Author scam? I've gotten several emails fr people claiming to be v. popular writers of romance/historical fiction who admire Automating Inequality. The emails feels like AI, tho, & the addresses are suspect. But if it's a con, I can't figure out the angle. Anyone else experienced this? What gives?

I'm teaching my Political Storytelling class this semester. Thank you Bad Bunny for dropping this performance right between the classes on political identity and the one on stories of personhood - we'll be talking about it for weeks. #PoliticalStorytelling

✨ AGTOWL receives a Kirkus Star! ✨ A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving received a starred review from Kirkus! Out August 11, the memoir is the hardest & best thing I’ve ever made, so the honor touches me deeply. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

My university media office really should have counted the letters on this newsletter headline...

Read this morning while exploring feedforward & predictive interneural connections: "The NMDA is a glutamate receptor cation channel that is also widely referred to as a 'coincidence detector'." Down the rabbit hole for sure. But "coincidence detectors"?! What wonderful worlds brains are.

Reading on PTSD and neural plasticity this month. Looks like there is some interesting preliminary research. Anyone have recommendations for me?

Thinking about universities' promotion of AI from a resource- and labor-extraction angle -- something I'm not hearing come up a lot in conversations about AI and education. But I'm part of the Anthropic class action, and data centers themselves are concerned about their water and energy use... e.g.:

Here's my latest, a review of Schneier and Sanders' new boo, Rewiring Democracy (with some big thoughts of my own), in Nature. AI has a democracy problem — here’s why www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The Kindle version of Automating Inequality as available at a deep discount currently! It's definitely worth $2.99. 🤣 a.co/d/bPaqACH

The lesson: Nobody survives the wilderness alone. In love with hazard orange and tranquil blue, the humor and danger all caught up together. Thanks @corraldesign.bsky.social (design) and Giacomo Girardi (art), and everyone at @fsgbooks.bsky.social, for promoting beautiful, true caregiver stories.

I’m excited to share that I have a reported memoir, *A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: Lessons on Love and Survival,* arriving in the world on August 11, 2026. Tomorrow, Oct 30, @fsgbooks.bsky.social will reveal the book’s extraordinary cover. Follow FSG (or me) to get the first glimpse.

Excited to be digging into this fascinating new series on worldwide population shifts. www.npr.org/series/g-s1-... Even, meticulous, ambitious reporting has me rethinking so many things that I thought I knew. Kudos to @brianmannadk.bsky.social @sarahmccammon.bsky.social & everyone at @npr.org

"The Trump administration’s tax and domestic policy bill... is projected to cost the country’s 1,512 community health centers roughly $7.3 billion annually in increased uncompensated care costs as they take on the treatment of new, and newly uninsured, patients." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/h...

Shteyngart brilliant as always. "Frivolity and absurdity are kryptonite to authoritarians who project the stern-father archetype to their followers. Once the pants are lowered and the undies of the despot are glimpsed, there is no point of return." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

Author photo options by the extraordinary William C. Gill. What do you all think? Favorites? For context, the cover copy for the book is below. So as you vote, think vibez. 😉

I'm gonna report this every month.

1/4: I got my start in public media. I still remember when the Rodney King verdict came down my first year at KZSC. We had a remarkably good public affairs department.

I feel both joyful & terrified: My book is actually on the @eccobooks.bsky.social @harpercollins.bsky.social website now! IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH: Love Stories from the Frontlines of America’s Caregiving Crisis will be out Feb 2026 ✨ eeeeek! www.harpercollins.com/products/in-...

I think I just coined the phrase "tyrannical lifestyle maintenance," and I'm very proud.

Also, Medicaid isn't just poor-people health insurance. It's the main payer for long-term care. Middle-class people can't afford nursing homes either at ~125k/yr. The typical outcome is that they "pay down" (go broke paying for care) to become eligible for Medicaid.

Made up a little song for myself today: "You are feeling insecure... Because that's a natural part... Of the process!" #AmWriting #EditingKillsEgo #GuideToOpenWaterLifesaving

Why is caregiving so hard in America? Excited to see this new film... "Caregivers are on their own--and...spend an average of $7,242 out of pocket ea yr. According to a recent DoL report, they also miss out on an av of $43,500 in income due to the demands of adult care." www.npr.org/2025/06/20/n...

There are going to be Andrew Solomon-level endnotes on this book. Which is crazy, because it's a freaking #memoir.

Holy crap this essay is amazing. @nickolebrown.bsky.social ! THANK YOU! orionmagazine.org/article/one-...

A quote that's resonating with me today from the manuscript of A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: "Care is both the hardest and the best thing we do as human beings. We should find better ways to share and support it, because it is difficult and because it is beautiful."

Was hitting the point of diminishing returns enforcing desk discipline for these edits, so grabbed a camp site, took a paddle, swam in the river, slept under the stars. Then a hike and breakfast this morning and I'm back to the desk. Gas $30, campsite $18, food $20. 24 hours and $70 for the win.

I love the two weeks of voluptuous abundance when the roses and peonies first bloom. I can't keep up with the deadheading, and I'm always having to clean up the petals from the five or six arrangements I've got going in the house. And then, like smoke, they are gone 'til next year.

Closing in...

Read this OpEd from two of the finest people I know, @kevindeliban.bsky.social and Trevor Hawkins, who remind us that Arkansas was living today's national politics ten years ago, with deadly impacts. Also that the people of Arkansas fought back, and won.

Edit a chapter, plant some seeds. Repeat. Trying to remember that after all this quiet, patient work of cultivation comes harvest.

Have been hiding, working on healing, finishing TWO manuscripts (both out in 2026!), and loving up my platform camper. Slowly emerging from the cave.