one of my neighbours accosted me in my yard, and was like, "you're bird people, right?" and of course I said yes, and learned where a three-toed woodpecker nest is, in the woods nearby, even though I can't actually tell one woodpecker from another

To become dependent on ChapGPT is to evacuate yourself from your own life. YIKES, no thanks. I’m gonna be alive inside every damn thing I do, even and especially the ish I don’t wanna do.

always texting rapidly at cross-purposes

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

invariably pruning exclamation points from all of my correspondence

One of the telling differences between artists and non-artists is the latter always seem to think the problem for the former is not having ideas. The problem is usually... the exact opposite.

If you like yelling about misuse of the passive voice, THIS IS IT.

NEWS: Major unions @nationalnurses.bsky.social and @ueunion.org are publicly demanding that the U.S. immediately halt military aid to Israel, recognize Palestinian sovereignty, and intervene “to put an end to the violence, starvation, and injustices being inflicted on the Palestinian people.”

I forgot about this gorgeous music. Systems/Layers is great!

it's so nice to see what a functioning judiciary looks like "A transgender woman in the East African nation of Kenya has won a landmark court victory in which the judge not only found in her favour, but ordered the government to pass a Transgender Protection Rights Act." fuck yeah

Please help Hammam and his family escape certain death in North Gaza.

Reading this article today made me sick to my stomach. Girls in school sports can't enter the soccer field until their parents sign "gender affirmation" forms. AND this new Alberta law allows for declared gender to be 'challenged' by another parent.

So much of interest here, including the importance of form and style as outside and often antithetical to a "reduction of art to subject matter" + how art can acknowledge doom (even give over to it) while offering us the "equipment for doom's navigation."

Congrats to Omar El Akkad for making the National Book Award longlist in nonfiction for One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This ICYMI, what better time to listen to our conversation about this incredible book Audio📻: tinhouse.com/podcast/omar... #freepalestine

I just found out that "T.S. Eliot" stands for "That's So Eliot!"

argh was just told 'the discover feed now knows what you like' after liking something I don't like THAT much!! I hate tech so much

reading through my last novel draft this morning and noticed I used the descriptor "over-potatoed" in the first 10 pages

Rabhi Alameddine considers depressing books that could cheer you up by Gerbrand Bakker, Hans Fallada, Leo Tolstoy, and more.

you know it

I want to teach a course on the late 80s / early 90s feminist novel

what is a public intellectual? I am thinking this is the career for me

who actually rolls out of bed

haven't even finished it yet, but the first anecdote in this Vivian Gornick essay makes me feel so recognized it's uncomfortable! www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

sleep-soaked

more good news

thinking about Japanese literature last night and reading about The Tale of Genji and then waking up to a long and extremely Elif-like (i.e. the best) letter from Elif Batuman on Japanese debates on novels and 'profound truth' means that maybe SOMETHING is right in the world!