I was interviewed by Lisa Regan on the The Academic Publishing Podcast about publishing finances -- everything from why a press might want a subvention to why the system as a whole in in big trouble if everyone goes for the free pdf and no one is paying for the books themselves. She had smart Q's!

AAUP-provided STC is the real path to student success

From the top rope

On 11/24, @nysnetwork.bsky.social is hosting a free online event for Women in Independent Publishing, the incredible collection of interviews with women editors & publishers assembled by Stephanie Anderson feat. Maureen Owen, Patricia Spears Jones, & MC Hyland! www.unmpress.com/978082636707...

saw an NYC art world girlie on IG freaking out about Mamdani & unironically saying "freedom isn't free"--absolutely thrilled for her crash

me arriving at mamdani's new york

couldn't preorder fast enough! www.inkwoodnj.com/item/6CvPe_C...

Citing a chronic shortage of financial backing for independent publishers & nonprofits dedicated to writing and reading, a coalition of seven charitable foundations has established a Literary Arts Fund that will distribute a minimum of $50 million over the next five years. https://to.pbs.org/4o6lqua

bless

As DH grows, it’s increasingly important to publish conference papers, but there hasn’t been a clear venue for that. So I’m thrilled to share this new home for DH proceedings, which will include CHR papers & more. Thanks to @taylor-arnold.bsky.social for leading this effort! bit.ly/ach-anthology

New York, NY: Curator, Moving Image & Recorded Sound, Schomburg Center at New York Public Library

Call for (post-PhD) historians and cultural scholars for the pod! We have a specific wishlist of scholarship we’re looking to add to the lineup: - ancient & medieval history and/or - histories of anywhere other than the US and UK, preferably outside Europe Pitches to: [email protected] 🤗🤗🤗

all the respect to the first person who figured out how to cook and eat an artichoke, that shit wasn't self-evident

They literally ruin everything they touch

The 100th episode of American Vandal. Launching the 12th season. Live at UPenn English Faculty Lounge with @cnewf.bsky.social, @whitneytrettien.bsky.social, & an incredible assembly of faculty, students, visiting scholars, & friends of the pod.

It's pub day (birthday 0?) for Writing Through Writer's Block: Lessons from Modern American Fiction! This is a study of how authors have used the archetype of the blocked writer to identify, analyze, and ultimately work through both internal and external constraints on their creative abilities.

Just learned that WRITING BACKWARDS has won Narrative's 2026 Perkins Prize, "awarded to the book making the most significant contribution to the study of narrative in a given year." A true honor, especially given the prize's past recipients! www.thenarrativesociety.org/barbara-and-...

actually more common is that I attempt to search all libraries rather than just “featured libraries” and then it forces me to sign in to actually use the catalogue for its intended purpose

A coalition of seven charitable organizations led by the Mellon Foundation plans to award at least $50 million to nonprofit literary organizations over the next five years through the Literary Arts Fund, a new initiative headed up by Jennifer Benka.

Enormous news for US literature. A new, Mellon-led, $50 million fund for nonprofit literary orgs and publishers. Closest thing we've ever had to it was Mellon and Wallace in 1991, which, in today's dollars, was still less than half this. Open call begins Nov 10. literaryartsfund.org/about/

"American philanthropy can and must play a bigger role in strengthening the financial infrastructure of the literary organizations and nonprofits that serve these literary artists." —Elizabeth Alexander, poet and President of the Mellon Foundation lithub.com/good-news-a-...

Despite its essential role in American culture, literature receives less than 2% of arts funding, leaving the field persistently under-resourced.

Happy to help share the news of the Literary Arts Fund launch today and to serve as its executive director. More here: literaryartsfund.org

Enormous news in literary arts philanthropy: Literary Arts Fund, initiated by the Mellon Foundation in collaboration with Poetry, Ford, Lannan, Hawthornden, & other foundations, will distribute $50 million to literary nonprofits & fiscally sponsored lit orgs & publishers over the next 5 years.

Have no idea who put this pristine copy of 11 late-career Frank O’Hara poems—copyrighted by the estate and compiled by Ted Berrigan in 1974—in a little free library box on Cooper Square. But, I think I’m going to hold onto this one…

defector.com/good-riddanc... brilliant @nicksturm.bsky.social

No grift here. Preorder Aaron's book!

radicalized my publishing students by watching 10 minutes of BookTube content together

Has anyone written anything on the very earnest self-presentation of the writing life of Substack?

Like other women poets of my generation, writing long works on themes the world reserves for philosophy as such, I am often called ambitious. The word “desperate” would probably be more accurate: I can't accept the Tyrant's truths... - Alice Notley, "Instability in Poetry" (2001)

Nigel Newton, CEO of Bloomsbury, telling us why AI is good for publishing with this fun caveat: “We are programmed deep in our DNA to be comforted by the authority and the reliability of big brand names, & that applies more than ever to the names of big writers." www.theguardian.com/business/202...

went to ASAP/16 & all I got was a bunch of new friends @asapartsnow.bsky.social

I'll be talking about the NEA, literary nonprofits, & poetry's professionalization at @asapartsnow.bsky.social in Houston on Friday.

This new McGrath substack helps me reflect on what I hear from students in my publishing class whose interests jump between, as one said yesterday, postcolonial theory and One Direction fanfic. laurabmcgrath.substack.com/p/the-omnivo...

Abbie Hoffman & Allen Ginsberg 58 years ago today

We both felt motivated to understand close reading better, to make the clearest, strongest, case we could for it, and to do it together every step of the way. It's been a huge gift to think with Johanna in the making of this book, which we now offer to the world. press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Today is pub day for my third book: Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century. It is a handbook on how to read. It argues for the foundational importance of *caring* to thought. It offers an anatomy of close reading's five steps so we can hone the skills to perform them. It argues for why to read

uh oh they invented a book in my wheelhouse that's a conceptual nightmare in every way www.routledge.com/Afterlives-o...

How many classes today were canceled because a whole suite of EdTech services are built atop AWS? You know what platform never crashes?

I wrote this op-ed in the New York Times to shine some light on the supposedly dismal literary situation. The cure, as always: crazy hope and leaps of faith. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

Professional news: I'm happy to be accepting invitations to bars to tell you what I'm finding out about poetry's place in literary arts philanthropy, including stories about castles, dog names, Stephen King, pharmaceuticals (duh), Amazon, the NEA, operating vs. non-operating foundations, & ketchup.

"Networks of Value" organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at The Poetry Project this Wednesday 10/22 at 8pm // free livestream on the Project's YouTube channel www.poetryproject.org/events/netwo...

On the Wall St racket in our campus bookstores www.buzzsprout.com/2396665/epis...

What Poetry Foundation could do that the NEA didn't (or wouldn't) fifty years ago is help existing nonprofit small presses grow into a new sector of sustainable midsize independents--so far, Noemi, Nightboat, Ugly Duckling--publishing new poetry at a market-level similar to Graywolf, Coffehouse, etc

Fast-forward from 1980 to 2025--NEA now eviscerated--& The Poetry Foundation is, since 2021, in effect operating as a poetry-focused NEA Literature Program. It's new Sustainable Futures Grant program awarded +$3 million to 12 lit orgs over a 3-year term. www.poetryfoundation.org/grants/susta...

Add it to the file. This is about how Morgan State is going to use their latest Mackenzie Scott donation. Thinking of you too @mattseybold.bsky.social

I’m actually writing a talk about the NEA for ASAP but this was fun, stupid, whatever