"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

The cartoons published upon Walt Disney’s death in 1966 double nicely as cartoons about the present Jimmy Kimmel situation.

It's over. No way Mandami comes back from this one.

can a Magic 8-Ball suffer? we interviewed a few, and the answers may surprise you! REPLY HAZY, TRY AGAIN OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD IT IS CERTAIN SIGNS POINT TO YES BETTER NOT TELL YOU NOW

Texas Republicans are holding a Black woman, a Democratic state rep, hostage in the legislative chamber. They have locked the doors and have banned her from leaving.

Instagram suggested that I might like to purchase this Prada straw visor, the most expensive, depressing piece of headgear of all time. To be worn, apparently, with sequins and a yellow raincoat.

Hello! This fall I am working with the excellent folks at American Short Fiction as part of their MFA for all online program (alongside the wonderful Tommy Orange and Kevin Wilson). You can study with one or all of us or even 2/3rds. americanshortfiction.org/mfa-for-all/

"The humanities tell us who we are. Without them, we're automata." Edward Carey, Celsius 232 Festival, Avilés, Spain.

Left Texas. Currently in Madrid.

As promised: when I picked up my copy of Loving Day from BookPeople, they had stuck a sticker with my last name on the spine, over @matjohnson.bsky.social's. I have left it there ever since. It makes me laugh, as though I am lazily insisting I wrote this brilliant book.

Yvette Benavides reflects on the power of short fiction to convey what we might not have the words for. "Birdsong from the Radio" is from the collection The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken. Read More👉 www.tpr.org/podcast/book-pu...

Never vote for a bill that causes you to look like this afterwards:

How could people even believe that there IS such a thing as a child crisis actor? I WAS a child actor. We are not that good. Ever seen a school play?

Gonna take this to the airport to see where it will take me. (Haven't lived at that address for 25 years.)

It's the 50th anniversary of Jaws, yes, but it's also the 50th anniversary of Mr. Jaws. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDNl...

There is good news in this world: at one of my favorite places in Austin, the recycling depot, I went to the scrap metal station and asked where to put my metal hangers, and the guy said, "No! More! Metal! Hangers!"

i have nothing but contempt for a Democratic Party that supports Cuomo

Literally "war is peace."

I cannot emphasize this enough that for YEARS: -trans women played various women’s sports. -trans kids got medical assistance as they and their parents needed. -trans folk could get accurate documents. -trans folk used the bathrooms that felt appropriate. AND NOTHING BAD HAPPENED.

Hand to God, somebody told me that while at Yale, the VP of these United States was known as Vivian Vance. I can think of no better time than now to exclusively refer to him this way.

This book is so brilliant and encouraging, even if you are not a fiction writer or even, for that matter, a writer, but love thinking about words and books. "Did I say that real life occurs in the present tense? I don't believe that. We live in a great simultaneity." [email protected]

Just to be clear: I have no intention of eating it myself. It's for someone else.

Disrespected my mother's memory this morning by buying a French-toast flavored bagel.

I stand with salamanders, & against authoritoads.

ChatGPT is down but The Museum of English Rural Life still stands, proving once again that Silicon Valley cannot compete with the history of rural England and its people.

A new book from @elizmccrack.bsky.social is cause for celebration! 🎉 Get an up-close look at her brilliant, delightfully idiosyncratic, & uber-funny notes on writing fiction in A LONG GAME, coming Dec. 2 from @eccobooks.bsky.social. Pre-order: www.harpercollins.com/products/a-l...

I am going through old boxes, because I'm moving both soon & eventually (have to teach in the fall) and have found many oddities which I will share here, but first I wish to report something I'd forgotten: My old pal Jeff Conant had a band called Nebuchadnezzer Pez Dispenser.

Went with my kid to see Dr. Strangelove which has somehow become a documentary.

My coolest colleague.

It’s hard to put into words just how comprehensively this bill is going to hurt public colleges and universities in Texas—especially UT.

Here's my ten-minute presentation on supporting creative writers in libraries, which is part of the American Library Association's "If We Could Have Just Ten Minutes of Your Time" series. There are some other awesome presentations in this webinar too, check them out!

Hope you’ll throw on your gloves and enter the ring with me as we launch THE SLIP with some of my favorite writers at some of my favorite bookstores across the country. Join us! 🥊

Oh, great. Another list I have to feel obscurely insulted about not making.

Hearing the Saudi royal family has arranged for the Hamburglar to be ritually beheaded as a show of friendship and respect to the American president

EXCLUSIVE: A police officer questioned the legality of arresting peaceful student protesters without probable cause at a pro-Palestine demonstration at the University of Texas at Austin, audio from body camera footage provided to Rolling Stone shows.

I’ve found it’s more visually appealing to just paste in his head at the inflection points

RIP JOSHUA CLOVER www.youtube.com/watch?v=osP3...

I wrote about my old friend Joshua Clover: elizabethmccracken.substack.com/p/so-blue-co...

My brother @harrymccracken.com wrote a most excellent piece on raccoons and computer advertising. (I get a heavy Celestial Seasonings vibe off these raccoons.) technologizer.com/home/2025/04...

The semester has ended.

I needed to write about something that’s giving me hope, so I wrote about Independent Bookstore Day which is this Saturday. lithub.com/something-go...

This makes me homesick.

Would you like to spend (and save) money now on a book you won't be able to read until December? Why not preorder mine: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-long-gam...

This statement about the transphobic Supreme Court ruling by the UK's Crab Museum (yes a museum about crabs) is better than 99% of the statements I've seen on the topic www.crabmuseum.org/visit 🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀

Upside is now Kristi Noem can't vote

In our magazine: “The strongest and most meaningful part of my poet practice is community,. There are poets who are doing fantastic work everywhere, and this gives them an opportunity to give people their flowers through their poetry.”

The White House made its Covid page look like a bad movie called Lab Leak, with Donald Trump as the titular leak. Full of vindictive lies & misinformation, but the graphic cracks me up. I look for laughs where I can. As a rule, I prefer "eponymous" to "titular," but the latter seems right here.