I've been working on not giving in to despair, but I'm glad it's Good Friday tomorrow so I can mourn with impunity.

"...this is a national tragedy and a deeply unpatriotic one at that. ... Since its founding in 1965, NEH has helped thousands of scholars, teachers, and organizations gather, preserve, interpret, explore, and share the country’s history and its remarkable cultural traditions and treasures."

NEH changed its seal but hasn't managed to update its site, which still says it "supports the humanities in every state and jurisdiction." False advertising given that it just canceled every state's operating grant.

I wrote a little about humans & humanity in my newsletter. Humanism, whether it's secular or religious, is the dissident stance. sarazarr.com/news

Salt Lake City, Utah #HandsOff

i'm holding your hands, gently april 7 is the start of national library week. get your library card. write your library board. check out 10 books. use your library. do it.

Salt Lake City #handsoff www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbNs...

Exactly this. If you don’t know what’s going on, here’s the context call to action www.statehumanities.org/action-alert...

Good. Because we’re learning even if institutions attempt to comply, they’re going to take away support anyway.

In my day job I just spoke to someone who described themselves as die-hard T**mp fan and was very kind and interesting to talk to, but also the reason for the call was to ask why our grants process was paused (D*GE) and seemed to think it would magically unpause soon and...idk man.

Not one of these EOs listed in this letter is valid. Notably, no statutory language is listed. The President’s agenda is not a statutory reason for termination. It really is just straight up lying and people should start just suing the government in the Court of Claims.

The state is not my identity. The state is not my security. The state is not my friend. Lil' Friday mantra I found myself chanting this morning

We interrupt all this bad news for a story.

Cheers: I'm looking forward to new books from Angela Flournoy and Michelle Huneven this year. Jeers: I can't read anymore without 3 different eyeglasses and a half dozen lamps.

Kurt Vonnegut man

Cheers: STORY OF A GIRL is on that best books of the 21st century so far Kirkus thing Jeers: The major funding institution of my day job got DOGEd

🚨 Hey authors/readers, do you like your local or regional book festival? Chances are it's at least partially funded by the NEH via your state humanities council. The NEH just got D*GE'd which means your state council is in big trouble. Please read/act: www.statehumanities.org/action-alert...

I got to watch and listen pretty much all day, and when it was time to go home I left the stream on and plugged it into my car speakers, then watched the rest. I didn't spent one minute of it on socials and it was honestly thrilling to experience something so tremendous without a side of hot takes.

Every time I come back to socials after a break I feel ever stronger longing for so, so very much more than what can be found on an app and also the worry that maybe this is what a large part of humanity has settled for to define connection and that would be/is bad. Anyway! Here’s my cat!

I’m working on selling some new projects for the first time since 2019 the ✨vibes are different ✨ I’m almost upon the 20th anniversary of selling my first novel and it’s been a RIDE.

I still think about When the Moon Turns to Blood all the time, so this was an immediate buy.

Drive-by post to say that in spite of everything else, it’s been a great reading year for me so far and I just got Leah Sottile’s (@leahsottile.bsky.social )new book and I know the streak will hold.

It's reached my 88 year-old mom

Getting my mammogram today and because I hate it with a passion I'm taking the rest of the day off for a slow walk and cozy writing session with candles and dark chocolate and fairy lights and basically being a cliche without apology.

Recently finished Ron Chernow's The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance, and am almost half through American Apocolypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism by Matthew Avery Sutton and both feel so relevant to understanding pieces of how we got HERE.

I have the 2025 Winter Cold and would like to know how long I'll be coughing and how many more boxes of kleenex I'll need to buy.

This is good for authors too! We like this!

I spent some time yesterday poking around photo sharing apps to see what non-Meta opportunities there are. Flickr does too much but it's a possibility. The latest iteration of Hipstamatic w/ its membership level is promising. I'm happy to pay for a subscription, I just want more of my friends there

Someone's been reading The Way of the Superior Man

As I watch all these GoFundMe drives go up I think about the billionaires who have donated tens of millions to Cheeto Mussolini's inauguration party who could pay for all of it without much impact to their wealth and wonder again about what we collectively tolerate and why.

This is hilarious and probably also accurate ("The movie that was number one at the box office on your tenth birthday is how [maybe] 2025 will turn out for you."

It was a two-day workweek and that was two days too many. why must we labor to survive lord

It's the 1-year anniversary of my return to job-job. I kept extremely low expectations of myself for 2024 bc I've learned not to underestimate the time I need for transitions and adjusting to a job after 17 years self-employment was plenty to do. A year was about right; now I'm ready to add back in.

Slept til 8, had takeout leftovers and a cookie for brunch, did Strands in record time. Start as you'd like to go on.

Green Apple at SFO is, I think, the only airport bookstore I've been to that wholly retains the feeling of being in the original. I found an actual print book that I wanted to buy and immediately start reading at the gate. (Erika Krouse's Tell Me Everything).

Just when I've been feeling Grinchiest about publishing, I got a video yesterday from a parent who'd gotten a personalized copy of A Song Called Home from me for child. When the kid realized it's inscribed, they said, "YOU GOT HER TO SIGN IT???" and screamed and rushed at the camera to hug parent.

I deactivated Threads because the algorithm was absolutely infuriating, but here I almost feel empty inside because no one is arguing about what font to use in a book proposal.

Things I watched during Christmas week: Conclave, Juror #2, Evil Does Not Exist, Muppet Christmas Carol, Bad Press, Nightbitch, and half of It Ends with Us. Also some season 2 of The Diplomat and one holiday baking show. ☃️

We praise the cat for stretching, grooming, eating like a big boy, pooping in his box, finding a good place to nap, batting a string, bopping a toy. At one point I decided I'd say something nice about myself to myself every time I praise the cat, but wow that is exhausting. Also: WHO'S A GOOD GIRL

A8 @sarazarr.bsky.social gets what it is like to live with an alcoholic and is another story that is important for our young readers. #TLSkyChat

Told my husband not to get excited about the box from a fountain pen store that's under the tree, because I know it's a Benu and a new bottle of ink for MEEE

My love for this piece started very early because Madame Lorenzini played it on her reel-to-reel for our little warmups in children's ballet theater

Great piece that explains why I am on blurb hiatus. Makkai even includes one of the most exhausting perplexities out there -- busting your ass to read/write a blurb...and then it's not even used. 🤷‍♂️

My boy cat has birthin hips

I love seeing Kyra on this list and knowing kids are seeing themselves in her hard story and also her hope

Also, if you live out here in the intermountain west, give High Country News a further look. Quality journal covering an area and issues that are largely in major media blindspot; worth subscribing.

Okay this one is just for the #fountainpens feed: tell me about your BENU. I'm thinking about the Euphoria in forthcoming Lavender Lemonade for my first 2025 pen purchase, but have zero eperience with BENU. They seem fairly well regarded?

Kyra, Just for Today is on the Kirkus Best Books of 2024 for middle grade. This was my second MG; both were set in the same fictional universe of people in the real town of Pacifica, CA. I probably won't do any more MG, but I'm glad I got to tell the kids-of-alcoholics story from additional angles.

I bet starting one of these groups would be a really good way to commit a fraud, though.

If I stay in Utah I can die slowly from bad air. If I move back to the west coast I can die all at once when my town crumbles into the sea or is overcome by a tsunami. Pick your climate change death! Which view do I want when I take my final breath 🤔