I wrote about Pluribus and the dangers of writing exclusively for the fans. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Hugely thrilled to see that Gov Hochul has signed the Anti-Harassment in Reporting Act into law in NYS. PA next!

the word “orphan” is maybe the most politically weaponized word you never think about. 🥚

a reminder from @kwistent.bsky.social that there do exist alternative forms of permanency beyond the dichotomy of the full legal severance and identity erasure of plenary adoption versus full family reunification 🥚

This New Found Glory Christmas song has been stuck in my head for a week-plus, without me ever even listening to it, having been etched in my brain from some burned CD 20-something years ago: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqH...

I feel that the people need a picture of Penny Loafer in her little booties

Something notable to me here is how there is a cycle of a country becoming a hotspot for surrogacy, only to legally ban the practice after scandal, causing the market to move to a new country with less regulation—similar to the history of international adoption: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/m...

anyway, shout out again to @kwistent.bsky.social for writing such a good book about orphanhood which, as i reread it, is setting off bombs in my brain (complimentary). There’s a 25% discount running right now 🎁 www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/krist...

Just saw that Hachette is running a 25% off sale! Use code BEST25

🥚

i don’t think people understand the interconnection of the #adoption industry, child welfare systems, and the manufacturing of orphanhood. the overwhelmingly predominant cause children’s loss of family is not death but the state. most adoptees are people whose parents are dead *in law only.*

one 2025 book i really admire, and haven’t discussed enough, is @kwistent.bsky.social ‘s critical history of modern American orphanhood, THE SUN WON’T COME OUT TOMORROW. This book limns the ideologies of “child rescue” that shaped the development of US foster care and adoption. it pulls no punches.

The bots think I’m Andrew Ross Sorkin

In case you need gift ideas, primarily for fans of nonfiction!

you could also post about my book and say you liked it and tag me-- i mean, any author, tag THEM in it, because we are bottomless pits desiring praise :)

If you have a book project you'd like to place with an agent, come see me! Or if you want to get a more amorphous idea ready to send around, come see me! You'll be supporting Blue Stoop, too, helping us raise funds for our financial aid program.

As an Italian American, I cannot stop thinking about Lisa Taddeo doubling down on her defense of Olivia Nuzzi in an Instagram comment: “We have a lot of connections. We are both Italian americans and both have written books.”

The Winds That Scatter. Ten years since it has been released! Watch at @means.tv

Also! I've launched a @bookshop.org page, with proceeds to be donated to orgs helping Philadelphians caught in the web of family policing: bookshop.org/shop/kristen...

My personal favorite books of 2025, gift guide-style: open.substack.com/pub/american...

I am grasping from the excerpt of American Canto and from the reviews that no one gave this book a line edit

My personal favorite books of 2025, gift guide-style: open.substack.com/pub/american...

Support indie bookstores with @bookshop.org and get FREE SHIPPING! Might I recommend my book for all the revisionist history/cultural crit lovers on your list? bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Support indie bookstores with @bookshop.org and get FREE SHIPPING! Might I recommend my book for all the revisionist history/cultural crit lovers on your list? bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

If you like a writer's work, tell them! Email, LinkedIn message, DM, even in person at an event. It can make a huge difference in their lives, especially right now with declining freelance budgets, layoffs, stagnant salaries, the threat of AI, and dwindling book advances.

My book on the history of orphanhood—and childhood, parenthood, and poverty!—in the U.S.: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

everyone knows the number one quality of rigorous, responsible journalism is waiting months and months to reveal urgently newsworthy information until it can cause the most harm in your personal vendettas

People will die, and are currently dying, because RFK was granted one of the most powerful megaphones in the country. Two people who could have thrown barriers in front of his climb decided not to; there's a sex scandal here but it is not the biggest scandal.

“Fostering the Future,” which aims to support young people aging out of the foster-care system, is paired with an effort to put the religious rights of people who wish to foster above the civil rights of L.B.G.T.Q.+ youth. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/vRetrp

Kristin Collier’s mother took out hundreds of thousands of dollars of private student loans in her daughter’s name. But as @kwistent.bsky.social explains, Collier’s new book on student debt doesn’t cast her as a villain.

Poverty isn’t neglect. Most kids in foster care aren’t there because of abuse, they’re there because their parents couldn’t afford food, housing, or childcare. The solution isn’t foster care. It’s ending poverty. #adopteesky

“In reframing who is to blame for her student debt, Collier opens up a broader view of what justice would look like—one that seeks to free millions of student debtors from a system that the government has chosen to trap them in.”

If you asked me in the past couple of months if I’ve read anything interesting for review lately, I would have talked up Kristin Collier’s WHAT DEBT DEMANDS. If you ever filled out a FASFA, you’ll find solidarity here. My review for @thebaffler.com: thebaffler.com/latest/the-f...

American student borrowers owe more than $1.8 trillion. The system that made this possible demands a reckoning.

I shout out books by Alice Bolin, Grady Chambers, Kristin Collier, Barbara Demick, Jarvis Givens, Haley Cohen Gilliland, Brian Goldstone, Stacy Horn, John L. Lennon, Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Karen Palmer, Mary Annette Pember, and Bee Wilson: apps.npr.org/best-books/#...

Honored that SHE'S UNDER HERE is on @npr.org's list of 2025 "Books We Love."

Huge thanks to @kwistent.bsky.social for her incredibly generous words. You can see the rest of the nonfiction list—including amazing books by @imaniperry.bsky.social, Julian Brave Noisecat, @bridgetgillard.bsky.social, Haley Cohen Gilliland, and many others—here:

The Administration’s latest child welfare Executive Order signals major shifts. But what does it actually do — and what risks does it pose for children and families?

!!!! So gratified to have this story enjoy a wide reach, especially since foster care is a really under-covered topic. Read it here: www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

“Fostering the Future,” which aims to support young people aging out of the foster-care system, is paired with an effort to put the religious rights of people who wish to foster above the civil rights of L.B.G.T.Q.+ youth. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/_MyqtC

IDK what I was expecting of the women who run the freebirth society investigated by the Guardian but I was not expecting them to not believe in GRAVITY

Had to write about it: www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

For more on the long history of religious hegemony in child welfare and how this affects queer and trans youth, check out my book! bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Thrilled to make my debut in @newyorker.com today with this piece on Trump’s new foster care exec order, which pairs an initiative to help kids aging out of the system with efforts to put the religious rights of foster parents above the civil rights of LGBTQ+ youth: www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

🥚

Thrilled to make my debut in @newyorker.com today with this piece on Trump’s new foster care exec order, which pairs an initiative to help kids aging out of the system with efforts to put the religious rights of foster parents above the civil rights of LGBTQ+ youth: www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

I think @brian-goldstone.bsky.social’s THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US deserves a shout in this regard! Also Andrea Elliott’s INVISIBLE CHILD

Media doesn’t just reflect adoption culture. It creates it. #adopteesky

Honored to talk with Mesha Maren about the value of professional criticism, the work of the Freelance Solidarity Project, and what authors deserve from publishers for this excellent Zona Motel essay!: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Another tragic case of child sexual abuse that could have been prevented by police. This time in New York.