BRB, Disassociating (Books Recs for Slump-busting)
If lately you have found yourself unable to enjoy your regular fiction-reading due to the omnipresent terror of encroaching fascism--you're not alone! For...
Signs+Wonders: Special Crossover Episode
It's a bit of a strange task to write a newsletter when there is already so much news, and it is almost exclusively terrible. So rather than reinvent the...
TLDR: Masha Gessen's Surviving Autocracy
This isn't a, "I read Surviving Autocracy so you don't have to" post. You should absolutely read this book. But things are shaky right now, and even if you...
Sunshine at the Funeral
When I was in college, my aunt was dying of cancer, and I used to go home every weekend I could to see here. I'd get on a bus in Boston Chinatown at...
4 Mantras for 2025
Hi all. Things are strange. The fires continue. I have significantly fewer enforceable rights than I did the last time I wrote one of these, as expected, as...
Command + R
Lately I've been doing some apocalypse reading. It's out of character for me, honestly. I'm not a speculative fic buff, and most of the time, if I'm not...
If you liked this, try...
Your super niche recommendations for what to read after the blockbuster
Disability rights are your (yes, you!) rights
Pandemics, eugenics, and why you (yes, you!) should care, ForRealThisTimev.2finalfinal
Red Alert: Kill Bill S. 5384
A bill to abolish the Department of Education was introduced in the House on Thursday. Time to ride.
National Advocacy Efforts for DoE/IDEA
Templates for writing your reps, updates, etc.
Book Recs for all Coping Mechs
Feeling some feelings? There's a book for that.
Lessons from the Serbian Resistance
The beginner's guide to 21st-century revolution
The One Where I Talk About Voting
Content Warning: Thoughts about why eligible US citizens should vote
Mini-view: The Hearing Test
That novel your MFA workshop would've fawned over
I know you are, but what am I?
Ableism and eugenics in the generative AI debate
Ministack: The Not-Quite-A-Review Review
Does it still count as a review if I don't tell you the name of the novel?
The book review literally nobody asked for
A pitch (plea?) for culturally competent criticism
Make Your Own Hats
Just do it.
Inclusion for me, but not for thee
Once upon a time, hearing people believed that they had checked off their diversity box and ascended beyond discrimination…
Song for the tenderhearted
On making your (literal) weakness your strength
Craft Has Entered the Chat
Questions about books and writing as solicited on Instagram
ASL Mythbusters
The most frequent of the FAQs
Ministack: The Nightstand III
After the brain fog
Stealing Time
Ye Olde Mother-Writer 24 Hours in a Day Conundrum
Language Euphoria
How to translate a body
Art at The End of the Line
On feeling helpless, and doing it anyway
One Book, One Philly!
It hits different at home
Review: Marvel's "Echo"
Indigenous DeafDisabled Representation is a go in Marvel's new limited series...to a point
Most Anticipated* Books 2024
*Super subjectively chosen by yours truly, --but hey, that's kind of why one makes a Substack, right?
Ministack: Everything Left in the Freezer
When the future is an emergency, there's always fish sticks
Practice makes better practice
Turning in my fourth book, and what happens after that
Dinner Table Syndrome and the Myth of Inclusion
Never mind. I'll explain later.
Ministack: The Nightstand II
More book recs with which to disassociate from the ruin
Luck, Sarajevo Style
Three poems from the war journal of Bosnian poet Izet Sarajlić
What are we writing for?
On trying to stay human
MiniStack: The Nightstand
Inaugural bonus content--please clap
Permission to fail
Film photography as parallel practice, or how to forget your audience and shoot from the hip
I would die without music
On living someone else's worst nightmare, and writing my way out
Bed rest
Falling off the great American hamster wheel
There's plenty for everyone
An argument for willful abundance
The heart of the matter
Why our A.I. overlords won't be stealing our book deals quite yet
Kids These Days
They're better than us...thankfully
That time I was dying
And the first short story I ever published
I hate publication-as-birthing metaphors
And oh look, here's one now!
Smells like Teen Spirit
Or why I apparently can't stop writing about young adults
The Not-Quite-A-Book-List Book List
'Tis the season
Writing for the box spring
(or, f*ck that noise)
Both/and
On what we lose, and gain
Why it matters
Art at the end of the line
On Endings
How to finish (or not exactly finish?) a book.