family vacation gone wrong, in Fairy Tale Review's Arsenic & Old Lace double-issue, alongside so many wonderful writers, such as Aimee Bender and Sabrina Orah Mark: shop.prod.wayne.edu/wsupjournals...

This year I'm gifting everyone screams into the void.

Ha. I found this blog post about my 2009 reading queue. I didn't get to ABSURDINSTAN until 2018? I didn't finish KAFKA ON THE SHORE (to be fair, it was in French), & I didn't finish MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN as I loved SATANIC VERSES & it was enough Rushdie for then. www.ancawrites.com/blog/2009/01...

🧵 This morning I was reminded by Kumail Nanjiani (on the Wild Card podcast) of the importance of learning from your artistic community. So I thought it would be fun to do a thread of at least one thing I've learned from each writer/book/story I've read this year. Add yours & let's keep it going!

"It is in the half-light that a man's power rests." -from WOLF HALL by Hilary Mantel #booksky

This year I'm gifting everyone screams into the void.

Highlights in my writing life in 2025, a little look-see: ✨"Little Earth-Cow," a story about a family vacation gone wrong, in Fairy Tale Review's Arsenic & Old Lace double-issue, alongside so many wonderful writers, such as Aimee Bender and Sabrina Orah Mark: shop.prod.wayne.edu/wsupjournals...