This is what struck me when I read the Granta "story." My mindset went from "that's an interesting turn of phrase/defamiliarization... that would be too if it wasn't right next to it... okay we're just piling them on now... oh my god could you just be concrete for a few sentences?"

Are we reading. Are we making critical judgements. Are we committing to sustaining literature because we believe in its inherent value. Are we thinking.

I'd say "this article stole my joke" but I am sure I am far from the first to make this connection.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Congratulations to these writers whose work has been selected for our Editor's Choice Award Longlist! Read their pieces (and a bunch of other amazing pieces!) in the new issue: www.south85journal.com/table-of-con...

"The radio station is describing a decimation." Radio New Vegas 🤝 NPR

Happy to share my latest short story, "The Intersection," is now live on South 85 journal. @south85journal.bsky.social. www.south85journal.com/the-intersec...

My short story, "The Intersection," will be in the upcoming Spring/Summer issue of South 85 Journal. Direct link to the issue and story once it goes live. www.south85journal.com

Any writers out there have publication resources for specific fiction genres (i.e. fantasy, romance)? I have my go-tos I use (Newpages, CLMP, etc.) but their call for submissions page / search features don't filter by more specific genres. Asking for a community writing group I facilitate.

Drop your crime-fighting Catholics

"All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts."

You had to have been there.

Couldn't make it to No Kings this time due to illness, but I met a traveler who sought to guide me through my visions. That, or it's jusy Finn keeping me company.

Of all the days to be sick...

It would be poetic justice if this all ends because he accepts some gaudy emoulument ticking like a clock or a long lit fuse like a Looney Tunes villain.

Real talk.

Not "done" with anything, but between sending off a wave of agent queries after a round of revision, and sending another project over for a friend/collaborator, I'm between projects for the first time in months.

"Wallet inspector fails to return wallet despite saying he would be back in 24 to 48 hours."

Norman MacCaig on Philip Larkin “I used to judge his poetry very unfairly...I admired his wit, his brevity... But I couldn’t like it, because I’m a happier man than he was…” [adopts lugubrious deep voice] “ 'Life is a walk down Cemetery Road' - stuff and - think of all the pubs you pass on the way!”

insane in the Markwayne

May we be governed by heroes.

I think about this a lot @tomtomorrow.bsky.social

After the arrests of powerful men across the world, you might be asking why the US has so much trouble holding its leaders accountable for lawbreaking. Since Nixon, all three branches of government have worked hard to ensure they can break the law with impunity www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Why hasn't Disney used the Muppets to duplicate what Warner Bros. did with Lego movies? We could be 10 episodes deep into Muppet Star Wars, Muppet Marvel, Muppet Indiana Jones. Hell, Muppet Avatar would make more sense than the actual series.

Let's wait until DHS confirms this before getting too excited:

Working on a play and I realize there's a peculiar challenge in dramatic writing compared to prose. With prose, I can edit easily enough by reading aloud or sending off to readers for feedback. With a play, it feels like you don't get the full effect unless you have a table reading.

Methodical separation of powers for money and a unitary executive potentate for everything else.

yes, the wheels of justice are slow. agonizingly, excruciatingly slow. and oftentimes they miss or go off the tracks entirely. in fact most of the time. but occasionally, very infrequently, that big wheel of justice delivers theoretical remuneration for a handful of vested business interests

We are building up a website to keep people updated about the Merrimack NH Detention center. We hope to include updates, protest information, and resources. NoICENH.com

On this date in Anti-Rent War history (1860): Peter Ball, the President of the Albany County Anti-Rent Association is evicted from his farm in Berne, NY during a snowstorm by the land speculator Walter Church.

Tag yourself. I'm in "IGNES ONATIALUR" or as I have deemed it, Massive-chusettes. Also, note that the NYC area has its own border, fulfilling the fantasy of every grumpy upstater. Also, Long Island has apparently sunk into the sea or merged into the coast.

A passage from my novel in progress, cut for length among other reasons. Background: Caleb Davis was raised by the Shakers of Mt. Lebanon New York. In 1819, he abandons the commune and joins the "World." In this scene, he has taken up work as a furnituremaker's apprentice in Troy.

Been up to a lot of revision and trimming of the novel draft. I am tempted to share excerpts from the parts I am cutting for length...

An Occurance at Owl Creek Bank

If you're in NH 2nd congressional district, please take a moment to fill this out. Chris Pappas in NH-1st has one as well.

"While I'm not totally surprised at the outcome, I was pleasantly surprised by the reasoning—that it was not just a national or ideological reason, but it was also a very local, specific, practical reason related to the disruption that would be caused.” www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/l...

Context: this speech is from SIR THOMAS MORE, a history written, as near as scholars can tell, in the early 1600s by 6 or 7 people including Dekker, Heywood, Chettle, Shakespeare, and Munday. It was never performed, because Jacobean England was a police state and it was banned by the censor.

Read our full press release and the link below. www.aclu-nh.org/press-releas...

A breakfast place we frequent is attached to an operating farm with barn cats. There are signs posted at the entrance to avoid letting the barn cats in. For the first time since we started going, one of them decided to stake out the entrance.

Includes coverage of the proposed facility in the town of Merrimack, NH (which is also the only dot on the map in all of New England) #NHPolitics

Ayotte: The buck stops with me... telling you to go ask those other people what they think. www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2026...

Appreciating my signed copy of @tomtomorrow.bsky.social's latest compilation arriving in NH so soon after the snowstorm. I really love his depiction of Vance as a bellhop, Stephen Miller as a pallid nosferatu, as well as his other, less accurate, caricatures.

"The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone."

Once again, immigration is not even a problem. Immigrants are not more criminal, they don't cost jobs, they don't harm the economy. There is no reason for any of this. It is hurting ourselves to hurt them.

We are observers, not protestors. We show up to document and film the atrocities ICE is committing. Using 5 year olds as bait. Kidnapping senior citizens. Breaking down doors without warrants. Murdering poets and nurses. Media has all of that information because *observers* were there to document it

YOUR PHONE CALLS TO THE SENATE ARE WORKING. KEEP CALLING. 202–224-3121 Three Democrats who previously broke with the party and voted with the GOP are now saying they will not vote for the bill. That’s enough for the bill to be unpassable right now.

Does everyone have a warm bed? Does everyone have enough to eat? Does everyone have a place to be safe? Whose getting snatched in the night? - Junauda Petrus, "Ritual on How to Love Minneapolis Again"

Just left a voicemail with both my senators demanding they not give murderers one more cent to do murder with, and to shut down the government until it happens. If you'd like to do the same (and you ought to) you can find your senator's contact info here: www.senate.gov/senators/sen...

Saying your against a concentration camp because of budgetary impacts is such a local NH reason but... hey, I'll take it. www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2026...