Some of my messy thoughts on America. open.substack.com/pub/gabrielb...

There are no rules for writing, but you do have to read. —Carmen Maria Machado, on her advice for writers.

Friday library #BookHaul! @gabrielbump.bsky.social @rykaaoki.bsky.social @erinmorgenstern.bsky.social Etaf Rum, Sylvia Plath, Geraldine Brooks LitFic, Sci-fi, Poetry, Historical Fiction, & Fantasy - another good reading week ahead #BookSky #BookHaul #SFFH #WhatAreYouReading 📚💙

Great read on why the NEA termination is only the next thing in a long line of blows that have made the book ecosystem so hostile to small/nonprofit publishers. www.persuasion.community/p/why-its-so...

Opening Day, so good reminder to subscribe to @soxmachine.com and get better coverage and writing than this horrible deserves.

WaPo's Ron Charles, in his Book Club newsletter, on Meta's repeated questions about his plans to review Sarah Wynn-Williams's "Careless People": "In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me."

HUGE NEWS from our friends at @storystudiochicago.bsky.social: StoryBoard Conference & Festival is coming, combining an intimate writing intensive & one of the most exciting writing festivals of the year into one unforgettable week!

The ‘can machines do creative writing’ thing is mostly a distraction from the use of the machines to go through text and images to cancel grants and put people on deportation lists

With the Tin House news, I’ll just share my favorite indies: Charco Press, Dalkey, NYRB, Hub City, Transit, Fitzcarraldo, Archipelago, and Blair. All consistently putting out brave and great work.

Damn. Tin House. Please keep supporting independent presses. They are continually putting out the most interesting stuff.

Wow. Huh. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Free Mahmoud.

hey, can one of the reasonable centrist writers condescendingly explain to me again that it is overblown to call these people segregationists?

Draft done. ☃️

"Work your ass off to change the language & dont ever get famous." – Bernadette Mayer, Experiments

Also notes: "The applicant shall maintain records of its compliance and submission for three (3) years. The applicant will compile, maintain and permit access to records as required by applicable regulations, guidelines or other directives."

Latest NEA grant update... Wonder when the "free speech absolutist" crowd will deign to chime in. www.arts.gov/grants/legal...

This dystopian NEA news is a good reminder of how much we need independent publishers, sad reminder of how few remain.

If people thought the first Trump administration led to bad self-righteous art, wait until we get state-sponsored Ayn Rand knockoffs.

Didn’t see it coming, but Trayvon turning 30 today might be my breaking point.

Finishing up Libra by DeLillo now. Think he’s one of those writers I have to read when I’m drafting a novel. It’s a short list. Hannah, Trevor, Tolstoy. Of course, others get in, but these always come back somehow. Do other people work this way?

Watching the White Sox is not so fun. But writing about the White Sox for this year’s BP was a dream come true.

Feels like I’m writing “under pressure” for the first time. I know there’s more expectations on this next book. A lot of my process, recently, has been around appreciating the pressure while totally ignoring it, thinking it’s silly, and having fun lol.

Taking free lunches away from kids isn’t teaching them, or their parents, about “accountability” or “the way things work”. Kids who need free lunches already know the world is unfair and cruel. These evil people are just making them starve.

Thinking a lot about my last book, wondering if I didn’t take the idea of utopia seriously enough. But I feel some artistic validation. Sometimes processing society’s awful sadness is the major step forward. How do we find the strength to try for a better world? That’s my fascination.

Whole room standing and applauding because they can say slurs at work again.

Pretty crazy to play “Battle Hymn of The Republic” surrounded by minor and major fascists, right before you end birthright citizenship.

Before we listen to this evil speech from a hateful man, let’s remember MLK’s final sermon, known as the “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” speech, delivered hours before his death. A beautiful call to collective action and mortality. How lucky we are, to live in this moment, to march, to fight.

The semester starts in six days. I can’t find my office keys. Don’t know where I last saw them. Here we go.

Favorite writing experience of 2024 was reworking the first one hundred pages of a novel five times. Big changes. Perspective shifts. New characters. Decided to put it in a drawer and work on something else. It was a year of treading water, in a fun way.

Uh, oh. He found us.

The best part of starting a fresh social media algorithm is making my feed mostly pictures of trees, cute animals, and books. My depressions have yet to take over. All sunshine, hopping birds, and pretty sentences over here.

I know I’m obnoxiously late, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve read anything and immediately turned back to the start and went again.

Writers! You can come hang in Lisbon with Camille Bordas, Adam Levin, T Kira Madden, Emma Copley Eisenberg, and lots of cool folks, and me! You can apply for the prize, or you can apply for a workshop. It’s a fun time! disquietinternational.org/apply-now/