I’m saying this with great love and care as a parent of 3 and 25 year veteran high school English teacher: Please let your high school kids read banned books. Those books are *preparing* them for life, not harming them for life.

Shopping for dorm stuff for my firstborn going to college in 2 weeks is wildly similar to how I felt shopping for baby stuff at 38 weeks pregnant. Like, how are we going to do this?!?

So much is shitty right now, but one thing that isn’t is how my town has made believing in miracles, like snow in July, their whole identity. I love this about where I live. ❄️

If you’re a teacher in New York, this first sunset of summer with no Sunday Scaries is for you. ❤️

Today was my last day of year 25 of teaching high school seniors and tonight my first born graduates from high school. What a week. 🥹🫠🤯😢😊🥳😵‍💫🤪🤩

editing AI "drafts" and calling it your own makes all your work inauthentic. read books. go places. think. feel. talk to other humans. write. then edit. the process IS the art. if AI is the process, your product cannot be art.

In case anyone wants to know, in NY we still have one week left of school before summer break AND the days start getting shorter tomorrow. 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

If this incessant rain ever ends, no one better lock me in a closet like Margot in Bradbury’s “All Summer in a Day.”

I am so proud of this kid. Every step, every mile, is a miracle. ❤️ www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/local-n...

Best Teacher Appreciation week thank you note of my 25 year career from a kid who has been homeschooled until his senior year: “Thank you for being the best English teacher I’ve ever had. And that’s saying a lot because my only other English teacher was my grandma.” 😊

More snow on April 16th is just offensive.

Oh, don’t mind me over here giving into the maternal urge to scroll through my firstborn’s baby photos at 4 am on the day he turns 18. How did we both get this old? 🥺

Reminder for high school teachers in the throes of March: Got an email from a former student saying they referenced something from my class in one of their college classes & their professor said, “You must’ve had a great teacher in high school.” Sometimes they’ll remember what you taught them. 😊

Lesson Plan: What do you notice? What do you wonder?

In David Attenborough voice: As the Adirondack yard glacier begins to recede, a small mammal explores what the newly exposed strata reveals.

"Right now, every public school student in America awaits our instructions for a coordinated leftist insurrection, which we’ll deliver just as soon as we get this beef jerky out of the pencil sharpener."

After 25 years, my opinion has not changed: Being a teacher is incredibly hard & infinitely complicated work.

I don’t know how any parent survives this college app/college wait/college $OMFG$ “aid”/scholarship app/scholarship wait year/season 🫠🫠🫠

Spotted on a wall of compliments at school.

What’s a lovely random thing you observed this week while you were out and about?

POEM

A small piece of a longer work in progress — a little story from what I hope will be a larger whole. Thanks to Gina Nutt and Terrazzo Editions 🩵 www.terrazzoeditions.com/terrazzomag/...

Friends over 40, I say this with love and fresh experience: never forget that you’re just one sneeze away from a pulled back muscle.

My 13 yo: Can you imagine if there was a TV channel where you could watch the best music videos all day? Me: I’m going to tell you something that will blow your mind. . .

There is no work more chronically humbling than teaching. All the planning in the world, & all the years of experience & training will not protect you from the absolute destruction when you think you say something funny & a teenager responds with “skip” like you’re a bad song on a playlist.

A poem about Prince (and others things too) for #BlackHistoryMonth: Title: "Summer After" Author: Julian Randall Found in: Refuse #BHM

If you're wondering whether you should promote your book or your latest publication now with all the chaos, the answer is yes. We need your words. We need to flood the channels with art and literature. So go for it, friends.

It took me years to write about this. Anger, shame, and regret prevented me from sharing it. I’m tired of the silence. Thank you for reading. 💜 www.huffpost.com/entry/baby-r...

I have a big scary essay being published tomorrow, so I’m anxiety house cleaning today 🫣

PSA for teachers: Know that one day you might have a medical procedure & the person who checks you in will be a former student, & the person who collects your blood will be a former student, & the person who helps perform the procedure will be a former student, & you will feel very, very old.

This is my new book, published this fall. While META is shadow banning abortion info and provider pages, this little book has all the links and resources listed and explained. Who can help me get this book passed around, to the people who need it the most? Www.itsyourbody.net

Being a parent of a high school senior while being a teacher of high school seniors is A LOT.

‘Tis the season for summer camp registration emails

After a two week break, I’m back on my ungodly WTAF 4 am writing schedule. 😵‍💫

Last night I applied for a big writing thing like some wacky hopeful person and now I get to obsessively refresh my inbox until early spring like some unhinged hopeful person.

Hanging out with just my 13 yo on NYE and I told her to pick out any movie she hasn’t seen and we’ll watch it together so she picked Titanic

So I got insanely busy for awhile but am going to revive Mugshot Writers on IG for a bit and am interested in posting writer mugs + new year's writing goals/plans/pep talks. If you are interested in being on, please DM me and/or follow me on IG: mushot_writers2 Applies to past contributors as well!

Brag about something you did in 2024. (Surviving counts!!)

“You’ll be visited by three spirits. . . “

Trust me. This is the way to make chocolate chip cookies.

Keep waiting for someone to write a holiday song called “How Many Times Can I Run to the Grocery Store?” It would be an instant classic.

“They live the way horses run.” Enjoying a beautiful @toddedillard.bsky.social poem this morning.

The way my dog is never worried about what other people think of her is so inspiring

"I can adapt when necessary. I have skills to fall back on, even if my school is shut down and turned into a scrapyard for discarded Cybertrucks."

Call this number. For real. You will feel better.

The absolute irony that AI is this big “time saver” and yet it creates so much unnecessary work for teachers and their students who try to use it but don’t know enough to know how bad it is so the students have just wasted their time using it. I wasted so much time today dealing with AI BS.

"Stop asking why schools don’t have bullet proof glass & metal detectors at all the doors. Ask why schools HAVE to. That’s the question that needs to be asked”

Waking up to another Day After as a teacher in a country that protects guns more than it kids.

Since we’re talking about how much billionaires suck again, here’s a reminder that your local indie bookstore deserves your business this holiday season. They have gift cards and are happy to mail stuff out. Same goes for @bookshop-org.bsky.social. Buy books. Give books. Support bookstores.

Today’s my birthday and I’ve always been kind of scared of birthdays, so the Happy Birthday email my dentist sent at 4:30 am reminding me to smile today must be the opening line of some Stephen King short story.