I’m still alive in Whamageddon despite multiple trips to malls, department stores, groceries and other dangerous places. However, I am CURSED by “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time.” It follows…

Hooray! @authorsabb.bsky.social is *OFFICIALLY* a nonprofit, and is now open for donations! For the last two years we've been doing all this w free tools, or paying out of pocket, & we were STILL able to get SO MUCH DONE. Imagine what we could do with $$$ www.authorsagainstbookbans.com/donate/

AFP's Dylan Collins was among journalists injured in an Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2023. The attack killed Reuters' Issam Abdallah. Collins was in Washington this month to press for accountability. n.pr/49oWjxH

The latest silly meme is that the top movie for the year you were ten will tell you how next year will go for you. Not at all sure how to interpret mine…

Please don’t take your eyes away from the damage book banning laws are doing in Texas. In Boerne ISD, a kindergarten class was forced to cancel its planned holiday party book exchange due to HB900 and SB13.

I’m in this! Enjoy some super-short super-creepy holiday stories, courtesy of @seanhtaylor.bsky.social and his merry men (uh, and women).

CBS didn't run the 60 Minutes segment on CECOT, but over here at @propublica.org we've been working on the story since March, including finding out who each and every man sent to that maximum security prison was. You can see our reporting here: www.propublica.org/series/depor...

Had to clamber over a barbed wire fence, rip my coat and trespass to get a photo of this folkloric monster pretending half-successfully to be a tree. I have no regrets.

THIS. *They stole your fellow writers' FUCKING HEARTS' BLOOD to power their fancy-ass text-based writer-imitation machine.* You wanna get all NUANCED about that? Your easygoing take on that issue will sooner or later (most likely sooner) be used to steal *your* stuff. Let's see how *you* like it. 🫤

*evil cackle*

This fast food place has zero sugar fruit punch, labeled as containing zero fruit juice. What exactly am I drinking, and what will be the side effects?

Spied in the wild.

They think writers can be replaced because they don't understand what writing is effective, yes, but don't discount the desire to cut human labor out of the process entirely, not just for "cost savings" but because the management class and especially the investor class just fucking hate humans.

Best Christmas sweater in the mall: a lineup of gingerbread men and "I'm tech support; I'm here to delete your cookies."

Pet peeve no. 42532: Playing videos on your phone, in public spaces, LOUD. Just stop it. Earphones or mute, people!

Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who spent decades dodging bullets and bombs to bring the world eyewitness accounts of war from the rice paddies of Vietnam to the deserts of Iraq, has died at 91. https://cnn.it/3YDTG4Q

"For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people we always hoped we would be. It's a miracle."

All right. It is now clear that Ernie Hudson is a Highlander. #getthismanasword

You should never pay a literary agent to read your query letter or a publisher to produce it. Traditional publishing is not pay to play. #WritingTip

Hunting for something to watch while I do Christmas shit. I see “A Christmas in Tennessee.” A couple all bundled up with snow all around them. Folks, I had a lot of Christmases in Tennessee. There is a flaw in your logic.

This is fucking grim. Somebody invented a white guy, an "IT professional" named Edward Crabtree, who stopped the Bondi shooting and spread it all over the internet, which was picked up by AI agents and slop aggregation sites. The real hero is a fruit stand owner named Ahmed el Ahmed.

Sexism strikes again: in Big River’s suggested stocking stuffers, the men’s list has multitools, hats and gloves, wallets, and no less than six business card holders. The women’s list? You guessed it. Makeup. Almost entirely, plus a few necklaces and a phone case. 🤨🙄😝🤬 #actuallyneedbusinesscardcase

ICYMI: The Trans Journalist Association @transjournalists.org conducted a two-hour training session on how to cover extremism and political violence. Scroll down on the link to find the recording of the session (pay no attention to the share text, that's a different thing).

The accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers combined. Comments on many of the videos included links to chats on the messaging platform Telegram, which offered child pornography for purchase, according to the report. https://cnn.it/3XOCQQx

Oh for the love of Ben Bradlee, what is this garbage? Usually I end up repeating my column about how PotY is not an honor (i.e. Stalin), but to put the AI architects up with "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper" is simply atrocious.

