The 2026 lit mag rankings are now available from my website! They include an overall ranking, as well as separate rankings for fiction, flash fiction, non-fiction and poetry. If you find these helpful, please show your support by liking & sharing 🙏

The Republican president is a pedophile who has doubled my healthcare costs and let scores of violent criminals out of jail. But a Democratic mayor-elect wants to make busses free in a city I don't live in. I have never felt more politically homeless.

Happy partially muscled skeleton screaming before vanishing day to all those who celebrate.

NEW: During a Vatican audience, a prominent same-sex couple told Pope Leo XIV they were married. The pope responded with overwhelming kindness — and a conversation about the day’s Wordle. This quiet moment may signal something bigger: the kind of Church Pope Leo intends to build.

What's from Chicago, hates Illinois Nazis, and is holy as fuck? It's the Pope in 1982.

As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history. Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX

Beautiful essay by Becca Rothfeld on Ingeborg Bachmann in @thenation.com. www.thenation.com/article/cult...

little fall writing pep talk if you need one ❤️https://1000wordsofsummer.substack.com/p/dont-mind-me-im-just-chasing-the

Federal Plaza, 2:30 PM. See you there.

Convincing you to read WE LIVED ON THE HORIZON by *also* sharing two paragraphs instead of one sentence. Because I'm a giver. Share yours.

This Veterans Day, I’m thinking of the millions of Americans who have served in uniform — and how our government is failing them right now. Words aren’t enough, we need actions. Fund the VA. Fund mental healthcare. And end endless wars.

Happy Veterans Day! An excuse to drag out old photos of me looking vaguely annoyed. Except in the snowman picture—Blair, Phung, and I climbed atop a bunker and made a snowman during our first blizzard in Afghanistan.

An extraordinary issue. Still can’t believe i get to be part of this. 🥹 You will be blown away by these poems. ❤️

meanwhile on cat tv

The blazing cowardice of the centre-right: “Men go through life telling themselves a moment must come when they will show what they're made of. And the moment comes, and they do show. And they spend the rest of their days explaining that was neither the moment nor the true self.” Shirley Hazzard

Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry

did anyone else's vision go suddenly white like you were staring at the sun or was that just me

This brightened my day amidst the world’s gloom and doom. It brings me pure joy.

Happy There Is A Circulatory System Walking Through The Kitchen Day to all who celebrate.

DONALD TRUMP: [asleep, drooling on long red tie] SENATE DEMOCRATS: fine, we give in

Tonight was a very bad night.

for fucks sake, democrats.

This is your friendly reminder that Obamacare isn’t just the exchanges! It’s a set of laws that force insurance companies to actually. You know, insure people!! You can read my full graphic explainer here: aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/it-could-b...

Tech guys six months ago: haha yes we’re cutting all this WASTEFUL spending by eliminating medical research and USAID Tech guys now: yes I think taxpayers will be excited to bailout my non consensual pornography machine

Sharing this haunting micro-fiction by Cheryl Pappas @cherylpappas.bsky.social , an American poet based in Boston. I think it moved me partly because it reminded me of William Carlos Williams, and also that poem by Heaney (if you know it), “Midterm Break”. Beautifully sad piece.

every sunday, from pulpits in megachurches across america, white evangelicals cry out about some imaginary persecution of christianity. but i can’t stop thinking about the pile of rosaries collected by a janitor at a border crossing or the priest turned away at the gates of the detention camp.

the bruce springsteen residency (for people sick of trying to write their books): drive all night, let the wind blow back your hair, dance in the dark, live with the sadness, love with all the madness in your soul

“It gives me no joy to admit that there are certain kinds of professors who love little more than seeing their names in the paper.…But I like to think even they would’ve been able to spot the coiled wires and rusty springs of this particular trap.”

establishment journalism's abject failure to express that this man has absolutely no idea how anything works should never be forgiven or forgotten

all of it to avoid the recognition that this is a singularly evil and dangerous man, who climbed the greasy pole to power, even if he was uniquely right for the time period we live in. he is not going to stay there forever, he is not a god, but he got there and our lives are profoundly worse for it.

the refusal to entertain at least a weak version of "Trump is how we got Trump" has been a recipe for a decade's worth of bad punditry and bad incentives for public intellectuals. "We got Trump because of some obscure event in the 1600s!" "We got Trump because of [niche voting demographic!"

bro are you fucking kidding me

Let's write together in 2026! If you're looking to jumpstart your memoir project—or are already underway & want some support to maintain momentum or figure out next steps—this @thewriterscenter.bsky.social workshop is for you. We'll meet twice a month, starting in February; learn more + apply here:

I need someone to tell me that this is not real That the most important building in America has not been turned into a sleazy 80s AC casino

BREAKING: Starbucks workers have just authorized a massive strike. Union Starbucks baristas voted to authorize the strike by 92%. Now baristas in over 25 cities could launch an unfair labor practice strike on Thursday, November 13th.

Ted Kooser’s “Starlight”

Good things are possible and we don’t have to settle.

I just want everyone to keep their promises

Today we’re watching mice on cat TV, and it’s an even bigger deal than birds. These cats are losing their minds. 🤯

hire all the fired political teen vogue writers and make a new magazine call teen rogue. we’ll all subscribe en masse

I am so upset. Last week Time Magazine solicited a piece from me on Zohran Mamdani & anti-Muslim hate. I pitched a framing re the dehumanization of Muslims & how Mamdani’s inclusive, socialist campaign in its content resists that. They agreed. I wrote the piece. 1/

Dear France, if you hire me I will make sure that the Louvre's video surveillance server password is "Louvre01!"

I wrote about Nazism in a small Michigan town, and in a large North American country; about the uses of and limits of shame; and on the importance of holding shared standards. www.the-reframe.com/the-death-of...

rabbit rabbit rabbit

Nothing could have prepared me for what a game changer cat TV would be.

Street poet at her typewriter, Pirates Alley, New Orleans

They literally ruin everything they touch

I don't actually think JD Vance believes his wife is going to hell because I don't think he actually believes anything