Lisa Freedman and I got to clap for all the fabulous PEN award winners from VIP seating last night! It truly was a grand Oscar-esque show.

The time has come to apply for this summer’s Young Writers Program! If you know or are a high school student (rising 9-12 this fall) excited about creative writing, note that The Common is offering a two-week, fully virtual intensive on the craft of fiction. Learn more here: buff.ly/kyKj9xx

Friends in NYC: come join us!

Join us for our first In Conversation of 2026! Tuesday, Jan. 20, with @msoledadcaballero.bsky.social and @catharinacoenen.bsky.social! In Conversations are always free and virtual. Sign up here: thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-con...

So looking forward to this conversation! Come join us!

PEN America Reveals Literary Award Longlists https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/pen-america-reveals-literary-award-longlists-1/

Wow, I completely blipped over this last month—thanks again to @electricliterature.com for publishing this excerpt from UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE. It’s one of those stories you wish weren’t relevant to the time we’re living in…

Oh, wow, thanks @literaryhub.bsky.social for giving space to my Oma Lotte’s big dream to become a writer and to the kindness of a young tailor who fed and held her dream. Let’s all nourish and defend a world where girls’ and women’s voices can ring loud and clear and free.

Tomorrow is Pub Day for UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE! So happy to celebrate on my publisher’s home turf! A lively conversation with students today and a reading snd discussion tomorrow —Big Thanks to Restless Books and the German Department at Amherst College for the invitation!

Did you know that if you buy my book on Amazon, Jeff Bezos makes 5 times as much as I do on each copy sold? Sharing some behind-the-scenes book math on why buying directly from presses is best for EVERYONE (except Bezos) in my newsletter today! aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/book-math

When Kirkus Review sounds like they might have asked your mom about your memoir…. 🙈😬🙈

Don't self-reject! Submit your manuscript to the 2025 Literary Awards Program, judged by @deeshaphilyaw.bsky.social, for a chance to have your book published! The deadline to enter is 9/15 and our entry fee is $30. Make sure to read our full guidelines: buff.ly/sj20Ri1

TONIGHT! Join us for the virtual book launch of @writesloud.bsky.social collection: FIRST KICKING, THEN NOT (@stanchion.bsky.social) Readers include: @coocoo4afropuffs.bsky.social, @toddedillard.bsky.social, @mrswhitehouse74.bsky.social, and me! Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/hannah-gri...

Unexploded Ordnance has a cover!

You are cordially invited to our Anti-Prime Sale, where every purchase will financially support bookstores, NOT billionaires 🥳

Things about mainstream publishing I wish more people knew: 1) The NY Times Bestseller List is a marketing list, not an accurate list of the best-selling books for that period. 🧵

Psst…we’re reading full-length poetry manuscripts now. Yes, we read them all. Yes, all submitters hear back from us before we announce selections. No, there’s no mandatory reading fee. 📚💙🌊🌊 riverriverbooks.org/editors/subm...

I’m wrapping up Pride Month in my newsletter with this comic on bisexuality, myths and stereotypes, bi erasure, and what my bisexuality means to me. Happy Pride, everyone! Don’t let the bastards grind you down. Read the full comic: aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/my-letter

The Brevity Blog is a separate editorial team & pub than the literary magazine. As the Brevity lit mag's managing editor, I can say we do not & will never consider essays written—even partially—by LLMs. Ethics aside, we consider AI anathema to what makes art worth making & stories worth telling

Hey, I'm accepting book pitches for @barrelhouse.bsky.social for our new nonfiction series, For What It's Worth. Book-length essays (25-30K words) on a pop cultural obsession, ideally with a personal angle that makes the book something only you could write.

The older I get, the more helping other people matters to me. We are all in this together. We are all we have. Kindness and compassion are the only weapons that will not chip against the armor of injustice and callousness that surrounds the modern world. We can be and do better.

