Not content to kill climate measures in the US, 47’s taking aim at the whole planet. Anyone surprised? Trump Officials Accused of Bullying Tactics to Kill a Climate Measure www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/c...

Zohran Walks New York by Millie von Platen--a love song to NYC and a tribute to Mamdani's journey. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/zohran-...

Reflections on Timothy Snyder's book, On Freedom. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/erroneo...

Why bother bargaining over Ukraine when there's a ballroom to build, the East Wing to demolish, and a universe of taste-free, fake-king AI videos to conquer?

Caroline Carlson chats with me about her middle grade fantasy with real-world implications, The Tinkerers. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process...

[checks calendar]

Peep the byline

My conversation with Cynthia Leitich Smith about her picture book, Firefly Season www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process... #picturebooks

As Children's Book Press Turns 50, here's a look back to when they turned 35. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/childre...

Process Talk: Karen Krossing on My Street Remembers www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process... #picturebooks

Talking to Payal Kapadia about Woebegone's Warehouse of Words: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process... #middlegrade

Books talking to other books on Writing With a Broken Tusk: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/books-i...

Lulu Delacre on her little coquis in the final book of the Rafi and Rosi Series. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p... #earlyreading #childrensbooks

Stop Acting Like This Is Normal www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/o...

On celebrities who insist on writing children's books: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/on-cele...

Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow on picture books and the playfulness of children: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

Trump Administration Orders Work Halted on Wind Farm That Is Nearly Built www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/c...

The Endangered Species Act brought the bald eagle back from the brink of extinction. Now 47’s regime is after it. insideclimatenews.org/news/2408202...

From Lola Opatayo, a meditation on what happens when you refuse to treat this writing business as a competitive sport.

Because he always parrots whatever the last person he talked to told him. Because he’s vile and self-serving and brain-free. Live Updates: Trump Backs Plan to Cede Land for Peace in Ukraine www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

Rules, Rights, and Duties: Editors from Tulika Books on their new picture book, 5 Fantastic Facts About the Indian Constitution. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/rules-r...

I thought this was an Internet conspiracy but it really does look as if sections 9 and 10 of article 1 are missing. We’re now in Brave New World territory: constitution.congress.gov/constitution...

The Sunshine Project, Book Uncle Book 3--out today from Groundwood Books in Canada/US and Duckbill/Penguin Randon House in India. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/the-pro...

My conversation with Taraneh Matloob about her new picture book, Dear New Friend: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process...

47’s carrying right on with his FAHA plan (Fictionalize American History Again): Trump Told Park Workers to Report Displays That ‘Disparage’ Americans. Here’s What They Flagged. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/c...

Thoughts on One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Egyptian Canadian journalist and novelist Omar El Akkad. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/quirky-...

This despite the Dept. of Injustice and Retribution trying to interfere: Judge Sentences Ex-Officer in Breonna Taylor Raid to Nearly 3 Years in Prison www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/u...

It’s true. Navalny was persecuted, “prosecuted” and killed because Putin couldn’t stand to be mocked. Authoritarians are thin-skinned.

The backdrop to Paul Lynch's Prophet Song is an Ireland sliding into totalitarianism and civil war, a setting that feels uneasily like the present time in the United States. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/voice-a...

Looking for a YA novel speaking to the idea of monsters in a near-future world, I found Pet by Akwaeke Emezi. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/now-is-... #YA

VCFA graduate Jenn Bailey’s wonderfully whimsical character Henry first caught my attention with A Friend for Henry. Here's Jenn writing about how this book became a series: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

In Our Green Heart: The Soul and Science of Forests, botanist, biochemist, biologist, and poet Diana Beresford-Kroeger challenges us all to explore the deep connections that forests offer us. Blog post on Writing With a Broken Tusk www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/ancient...

The Ink Book Club calls itself Democracy in Action. Here's my post on their book selection: Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Is it relevant or already out of date? Hopeful or shortsighted? What doesn't it cover? What thinking does it invite? www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/alone-t...

On a book club discussion of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/alone-t...

More on how art can shape picture book text: while I was looking at my own book, Look! Look! in this context, I thought I’d ask a couple of writers in my critique group (affectionately dubbed The Autodidacts) to weigh in: Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and Caroline Starr Rose. #picturebooks

On writing picture book text--only the words, but we know the book won’t be complete until pictures arrive to fill in most of the spread that our words get sprinkled over. #PictureBook

47 creates chaos far and near. Until he decided Afrikaners were refugees fleeing genocide, "It felt as though South Africa was this country that, thirty years after the end of apartheid, was coming into its own. Race and race relations...were no longer the dominant lines of social polarization."

Thank you, Mima Tipper, for your guest post on your new novel, Kat's Greek Summer, on Writing With a Broken Tusk: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

Guest Post: Caroline Starr Rose on The Burning Season Caroline writes about landscape and poetry in the Gila wilderness on Writing With a Broken Tusk: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

This week, 47’s fantasizing about filmmaking: “It sort of represents something that’s both horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable, weak,” he said. “It’s got a lot of qualities that are interesting.” Weave together a tariff and a national park—what could go wrong? #trumpisanationaldisgrace

So…has the US always subcontracted out the management if the strategic petroleum reserve or is this another act of grift and self-dealing by 47 and his enablers? And who is this company that got the contract? www.energy.gov/articles/dep...

Next Monday, May 5, will be Red Dress Day in Canada and the U.S. It’s also known as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit+ (MMIWG2S). Read my review of Ojibwe writer Jen Storm's graphic novel, Little Moons, on Writing With a Broken Tusk.

Only fascists arrest judges: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/u...

An Indian Ocean Archipelago in Fiction and Real Life www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/an-indi... #earthday #andamanislands #padmavenkatraman #zaiwhitaker

From my Writing Project friend and colleague in New Mexico, Michael Thompson, an essay and video, The New Othering of Amerika. Please feel free to spread this content far and wide, with a credit line, © Michael Thompson and a link back to the blog: www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/guest-p...

1/4. On the White House’s theory, if they abduct you, get you on a helicopter, get to international waters, shoot you in the head, and drop your corpse into the ocean, that is legal, because it is the conduct of foreign affairs.

Nicola Davies talks to me about albatrosses, people, and the sea in her picture book, Ride the Wind. www.umakrishnaswami.com/blog/process...

I don’t know what Mark Carney said to 47 but since that phone call there hasn’t been a peep about that 51st state nonsense. #elbowsup

Groan! Ive list count of how many steps there are in the descent to authoritarianism but this is surely a significant one: thehill.com/policy/defen...

And the reason that Republicans can earnestly quote Joseph Goebbels is — yes? Anyone? Hazard a guess? youtu.be/1cVw3Mi9fvYnn #handsoff #elbowsupcanada