In December, I traveled to Montgomery to visit the Legacy Museum, which traces the story of Black America from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration. I wanted to understand how the museum & its affiliated sites were operating in a moment where so much of the history they present is under attack.

👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

Danish Parliament Deputy Speaker Lars-Christian Brask: "If I could come with some advice, it would be for the Senate & House to start to take control of political power in America because with this erratic & mad behaviour, you have to ask the question, is the President capable of running the US?"

WELKER: What is the national emergency that justifies this new slate of tariffs? BESSENT: The national emergency is avoiding a national emergency

Matt Kendrick is me!! Really looking forward to this. Join Tracie and me on the 21st Feb 👇

More Dems need to think about skating to where the puck will be not where it is. All indications are Trump's brain has turned to mush and no one around him will even try to control his worst impulses. He will just get way crazier and more evil and unpopular by November.

Thank you @litgarage01 for sharing my flash "The Man With A Shoebox"! So many great stories in this journal; I'm delighted to be included! literarygarage.com/the-man-with...

War powers, ACA extensions, and ICE accountability.   Here are 3️⃣ things to follow this week.

Very pleased that my flash 'And I Love' will feature on BBC local radio on Thursday's Radio Gloucestershire, Radio Wiltshire, Radio Somerset & Radio Bristol and again on Saturday evening!

Beyond excited to share the news that my first poetry collection, Midnight at the Saltmarsh, will be published by @thegallerypress.bsky.social in May 2026! 💫✨

'My father taught me how to count. At first it was the number of fish he’d catch whenever he carried me to the farm pond down the hill from our house every Sunday.' Beautiful portrayal of a father/son relationship by @kiptain.bsky.social @fictivedream.bsky.social fictivedream.com/2026/01/12/m...

"...my father and I shared stories and worries and life’s little victories in those seventy-eight steps to and from the pond." Catch and Release by Kip Knott @kiptain.bsky.social #microfiction #MicroMonday series. Please click on the link below and enjoy

Please, PLEASE. Read this thread.

This week my imprint is publishing an amazing, odd but unputdownable novel, The Hitch by Sara Levine, and the book, deservedly, received one hell of a review in the NYT! www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/b...

Over the next four weeks NFFD’s @scooterwriter.bsky.social will be chatting to our microfiction comp judges. This week it’s the turn of @joannacampbell.bsky.social . Read what advice she has to give on writing micros & much more: www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.php/ne...

Somebody pinch me, because I’m … on the shortlist??? 🤯 Congrats to the other shortlisters. Can’t wait to read your stories!

Listen to Powell here. www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG... www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

Chris Murphy: "It's reasonable for Democrats, speaking on behalf of the majority of the American public who don't approve of what ICE is doing, to say, 'If you want to fund DHS, I want to fund a DHS that is operating in a safe and legal manner.'"

A wonderful thing. Today is the FIVE YEAR anniversary of my first ever #WriteBeyondTheLightbulb course. Can't quite believe it's been that long. So, so grateful to everyone who has taken one of the courses since then. There have been A LOT of you. Today I'm starting course number FORTY!!!!

Are you ready for a shortlist? Here we are then... 🤩 My TOP TWENTY picks for the Welkin Writing Prize 2026. Each of these is a marvel and a gem, and they'll be coming your way one by one over the next three weeks: www.mattkendrick.co.uk/welkin-prize...

Here’s the unspoken truth: While we’re busy fighting each other, this administration is working overtime to funnel wealth from the bottom to the top. That’s the whole game.

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair.” - John Lewis #RIP

My origin story to becoming a doctor. Thank you to @aft.org for giving me the chance and space to share it.

