"I got my PhD by writing prompts instead of doing research, I'm winning" got some bad news, there still no jobs and now you also know nothing

“There were no books.”

Me and my writer friends achieving our goals in 2026

Sometimes you’re writing a novel about opera and fascism and you wonder if you’re going overboard but then the Metropolitan Opera Chorus casually posts this picture of a rehearsal.

Since 2020, it’s become an annual tradition to check in on disaster preparedness around March 11-12

Finished a big revision today. So much more work ahead, but this has been a grueling effort since last October, amidst illnesses and daycare closures. Next priority: empty brain time in the sun.

Writing group matriarchy

Reading When We Cease to Understand the World right now, which is a doozy anytime but especially when the doomscroll is full of AI-bombed schools and cities covered in toxic clouds. We are all the scientists full of remorse for our discoveries, for the blind marching on of technological “progress.”

I lowkey think about this a lot. And they’re especially impractical if you have a cyclical body with a uterus that expands and contracts throughout the month. What are we even doing!

move slow and repair things

This is so obvious. I call it a form of postpartum depression

What sucks is when you have to get that much plastic surgery for your job but you get fired and they don’t let you return your face to the store

naming a character markwayne and your editor hits you with “that’s an anti white caricature”

They’re still lying to us. www.startribune.com/close-to-650...

FFS

It is possible, and maybe necessary, to love life and hate empire. May we resist conflating the terms.

Sometimes you start reading a book so gorgeous you just have to stop. Brains weren’t meant to process this much ache and beauty all at once. Must go lie down.

Is this a new floater or just another toddler fingerprint on my glasses: A Me Story

Caregiving dissolves illusions

May his star continue to fall

every one of these guys is like: I'm a genius. you should do whatever i say about business, finance, research.... because i am so smart i have it all figure-- oh, jeffrey epstein? man that guy totally pulled the wool over my eyes. Is that what he was up to? wow.

American exceptionalism is dead, justice in this country is a farce, and we just got shown up by the British fucking monarchy. This is also so vile and sick and evil, but it’s also embarrassing

Calling the requirement for a judicial warrant before entering a person’s home one of the Democrats’ “new restrictions on federal immigration agents” crosses the line into outright falsehood. It’s in the Bill of Rights! A rule as old as the republic.

If you don’t already have a recurring donation set up for a local food bank or mutual aid network, now’s the time!

BREAKING: Platform Ventures, the development company that owns a south Kansas City warehouse that federal agents toured last month to consider for an immigrant detention center, announced today that it is not moving forward with the sale.

Ending this operation is not enough. We need justice and accountability. That starts with independent investigations into the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, economic restitution for businesses impacted, abolishing ICE, and the impeachment of Kristi Noem.

BREAKING Judge Boasberg ORDERS the Trump admin to facilitate the return of the more than 100 men spirited out of the country last year without notice or a hearing. Plaintiffs may also submit habeas petitions from abroad, he says. Doc buff.ly/rccakD7

When you’re a New Yorker and see the Mamdani era take flight but you also grew up in conservative circles in Minnesota and are seeing the best of that state courageously shifting narratives and then find out you were right to hate the Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie aesthetic in the early aughts

I’m not able to call my congresspeople every day, but I have been calling them every week since the occupation in Minnesota escalated. It’s part of my multi-pronged anti-fascism strategy. I call this prong: “Pretend it’s a democracy.” You’re allowed to have many prongs.

There's so much other stuff going on that's absolutely horrifying that I worry this won't make much noise. It's absolutely horrifying. www.cnn.com/2026/02/12/c...

Update: The Environmental Protection Agency is eliminating a Clean Air Act finding from 2009 that is the basis for much of the federal government's actions to rein in climate change.

"Some were as young as 13, and at least half of those taken in so far became pregnant as a result of rape, sources said."

ICE “left” Chicago in November, but they’ve disappeared three people from my community in two days this week. Don’t believe the hype about them, leaving Minnesota, either.

I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

@summerbrennan.bsky.social on “Cat Person” and discourses of yore (and ongoing projects to deny women as artists)

“In fiction, female authors are constantly asked to explain how their personal experiences have somehow qualified them to tell the stories they are telling, and live under the constant suspicion that their fiction isn’t really fiction at all…” open.substack.com/pub/summerbr...

He said "Amen" straight into the drop Lmao Pope Leo threw a rave for an archbishop's 75th birthday this is kind of incredible

🎶 because I knew you I have been changed for good 🎶

“Zohran has been marinated in love…He’s so secure in knowing who he is. There was a feeling of great pride and gratitude the night he won—that we had yielded this person who will bring, and who has already brought, hope to the world. That he has the mettle to do it.” ABSOLUTE FUCKING MOM GOALS 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Back briefly to share my essay again. Because this, too, is a fundamental part of this country’s corruption. My pedophile voted Democrat. He was personable, charming even. A lot of ppl thought he was a good guy. Idc who is on that list. I want them all outed. Please read, if you can.

The room is almost all elephant. Almost none of it isn’t. Pretty much solid elephant. So there’s no room to talk about it. -Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room” #everynightapoem

“This Just In: Water From Tap is Wet”

So proud of my Tin House baddie @sumaiya.bsky.social for fighting for this story and doing a public reading for Brooklyn and the world last August. Now everyone can read it online, thanks to @vol1brooklyn.bsky.social 🩵 www.vol1brooklyn.com/2025/11/02/s...

The last push happened as my infant son became a toddler, I held down a full time tech job, and worked towards a draft of an unrelated book project. It sounds impressive until you consider I may have not done any of these things well at all. Anyways, to eventual publication!

Just got proofs for an academic article that’s somehow been 8 years in the making. Slow and steady work, full of second-guessing and double-checking and anxiety. Many research trips, conference presentations, revisions—all boiled down into 23 pages. How do I feel about it? At this moment, tired. 😅

Did women ruin the workplace?

Children are the largest recipients of SNAP benefits. Also: Seniors, the disabled and the folks who care for them. Because that's what civilized countries do: Support their citizens when they need support and ensure they can live with dignity www.washingtonpost.com/business/int...

quoting mario cuomo is cold as fuck man