Ten seconds of Italy…

Review our full submission guidelines here: humansandnature.org/submission-g... We look forward to receiving your work on seeds! 💚

For our 2025 open call for submissions to Humans & Nature Press Digital, we’ll be welcoming essays, poetry, & artwork on the theme of seeds. 🌱 Submissions will be open June 24 thru July 15. Contributors receive an honorarium of $500 upon publication. Guidelines: humansandnature.org/submission-g...

In other news, if you'd like a signed copy of one of my books or a critique of a short story, poem, first chapter, lmk! For critiques, we can work out an affordable rate. Very affordable.

Academics/artists, and writers (especially literary): What's your side hustle? Having teenagers is expensive and I need to score some extra cash. Having twin teens means expense(2)! Choir trip: $400 Science trip for Feb (dep) $500 Prom for one who's going $50 Sports: $300 That's half a paycheck!

Tonawanda Senecas oppose new rural data center: 'We do not want you as a neighbor' buffalonews.com/news/local/a... via @TheBuffaloNews

Wild bleeding hearts (Dicentra eximia) are in full bloom! Spring is really here! #FlowerReports

"Women with red hair, she said, are fearless. I think of the flood and the ships sinking all around her." My lord, I love this piece of writing by @jesselkercheval.bsky.social so much! 💙💙💙

When one of your students is seriously into botany, gift-giving, and puns…. 😆 ❤️ *Perfect* office decor! ❤️

11 pm. An hour-long wrestling match with the departmental printer to get tomorrow’s 9 am final done. No chance to ask for help in the morning, because we only have office staff every other day. But someone planted a Viburnum: sweet night-scent to hug and to hold a disintegrating world

It's final paper season.

As a volunteer reader, my job is to read your poetry. I'd love to see it. Please submit to this fee-free, paid opportunity.

May Day--

Dear poets & writers—tomorrow (!!!) May 1, we are opening and closing windows and doors, like god, or maybe just like a small press. Read more at our site: riverriverbooks.org

You are going to love our new piece by @melostrom.bsky.social! Check out “Krasner.” lost-balloon.com/2025/04/30/k...

“Knowledge sets us free, art sets us free. A great library is freedom.” Ursula K. Le Guin on the sacredness of public libraries www.themarginalian.org/2015/11/06/u...

Butterfly populations are crashing through the floor. One way people can help is rewilding their gardens. At the very least, mowing lawns less often. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Thank you, @crivera.bsy.social for reminding me that thanking my dogs in the acknowledgments is an option! Here’s to Lena, who taught me joy on each and every day we had together:

This is such a heart-breaking and smart and beautiful piece—do give it a read.

At least 146 folks out in tiny, red Warren, PA today. Talked to some women in their 70s who had never been to a protest before. They’ll be back next weekend.

As far as I can tell, this was the first announcement senator McCormick made on Twitter about his “ telephone Townhall”. Inviting your constituents 30 minutes before an event does not signal an honest desire to hear from them.

As someone who had a piece in @porcupinelit.bsky.social’s first issue a few years back, I am dismayed (but unsurprised). It’s a wonderful little journal. Please read and support them!

Hey Teacher Writers! Send us your fiction and nonfiction! We can't wait to hear your voices.

Trying to stay warm (with a little bit of help from my friends…)

I really, really hope that PubMed being down is just a temporary glitch. You try: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Hopefully temporary....? #PubMed is a database of biomedical literature. Video here from #NLM. shorturl.at/vWMf5 #ScientificResearch #HealthResearch #Fascism

Trans friends, if you're looking for eyes on an op-ed or short essay that you want to pitch to a newspaper or journal, let me know. I'll give you feedback for free. Your story is so important. ❤️

First, they said postponed; now the meeting is canceled. That means no flu shots next year. “'It’s a six-month production cycle,' Dr. Offit said. 'So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.'" Fundamentally, that's a form of mass murder. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...

RNA xkcd.com/3056