ICYMI — One of Trump’s untrained racist ICE goons slips and falls on the ice and his gun goes off in a residential Minneapolis neighborhood

CARTOON OF THE DAY (From @BennettCartoons)

rare to see an american politician speak in these terms and it rocks

Please join us in congratulating our Best Small Fictions 2026 nominees: @saipradhan.bsky.social, @francinewitte.bsky.social, @laurabesley.bsky.social @writesofkathryn.bsky.social and @happilander.bsky.social 😍 Read their stories here: literarynamjooning.wixsite.com/litnam/proje... #namjooning

👇🏽

I’m writing about this right now and should be doing that instead of this. However this poem tracks with what I’m processing. I don’t really understand all the performative closure stuff we do culturally. It seems enough for me to know I’m done.

A lovely thing. My newsletter now has more than 3000 (!!) subscribers. Amazed that so many of you want to read my waffle each month, but so grateful that so many of you do put up with me: prattlefogandgravelrap.substack.com

Welkin longlist day is one of my favourite days of the year. So wonderful to see everyone's joy and the general embracing of the competition by the whole writing community.

Good job Sen Tillis Hang the plaque!!!

Yesterday, Trump announced he wants to channel Venezuela's oil money into a slush fund for himself. Hell no.

My office is partnering with Salem City to host a Resource Fair, offering resources in housing, addiction, food programs, mental health services, and more. 📅 Date: Saturday, January 24th 🕰️ Time: 10 am - 2pm 📍Broadway, Salem City, NJ 1/2

All are welcome. If you have services or resources to share, please call (856) 757-5353 to sign up as a vendor. 2/2

DRUM ROLL!!!! 🥁🥁🥁 It gives me great pleasure to announce the SPARKLING longlist for the Welkin Writing Prize 2026. Congratulations to all the writers on this list. And commiserations to everyone else. The standard was incredibly high: www.mattkendrick.co.uk/welkin-prize...

You and your wife drop your 6-year-old off at school. You just moved here. You see ICE terrorizing your new neighbors. You film them, as is your legal right. Your wife complies with orders. She is then shot in the head. You still have to pick up your child later today. This could be you.

Officers like @libradunn1.bsky.social saved my life and my colleagues’ lives on January 6th. I’m forever grateful to the law enforcement officials who courageously defended our Capitol and our democracy from the armed insurrectionists.

On Jan. 6, 2021, bloody insurrectionary violence interrupted the peaceful transfer of power. Today, America is still caught in an epic struggle between selfish forces of rule-or-ruin autocracy & the unyielding defenders of constitutional democracy all over America.

My friend @governorwalz.mn.gov has been a dedicated public servant from his time in the National Guard to Governor of Minnesota. Everywhere he goes he carries with him his Midwestern values of kindness and standing up for working families. Thankful for his service and sacrifice.

I think that’s right. Whenever I discuss this in a non-social media forum I try to turn the conversation to public financing of elections, an end to partisan gerrymandering and bans on stock trading for lawmakers — I think that gets closer to what people are trying to express.

It’s one of those things that feels intuitive but just doesn’t work as people imagine. I try to hold space for the folk knowledge ie the problem people are trying to name but experts haven’t helped them accurately diagnose. I think people say term limits when they mean less money in elections.

PRESIDENT OF CUBA 🇨🇺: “An act of state terrorism… the object of imperialist desire is Venezuelan oil… down with imperialism!” PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA 🇨🇴: “To keep the Epstein list from coming out (Trump) kills fishermen… this invasion is about oil, driven by greed & violence.”

Photos of bound and blind prisoners are not the flex you think they are. They’re a sign of immense deep weakness on the part of the people taking and sharing those photos, and the society that celebrates it. We are what we do, not what we proclaim.

Ok let’s keep playing this.

Jack Smith is a man of honor and moral conviction. He is the kind of person we as a nation must become like once more.

That one person can drag us into a war without consulting or even notifying Congress, or our allies, or fully explaining to the American people why this is necessary, is absolutely bonkers. Reminder that Congress has the power to stop all of this. Where the hell are they?

Trump’s actions are blatantly unconstitutional. There is no dispute that Maduro is a brutal dictator — but only Congress has the power to declare war. If Congress does not begin reasserting itself — immediately — our constitutional order will be permanently transformed.