I love when someone mansplains journalism to me. I've only been doing it for nearly 30 years as well as teaching it for seven. I really need someone to come along and tell me how it REALLY works. Does anyone have something I can punch?

Spied in the wild, outside a Starbucks. It’s been a few days since the blizzard and he’s hanging on by his fingernails.

Delighted to hear extensive discussion of @authorsabb on @lithub.com this week. I've been part of this group almost since the start and am highly impressed at the progress made in fighting for the First Amendment. (My own contributions are mostly running my mouth on panels; booking for 2026! 😀)

"A political movement that dreams of a world that is smaller, simpler, dumber, more servile and less curious and much narrower than the one that currently exists would naturally fixate upon college campuses and the individual and collective acts of becoming that happen there."

The last thing I needed was more on my TBR pile, which my husband alleges will fall over and kill me in my sleep. ("Then I will have died as I lived.") Adding some of these to the 55 on my wishlist - which doesn't count the ebook wishlist (51), education list (58) and library list for reading (110).

The Trans Journalists Association is building a future of journalism where stories about trans people are just, ethical, and informed by our leadership. This #GivingTuesday, we’re asking you to support our movement: bit.ly/tja_pride. 🧵

Oh for the love of Walter Cronkite… I wrote this same story every year for so many years, and still I would get hate mail from idiots insisting they felt bad after the shot so clearly it gave them the flu. Arggggggh.

A nice thanksgiving surprise for me: one of my photos was selected in Smithsonian Magazine’s fall photo contest. www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Illinois is among a group of Democratic states suing the Trump administration, seeking to block a change to the federal food stamps program that the states say unlawfully prevented some legal immigrants from accessing the aid.

CORRECTION: West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey walks back statement that both National Guard members were killed in shooting near White House. (This post corrects a previous post that stated the two members had died.)

I’m all for the fascinating variations on Advent calendars that are exploding this year. But somehow I think a product titled “Advent Calendar: Let’s Battle” has possibly missed THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT.

There is NO FUCKING EXCUSE for this to be happening. I had a baby die in my arms of pertussis some fifty years ago. It was a HORRIBLE death. But my fellow nurses said to me, "It's almost stamped out now, they're all getting the shots, we won't be seeing this again." HOW THE FUCK ARE WE HERE. 😡

almost every novelist you read who's not from the airport fiction or bestseller sections is working a full on day job, including multi-award winners and absolute legends, or they have a spouse or trust that supports them. virtually across the board. just normalize in your mind that's how it works.

What it takes for a woman to get a roll of cooking twine in this town….

A copy of the first Superman issue, unearthed by three brothers cleaning out their late mother’s attic, netted $9.12 million this month at a Texas auction house which says it is the most expensive comic book ever sold.

“[Book banners] do not want safe children -- they want obedient children, and they think they can accomplish that by deciding what books are allowed to be on the shelf.”

Dialing down the use of social media for a week reduced symptoms of anxiety, depression and insomnia in young adults, according to a study published on Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Baking today for coffee hour. Done: pumpkin pie, roasted cinnamon pecans, hearth bread, fudge. Also pumpkin spice cake, cooling before frosting. Baking: Kentucky bourbon pecan pie. On deck…. Uh, some kind of muffins? Some baguettes for sure. Chocolate chip cookies and some other cookie.🍪

A man accused of setting a woman on fire inside a Chicago commuter train has been ordered to be held behind bars pending trial on a federal terrorism charge he faces in the case.

When pregnant woman boarded a subway car, 38% of the time someone offered her a seat. If someone dressed as Batman was also in the car it rose to 68%. phys.org/news/2025-11...

Sweet Christmas. Considering the subject on which I am most asked to speak these days is book banning, which definitely involves bias, oppression, stereotypes, etc., I guess I can definitely cross off speaking engagements in Utah. (Which wasn't actually a thing I'm getting a lot, to be fair.)