Finally making my way through this delightful memoir. This prose @patriciacoral.bsky.social !!

Shocked, thrilled, all the things to find my book of stories on this long list. 😳

Never have small acts of human creativity mattered so much. Paint, draw, put on a play, write a song, learn an instrument, write a story (or a book!). The worst thing you ever make will be better than all this slop.

Feeling sad this week while traveling with 8 for medial needs and grateful for small kindnesses, like @andrewbertaina.bsky.social assembling a new bed for him while we’re gone. Need to get out of this early-dark, sleeting, Ohio gray weather and back to regular life.

Please help us congratulate our @bestmicrofiction.bsky.social nominees! @ladiwoods.bsky.social @robinwilder.bsky.social @amorak.bsky.social @kellathornton.bsky.social & @jeffreyhermann.bsky.social

Will someone pls invent an app that asks: Is this person on the train being annoying? And it sends push notifications to everyone around me and they can all vote yes.

Our cat maimed a mouse this morning and brought it into 8’s room and now we’re all traumatized. Happy Thanksgiving!!

My book is about a month old now. Thanks a million to those who have supported, come out, and recommended the book. If you enjoyed it and could leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads, I would be grateful! Reviews are so important for smaller press books. Thank you!

Excited after years of submitting to have a piece forthcoming in @pinchjournal.bsky.social! Back to my CNF nonsense.

One of the best things ab literary community is reading the work of writers you admire. Read 2 essays this week by @danacann.bsky.social in @coloradoreview.bsky.social @andimyles.com in @michiganquarterly.bsky.social that were outstanding. Pls share your work! You never know who it will impact.

Most mornings leaving the house for 3 schools and 2 workplaces are rough. This one was particularly rough, involving a spilled tea kettle with hot water and some burns, a fallen shelf, and some tears all around. And that’s all before 8:30. The years are short and long and tough and good…

I have a baby essay in my submittable queue about to hit its third birthday! Next year, it can start preschool. (And yes, I only have it out at one place. No reason, just how it happened.)

I warned that private equity taking over Walgreens would be bad for workers. This is the private equity playbook: they hollow out businesses, cheat their workers, and drive them into the ground. Red Lobster, Toys "R" Us, and Joann Fabrics. Who’s next?

Just tried to make a funny comment to the woman next to me on the metro car but she just gestured that she couldn’t hear me and left her ear buds in. 🤷‍♀️ Modern life? Lol I’m sometimes just a chatty Texan living in the wrong part of the country.

The great thing about sadly unsubscribing from @washingtonpost.com since their editorial page went bonkers is rediscovering Libby and regularly reading @newyorker.com for free and getting great stories and long form content instead of scrolling.

Had no idea I followed so many midwesterners but hell yeah, thanks for those sky pics!

Please join Meg Pokrass and me for the PROSE GARDEN, Sat. November 15, 2 PM EST. Mario Aliberto III, Dawn Tasaka Steffler, Sumitra Singam, Coleman Bigelow, Keith J. Powell, Jeff Friedman, Christine H. Chen, Hugh Behm-Steinberg Please register here for zoom link: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Grateful to my old college paper at UT for an interview about my short story collection! Always great to visit Austin & speak with students.

Imagine dedicating your life to art—writing, painting, composing, whatever—and then you get online and some pro AI asshole is like, “If you hate AI you hate art.” Just…no. Shut the fuck up and go sit on a cactus.

Things that made me smile this week: Older woman approaches my 11 year old at grocery store yesterday, eyes her T-shirt. “Do you actually listen to the Velvet Underground?” Her: Yeah, sometimes Woman: Hell yeah! Rock on. *proud mom

Several hours of very intensive parenting is a great recipe for losing all executive function by bedtime.

Come out to @thewriterscenter.bsky.social Thursday next week in Bethesda to chat with @tomnavratil.bsky.social, Dine Watson, Elizabeth Bruce, and me to talk about unique paths to books and nurturing a writing life that works for you. writer.org/event/carvin...

Made a real mistake listening to 6 hours of Willie Nelson while road tripping through TX, it’s taking a few days to get that man’s voice out of my brain now. Gotta counter it with something v different.

