Thank god for that 🥲 www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

Well worth a read on the impact of AI on critical thinking and education "Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?" By @sophiemcbain.bsky.social

Boston recovering from a big weekend

@lindastone.bsky.social Hi Linda, I'm a journalist for the Guardian and tried contacting you via your website without luck - I wondered if you might have a few minutes to chat for a piece I'm working on? Can explain more via email - sophie dot mcbain at gmail dot com. Thank you!

Loved interviewing Kiran Desai for @theguardian.com

Such a touching belated birthday gift…

This piece is gut wrenching www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

These kinds of pieces are so important - terrifying and very upsetting to think of how much scientific and medical progress is being set back by Trump’s cuts, the lives that could have been saved and now won’t be

I haven't been able to post this because have been forced off-line thanks to concussion, but I was thrilled to make the cover of @theobserveruk.bsky.social 's The New Review with this piece on miracle survivor stories

*NEW MONTHLY RECORD* Boston has moved up to 101F, the hottest June day ever recorded in the city (since at least 1872). #wbz

Sometimes parenthood is realising that you, once a self-respecting and relatively normal individual, now move around the house alone humming "move it like a mango, party like a pear" to yourself

This state only exists in the morning, in the shower, when you remember that thing you said decades ago. Yeah. You know what you said.

@evaholland.bsky.social hey Eva - I'm working on a story and it made me think of your book Nerve, I wondered if you might be free for a v brief interview about it? Please could you DM me or email sophie dot mcbain at gmail dot com? Thanks so much!

Our rates have increased across the board. For the autumn issue, we've just commissioned a feature for £1,000.

This story is completely chilling

www.newstatesman.com/politics/202... 💥 EXC: For my first edition of the New Statesman as editor, I went on the road with Keir Starmer, discovering a man far more emotional than I expected, struggling to articulate his deepest feelings — and those of the country he leads👇

The eight year old, a propos of nothing: “when I am famous I’m going to have a strict rule of not signing body parts”

“There are no monsters, and all of them are real.” I talked with @sophiemcbain.bsky.social about HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY - about #StarTrek, astrobiology, an #18thCentury “Irish giant,” race, nation, tech, and more. 1/2 💙📚 🧪 🗃 #earlymodern #histsci #histmed #SFF #monsters #politics #HAMH

For @theguardian.com I spoke to the novelist Yiyun Li whose new memoir, about losing both of her sons to suicide, might wind you with its emotional force. Some conversations will stay with you always, and this was one of them www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Had to fill out 26 - TWENTY-SIX! - forms for my daughters to attend five half-days of summer camp. Can it really be essential to know the date they last had covid, the dates of all international travel in the past 12 months etc. to supervise some t-shirt tie-dyeing and a few games of tag?

This is one of the finest pieces of journalism you’ll read

My father was a Nazi hunter, until he was killed in the Lockerbie bombing, when I was four. Now, a man will stand trial for the crime. What does it mean, after nearly forty years, to seek justice for the crimes of history? My new cover story for the Times Magazine: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/m...

For @theguardian.com I spoke to the novelist Yiyun Li whose new memoir, about losing both of her sons to suicide, might wind you with its emotional force. Some conversations will stay with you always, and this was one of them www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

…. 8 year old: *sigh* “mothers, they can be as vicious as a lion or as docile as a cat”

Loved interviewing Katie Kitamura for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Sun, blossom, picnickers, swanboats, influencer photoshoots everywhere. *whispers* “Has spring really sprung in Boston this time?”

Just another journalist, staring at their ideas list on their Notes app, still waiting to be added to the Highly Classified War Plans 💣💥 🤐 group chat

The Onion summer writing fellowship is seeking applicants! It's six months, good salary and benefits. This year's applicants do NOT have to complete the Eating Challenge, as it turns out this does not adhere to Illinois labor law. We apologize to those who have died in the past.

Two weeks PAID work experience working at The Guardian’s London Headquarters for Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic aspiring journalists. Closes 30th March. Details in link. Please share :) workforus.theguardian.com/entry-level-...

Two headlines, both from today

This is a really superb piece of reporting. It really demonstrates how sensitive, nuanced, tenacious reporting can be more powerful than any opinion piece www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

new saddest six word story just dropped

I grated the top of my right index finger on a cheese grater a few days ago which is a major inconvenience for such a minor injury because now my phone thinks it is stolen (I can’t use Touch ID) and I keep bleeding over my laptop keyboard while trying to file a piece 🎻

It was interesting that none of the many neonatologists I spoke to for my Guardian longread on extreme prematurity thought artificial wombs would be the game-changer they are perceived to be: www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

Feel very irritated Word now keeps prompting me to write with Copilot, something I will never, ever do because 1) outsourcing writing is outsourcing thinking, 2) writing (better than AI!) is literally my job. Any way to permanently disable it?

"The mildest way to describe this show is as a ghastly artefact of a particular cultural era that recently met its apocalypse." Pitch-perfect cultural criticism from Marina Hyde, and predictably about as mild as a scotch bonnet www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“It wasn’t one big heroic act…It was just a lifetime of being there and doing these small acts of good bit by bit.” I take comfort in stories of everyday altruism, they are their own form of resistance to the politics of greed, egotism & hate. RIP James Harrison www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/o...

With @sophiemcbain.bsky.social on @intelligence2.bsky.social, I talked about #StarTrek, astrobiology, an 18th Century “Irish giant,” race, nation, Antoinette Gonsalvus (pictured), and how tech corporations are monstrifying humanity. 5/n podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/h...

ProPublica looked into science grants that Ted Cruz's team flagged as "radical" and "neo-Marxist" and, uh. This would be good comedy if it didn't matter so much www.propublica.org/article/ted-...

whdh.com/news/investi... So this is what happened, my son and I were inside the urgent care next door - we knew only that there had been a shooting and possibly a stabbing and people had run inside the clinic to escape and hide in the bathroom

Took my son to an urgent care on Boylston street in Boston and ended up shut in for a long while because of a shooting and maybe also a stabbing outside or next door, it remains unclear. It was terrifying but the doctors and nurses were truly heroic and I am so grateful to them

Such a thrill to watch the sun rise over the Atlantic on a very early train ride to NYC

This is such a beautiful piece: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...

Two year old, handing me a wooden ice cream: … Me: “Mmmmm! Delicious! This is the best ice cream EVER! Yum, yum! Thank you so much!” Two year old, with contempt: “it is only a pretend ice-cream mummy”

A functioning opposition would be taking cases like these and shouting about them from the rooftops.

FAO UK journalists: A very important reminder it is time to enter the Paul Foot Awards, the deadline is earlier this year and like all deadlines is SUDDENLY UPON US. Details below. Please share if you are of the UK journalistic persuasion or adjacent thereto! www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-aw...

“There are no monsters, and all of them are real.” My convo with @sophiemcbain.bsky.social about my new book, HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY, on @intelligence2.bsky.social #podcast is live! 1/4 💙📚 🧪🗃 #ancient #medieval #earlymodern #SFF #politics #HAMH podcasts.apple.com/my/podcast/h...

Midway through a video interview today I did something weird to my chair and rapidly descended so that only my eyes and the top of my head were visible on screen. I righted myself and accidentally did the same thing again. Obviously we both pretended nothing untoward had happened.

i know ppl here do not enjoy screenshots of X but this one is such a great encapsulation of what it's become