My memory is that Provincetown has had a (very modest) lobster trap Christmas tree for decades. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/t...

This is what they took from us

Not everything is a classic! Some things are just old!

I received a targeted ad from bookshop.org for my own book. I have no intention of buying my own book from bookshop.org (though I bought something else from them yesterday) but I note that at the moment it's discounted, both from the US site and (as a preorder) from the UK site.

The OC Register is McCracken forward. First this interview, which I really enjoyed doing: www.ocregister.com/2025/12/19/e...

I feel like "academic hiring" discourse is always kind of downstream of the fact that in the 50s we started building a giant public system to make a college education almost universally available and in the 80s and 90s we started taking it apart to go back to the only-the-rich model

I need to buy a present for a cosmopolitan 16-year-old boy. (Lives in London now, has been all over.) Advice is that he likes things that are "hip and trendy." This is not my area of expertise. (Got kids; they are borderline Victorian.) Anyone got good advice? Looking at maybe $100.

Thank you, Poets & Writers!

I was so thrilled to talk to Sugi & Whitney (my second time on their very splendid podcast).

I have said before that I was going to post about some things I've written/conversations I've had. I've meant to post my typewriter interview with @austinkleon.bsky.social for a while, but two things have stopped me, the first being wanting to sing Austin's praises adequately, which is difficult.

the president should be a person we can go a few days in a row without thinking about. our brains simply weren't made to think about a president every waking hour. it's unnatural.

I talked to Vogue about Austin: www.vogue.com/article/eliz...

To celebrate Dick Van Dyke's 100th birthday, we're watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and I had forgotten how much I fucking hate Truly Scrumptious.

I had actual fun talking to Rob Schmitz for NPR, though I am out of the nation in question at the moment. www.npr.org/2025/12/13/n...

I try not to know the sales numbers of my own books or others, but it appears that my book on writing has this week outsold Olivia Nuzzi's book on activities that she enjoys (including, I presume, writing). Not vastly outsold, so I have included a link. www.harpercollins.com/products/a-l...

I’ll remind everyone that Epic and Lovely is also about a young blonde fucking an old man and that I earn out at 1000 copies: annieblooms.com/book/9781959...

As a teacher of undergraduate writing--writing workshops also teach young people how to respectfully give and gracefully receive criticism on work that means something to them, an invaluable skill in any line of work.

I am in England with my family and we are watching The Old Dark House.

If you see this please share (i.e. repost, not just like)! The Barbellion Prize is a unique award for writers with disabilities. We need to raise £20k to secure its future, so please make a donation, no matter how large, no matter how small, here: barbellionprize.org/donate/ Thank you!

The 22 new books out today include titles by Elizabeth McCracken, Olga Tokarczuk, Olivia Nuzzi, and more!

I spoke to Miwa Messer about my new book: www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/poured-...

Also: I am appearing tonight with my dearest dearest Paul Lisicky & Yiyun Li at the 92nd Street Y. www.92ny.org/event/elizab...

Hello! Today is the publication day of my new book, A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction. To celebrate, I have already received an email from a fake book club, offering to feature it in their Saturday Showcase. (You can order it here: bookshop.org/p/books/a-lo...)

It was complete joy to talk to my dear pal, the brilliant Benjamin Dreyer, to whom I am ever grateful.

I have just learned of the word impassible. It is very beautiful, I think.

Delta Airlines has thanked me for my understanding & told me they value my trust at a time when I do not understand, and do not trust them.

Looking for a gift? Edward Carey (my ball-&-chain) is selling original drawings of birds (grackle, barn, owl, even curlews) here: edwardcarey.bigcartel.com?utm_source=i...

Verdict: silly & entertaining. Peter Lorre at his most adorable, Fritz Feld, & a very young & magnetic John Carradine.

The Peter Lorre movie in which he lusts after Lobster Thermidor has been identified as I'll Give A Million by the estimable @johnmoe.bsky.social & @dahosek.bsky.social

ME: Don't blame me, I'm just trying to be hip. NEWLY 17-YEAR-OLD KID: You can't be hip if you're in danger of breaking one.

Help us keep a Dorset painting in Dorset! A rare 15th-century painting has been discovered in Dorset. Can you help @dorsetmuseum.bsky.social buy it so it will be on show to everyone? All donations small and large very welcome! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/qr/VlDoEVE...

One thing I realized during an early morning hotel fire alarm: my clothing looks like pajamas but my pajamas do not look like clothing.

I brought Lipton's Onion Soup Mix to England to make my grandmother's Coca-Cola brisket for my kid's birthday, but alas Delta has misplaced my bags.

More on this—quite a lot more on this—soon, but in the meantime: If you're a writer of fiction (and/or maybe simply a writer or a person), you really need to preorder @elizmccrack.bsky.social's A Long Game, which is both enthralling and inspiring. (And sharp as a stiletto.)

I just think it’s cool when someone who isn’t an elderly racist wins

The matchup we've been waiting for.

Two local stories, four days apart: Greg Abbott sends his goons out to "clean" homeless encampments in Austin; homeless people get pushed into creeks, creeks flood, homeless people drown. The governor of Texas literally is literally, intentionally, flushing the unhoused down the sewers.

I am chuffed to the point of unpleasantness to have a story in this year's Best American Short Stories, chosen by the wonderful @pronounced-ing.bsky.social!

This morning the American Express representative thanked me for several decades of membership, & my "love and trust." You misunderstand our relationship, thought I.

I like a president who doesn't have the time *or* inclination to weigh in on the choice of Super Bowl halftime performer.

Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day? Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚

Hello! I am teaching a course for the splendid American Short Fiction MFA for All, on physicality in fiction. I have a lot of thoughts on the subject. Kevin Wlson & Tommy Orange are also teaching! Deadline to sign up for my class is 10/5. americanshortfiction.org/mfa-for-all/

An amazing graph, what happens when you destigmatize a behavior.

A thread on the illegality of the Texas Tech president’s letter banning reference to more than two genders. We saw a similar confusion of EO’s with law and a similar overriding of free speech and academic freedom in the Texas A@M case.

Hello! I am teaching a course for the splendid American Short Fiction MFA for All, on physicality in fiction. I have a lot of thoughts on the subject. Kevin Wlson & Tommy Orange are also teaching! Deadline to sign up for my class is 10/5. americanshortfiction.org/mfa-for-all/

I have to Zoom into a class & be a head on a screen on a wall, which always reminds me of this excellent ad for prunes starring Ray Bradbury (written & narrated by Stan Freberg). www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...

Also, a public service message rightly reminding us that escalators are terrifying and may gobble up your child. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zirp...