Really missing this old place. Feels good to be back, if only for a visit.

Visiting family, staying in my old childhood bedroom in Texas. Pitch black morning, the familiar and comforting morning sound of a train honking in the distance. Making coffee, missing the dear sounds of childhood.

Looking forward to this Dallas event with @misternagel.bsky.social! Then off to Austin. Hope to see & meet other readers & writers while I’m in town!

New bookstore cafe outside my office in crystal city area 😍

Sometimes kids are complicated, prickly little beings, and as a low-conflict person who dreads kid complications bleeding into adult interactions with friends and teachers, I am emotionally exhausted. I can’t smooth everything over, it’s messy & hard being responsible for others you don’t control.

Okay, now @nytimes.com and @washingtonpost.com both have op-eds defending the ballroom? What in the soul crushingly alternate universe is going on here? When I saw the East Wing destruction, I felt the way I did when I saw the Notre Dame burning

Reporting from the front lines of an 8-yo boys birthday party to report that 6 7 is very much still the thing. If I don’t make it out of here alive…

Thank you to everyone who came out to Kramers! I have another event with the wonderful Steph Liberatore tomorrow at 1. Watch out for Marine Corps Marathon road closures or consider taking the metro to Potomac Yard!

Just donated to the @theinnerlooplit.bsky.social fundraising campaign. Rachel and Courtney & team do such important work for this community, and have introduced me to wonderful books and writers. Every bit helps.

Woohoo @litbox.bsky.social had a 4 book sales day! Anything more than 1-2 a day is great for these tough economic times! I sold 2 @joeyhedger.bsky.social books and 2 Zak Salih. 🎉

We have reached the stage for broken heart emoji becoming one of my most frequent. It used to be the laugh cry.

Thank you @autumnhousepress.bsky.social!

Terrorized by the to do list. A memoir in list form.

Wow, thank you @emhall47.bsky.social @necessaryfiction.com for the deep and careful reading and review! Also rare that a reviewer’s favorite story is also mine.

Trying to do a great job at work, plan an 8 year old’s birthday party and launch a book all this week while @andrewbertaina.bsky.social juggles his own crazy schedule. Excited & grateful but also 😬😬

So happy to see @ladiwoods.bsky.social and her Lit Box platformed on @npr.org today! DC Lit is mighty indeed. www.npr.org/2025/10/16/g...

OUT NOW! Washington DC author Lauren D. Woods' debut collection THE GREAT GROWN-UP GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE was the winner of the 2024 Autumn House Fiction Prize. “Beautifully strange and incredibly satisfying." - Kristen Arnett, author of NY Times bestseller MOSTLY DEAD THINGS. www.shortstorytoday.com

THIS WEEK! Washington DC author Lauren D. Woods speaks with husband and SST alum Andrew Bertaina (Ep 10) about her debut collection THE GREAT GROWN-UP GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE, winner of the 2024 Autumn House Fiction Prize. "(A) tender and resonant debut." - Kirkus Reviews www.shortstorytoday.com

Seamus Heaney at play with language

You have to be careful that submitting to lit journals doesn’t distort your writing. Honing stories to the most accessible & easily accepted doesn’t always serve your best, most creative self.

Just returned from the Holocaust Memorial Museum, and I must say it was fine for 7 and 11. They learned so much history, good kids section, & glad we went.

THIS WEEK! We celebrate Washington DC author Lauren D. Woods, whose debut collection THE GREAT GROWN-UP GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE will be released next week. It was the winner of the 2024 Autumn House Fiction Prize. She's interviewed by husband & fellow writer Andrew Bertaina (SST guest author, Ep. 10).

Thrilled to be included on this list of finalists!

Thinking a lot about my 7-year-old’s upcoming surgery and so incredibly grateful for insurance, without which it would be unaffordable, and also thinking about some of my fellow Americans who have been bankrupted in similar circumstances and how it doesn’t have to be like this.

Think we’re ready for Halloween around here!

Forecast today is very very grumpy. No way around it. May as well embrace it and listen to some sad music. (Cue feeling of being spread too thin and doing a bad job working/parenting + some gratuitous self-pity in there too.)