Libraries are so cool. Whenever I'm away from home and need a place to hang out between things, I find a library. There's a bathroom, a water fountain, chairs, and I can read, meditate, use the computers, or just be, and no one tries me make me buy anything.

#Pinks #ProudBlue As they have shown us time and time again. 🎯 🎯 🎯

At a locally owned kitchen store the other day, owner said her latest $1,400 order had a $700 tariff added to it. Coffee prices up 26 percent, beef up 14. We can do better than these family-hurting policies!

Excited for this webinar!

The flood. #fascism

"Watching the wrecking ball that is RFK Jr. in charge of Health and Human Services in the United States is like watching a slasher film in which the killer wanders the streets in daylight murdering everyone he can, while no one stops him." Andrea Pitzer on the few bad men dismantling America.

One of these rich dudes invested in a food company with all proceeds going to kids in need. The other started Sundance Institute, boosting the lives of countless artists. Hey modern rich dudes, don't be a typical greedy AI crypto-prick, be like these two.

We don't know what's going to happen so might as well fight for better. That's really my basic political orientation.

“The way I think of it right now is, as a society, we are flicking matches into dry grass and daring them to light.” Professor @jeffsharlet.bsky.social discusses political violence in the U.S. with @pbsnews.org.

Book trailer time. Please take a tour with me through my Ohio hometown to see why I wanted to tell the story of how how Urbana became a microcosm for the nation's fracture. The book's out Oct. 7.

I’ll have some words to say about the Charlie Kirk assassination tonight on @allinwithchris.bsky.social & here are a few preliminaries: open.substack.com/pub/slowcivi...

PAPER GIRL by @bethmacy.bsky.social is one of Bustle's buzziest books of Fall! "A compelling and humanizing look at how political and economic forces have reshaped American middle-class communities." www.bustle.com/entertainmen...

Sure, let’s discuss!

Thanks so much!

What ICE removals look like in my small Southern city—sheer terror—and how you can help. open.substack.com/pub/bethmacy...

Grateful to the masterful reporter and writer @jeffsharlet.bsky.social for helping me write and promote this book! His “The Undertow” was hugely influential.

How one factory worker/farmer sees the Trump cuts playing out in his family, the backstory on the new billboard rally goers erected in front of their No Show congressman’s office, and —cause we all need some joy, amiright?—our new pooch: bethmacy.substack.com/p/in-love-bu...

Exactly, and if it’s skilled workers we want, cutting Medicaid and public education is the opposite way to go about growing a healthy workforce.

Thanks, I’m so looking forward to conversing with one of my besties, that great journalist superhero @andreapitzer.bsky.social Politics&Prose may need a hook to get us off the stage!

The Library Journal's review by Toni Cox: "Well researched and befitting her journalism background, Macy’s memoir is raw but full of resilience and hope for the future." Signed (and discounted!) PAPER GIRL copies are available for pre-order promo.porchlightbooks.com/pages/promot...

Meet Ebony Lynch-Thomas, who went from prison to gainful employment and just became a nurse! She's walking testimony about why we must fight forthcoming cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and higher ed support, especially for first-gen students. open.substack.com/pub/bethmacy...

Grateful for this starred pre-pub review from Publisher’s Weekly, which calls Paper Girl “a welcome salve for a festering social wound.” It’s out Oct. 7, and I hope you’ll preorder, which is super helpful. www.publishersweekly.com/9780593656730

Omg that’s my funeral song! I wouldn’t have processed it either. Brava!

Tommy is such a wonderful writer and human being! We need his voice in this 1750s climate now more than ever.

Here’s the event info from Facebook, thanks! It’s also at The Grandin. Palmyra isn’t doing a full set but I think they’re doing 3-4 songs including a new one that’s aligned w the book. Thanks!

Give that bagpipe player any damn thing he wants. /

Yall should come to Roanoke on Oct 2. I’m doing a live book event with Palmyra here in Roanoke for the great podcast Songwriter. It’s about polarization and empathy and the creative process.

Aw thanks, this means the world! Manoa is such a great talent; they’re the perfect trio (now quartet, with awesome Samir.) See you at a show sometime soon, I hope! ❤️

Central Appalachia lost one of our very best last month. Lill Prosperino was everywhere - protesting JD Vance at ASA, slinging Narcan and syringes in WV in spite of the harm reduction ban, standing on the tracks with striking Blackjewel miners in EKY… substack.com/inbox/post/1...

You’re so welcome, what a force they were!

I’d take that!

Yes, yes they did. bethmacy.substack.com/p/lessons-fr...

Not many heroes left these days, and now there’s one fewer: RIP Lill Prosperino, activist, lawbreaker, moral compass, gentle four-feet giant, black belt, harm reductionist extraordinaire: bethmacy.substack.com/p/lessons-fr...

Highly recommend reading Joseph Lee’s debut book, “Nothing More of This Land.” After reading the sterling NYT review of it this week, I cycled over to his parents’ gift shop on Aquinnah, where I bought the book—and some v cool jewelry—from his dad, Marshall.

The president of the United States is the neediest motherfucker on the planet.

Thank you, Pitzer, for your big heart and fearless can-do!

Since the Epstein thing is destroying MAGA, expect Foxnews to find some new trans athlete to be outraged about soon.

Thank you @jillsreads.com! Appreciate the support!

“Other countries that have attempted to outsource their responsibilities have left people stranded in far away places, arbitrarily detained for years on end, and at risk of torture and other inhuman treatment, trafficking, or enforced disappearance,” the experts warned.

So I went on a long and freeing walk with my Gemini sister, @bethmacy.bsky.social. Around every bend, there was an adventure! Batteries are recharged! (DM me for my planning spreadsheet. 😆) #camino #caminoportuguese substack.com/@bethmacy/no...

I used to think the people who make Nazi comparisons are not serious people. Now I think that the people who dismiss the Nazi comparisons are the unserious ones.

24 weeks in a row protesting outside our No Show wimpy Congressman Ben Cline’s office, including in rain and 90-degree heat. Thanks Bill and Kate!

If you have the misfortune of spending the 4th with MAGA relatives, pour a strong drink, grab a sparkler, and brace yourself. When they start rewriting 1776, remind them: the Founders fought a king—not to install a new one in a red hat. Happy Independence Day. Light fireworks, not fascism.

EPA just suspended 139 staff for signing a “Declaration of Dissent” against Trump-era policies. Escorted out like criminals—for defending science and climate truth. This isn’t discipline—it’s a purge. Authoritarianism in a lab coat. Read: www.cnn.com/2025/07/03/c...

Won’t be long before we learn of an ICE detention center setting up in a former regional hospital Sorry, no beds for cancer patients, we’ve got to lock up this father of three who works as a roofer.

I implore you to find just a couple local and state level Republicans in your state to work to oust the next couple years Dont freak about all the races, or the Senate/House seats, those will get enough resources. Help each just an hour or two a week

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

they’ve even plowed tens of billions into a man-stealing operation so vast and unaccountable that it makes the fugitive slave act look like a modest and responsible use of federal power

The key to fixing school absenteeism—a huge destroyer of potential that I write about in my forthcoming Paper Girl—is relationships, administrators who reach out to solve problems the families can’t. cardinalnews.org/2025/07/03/n...

Every win matters in preserving rights. Pick one thing—whether it's a national effort, a state election, or organizing in your neighborhood—and pitch in.