A collection of must-read reporting on family policing/reproductive justice/adoption: americanorphan.substack.com/p/what-im-re...

Scrutiny aside, as a critic why would you do this??? What is the point of being a writer if you don't want to write??? bsky.app/profile/jeff...

When we were in Ireland in the fall, we went to a sheepdog demonstration. I’m still following the place and they have lamb babies now, truly toying with my heart mind and soul

OK I have seen two different deals this week for books in which teen adoptee or foster kid girls develop selective mutism. Simply, what thee fuck

Thrilled to write about @waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social and his new novel, an immersion in gay sex, erotic yearning and religious self-knowledge unlike any I've ever read. Glad @nymag.com and @vulture.com let me wax rhapsodic on this one. www.vulture.com/article/wayn...

"readers don’t want the same thing all over again. The pleasures of a good book review are less in being a leader than a follower — to have smarter minds tell you things you didn’t know about things you weren’t necessarily thinking about." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/b...

Wow love an old episode of SVU that features a rainbow party x measles outbreak plot

It’s been weeks and I’m still thinking about that absurd case of phytophotodermatitis on the Pitt. I got it once on my hands when I was in my early twenties and it was like, tiny spots of discoloration. (The derm I saw was at a teaching hospital and he called in residents and students to see it!)

We don’t need a time travel machine. Just take a day and hit up some random grocery stores in your state. Found an Acme that had an aisle labeled “Snapple”

Finally ripped off the bandaid and started a Scrivener binder for my next book proposal 🫠

Idk why it took us 9+ years, but we just fed our cavalier King Charles a spaghetti noodle for the first time. True delight

Last year, we came out with investigations on @motherjones.com and @pbsnews.org about the runaway adoption industry in Utah, where agencies routinely fly in pregnant women from across the country, promising free lodging and cash. Now, lawmakers are taking action: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I’ve been talking to @amylittlefield.bsky.social about this book for years and today it’s out. Killers of Roe, available here (or your local bookstore): bookshop.org/p/books/kill...

Daylight saving the day after the end of AWP is especially cruel

Where I'll be at AWP:

Behind-the-scenes of my latest piece: open.substack.com/pub/american...

Going to need romance folks to stop using the word "broody" as a descriptor, as it refers to a hen driven to hatch eggs, not moody/sullen

Hello! I am a trans journalist looking to speak with trans kids and parents of trans kids across the US who have been impacted by the clinic closures---please get in touch or share!

For yr weekend reading:

We don’t kill people for sucking! We shouldn’t kill people for anything really!

sure the pedophile felon president just illegally bombed a country that may have nukes while federal forces under his command murder and harass people in america and immigrants are tortured and he moves forward with plans to build concentration camps and sorry idk where i was going fuck all of this

For yr weekend reading:

We never should have listened to Attia in the first place—and it's crazy that it took 1,700-plus appearances of his name in the Epstein files for vocal backlash against his ideas. My piece for Slate on his mega-bestselling book OUTLIVE, which was still on the NYT list until mid-February:

We never should have listened to Attia in the first place—and it's crazy that it took 1,700-plus appearances of his name in the Epstein files for vocal backlash against his ideas. My piece for Slate on his mega-bestselling book OUTLIVE, which was still on the NYT list until mid-February:

I'll be in conversation with @renee.bsky.social @doctorshelleysella.bsky.social @gretchensisson.bsky.social and @tinavasquez.bsky.social on Saturday, March 7 at 1:45PM at the #AWP26 Conference & Bookfair for a panel titled Writing Abortion: What Stories Can Accomplish When Rights Are Taken Away

I volunteered as tribute to read Peter Attia's near-500-page longevity bible OUTLIVE after the influencer showed up in the Epstein files. It showed me that we never should have listened to him. My essay for @slate.com: slate.com/technology/2...

I volunteered as tribute to read Peter Attia's near-500-page longevity bible OUTLIVE after the influencer showed up in the Epstein files. It showed me that we never should have listened to him. My essay for @slate.com: slate.com/technology/2...

peter attia is out at CBS News after showing up in the Epstein files ... but maybe we shouldn't have been listening to him in the first place slate.com/technology/2...

Come see me at AWP next week!

Anyone going to AWP? Heading there for the first time so I made this on canva at 3am! Find me around on Thurs & Fri, and at these two events on Sat: OUR UNIQUE BRAINS: NEURODIVERGENT WRITERS SHARE STRATEGIES, 9am convention center room 301 WRITER’S BEST FRIEND: A CAT READING, 7pm meander art bar

Half of all states do not regard educational neglect as a reason to contact child welfare. NY should follow in their footsteps. “We just don’t really have a good response on kids missing school — and it shouldn’t be penalizing and frightening parents” through CPS. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/19/n...

Oh man not Jeopardy having a question abt Sarah Ferguson's wedding to Prince Andrew today

This year like half of the people in South Philly who put out pumpkins in the fall decided they would remain until the end of time, collapsed, frozen, oozing

As media workers, we are mutually invested in the amplification of cultural output. A dollar a word would help combat inequality in the media space. nwu.org/join Illustration by @colleentie.bsky.social

There comes a time in every freelance book critic’s life when their hand-me-down IKEA bookshelves fail and they must buy the more expensive solid wood IKEA bookshelves (because even in their mid-30s they cannot afford non-IKEA bookshelves)

Over the course of nearly a century, the United States government corralled Native children in federally run boarding schools. The goal was assimilation and absorption into industrial capitalism—all the easier to take their tribal lands.

Wow very much hate being pitched on a dystopian novel about an orphaned girl relying on her trusty AI toy to navigate a barren landscape, written by a white dude who uses a Native-sounding pseudonym

Ha I just wrote about this: americanorphan.substack.com/p/in-the-folds

Top NYS family court judge calling for more investment in social safety net supports like universal pre-K to address the family policing cases that end up before judges...we love to see it! gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/n...

With more Leon Botstein/Bard connections in the Epstein files, I’m thinking about Sarah Gerard’s Carrie Carolyn Coco, which I reviewed for WaPo in 2014. Gerard contextualizes the killing of her friend Carolyn Bush within the larger culture of misogyny at Bard. (gift link: wapo.st/4arzzww)

A lament for a lifetime of folded publications—and for WaPo Book World: substack.com/home/post/p-...

A lament for a lifetime of folded publications—and for WaPo Book World: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Had the honor of informing my esthetician about the Olympic ski jumper hyaluronic acid dong injection rumors

*all the money* is on the side of building families with other people’s children rather than preserving families, or giving them a chance to exist. 🥚

If you have ever used this gif then you have to read this interview

"the highly anticipated Jeopardy Invitational Tournament"...be for real Ken Jennings

If you're thinking about Washington Post, "well, to hell with them, they did it to themselves," then count yourself on the side of management. Because, no, labor didn't do this to themselves, didn't grind the paper down, yank it right, & rip out its spine. That's capital. Now we'll all suffer.

A small plug today to consider joining the Freelance Solidarity Project. We're all in this media shitscape together, and it's going to take organizing to rescue its remains from the dumpster fire. freelancesolidarity.org

journalists are workers who deserve to be paid fairly for our labor and I think that far too few consumers of media recognize or even care about this fact