A year ago, this happened. Still so thankful. Trying to remind myself that writing is a long road, and I always come back to it, even if not every year is the most productive and fruitful.

Amy Stuber@amystuber.com · last yr.

Shocked & grateful (thank you Stillhouse Press for giving my book a chance ❤️)

@amystuber.com firing on all cylinders in this incredible essay. Heartbreak and beauty in parenting, in life.

Emergency

(content warning: suicide)

substack.com

I haven't been writing at all. Things have felt heavy. Blah blah blah. But I did write this little essay about my younger child's spontaneous partial lung collapse, if medical emergencies are your thing: amystuber1.substack.com/p/emergency

Emergency

Three weeks after he spent a night in the ER, my son told me he had been listening to Smog’s “Feather by Feather,” headphones on, midnight at the hospital, while a team of what sounded like twenty hos...

amystuber1.substack.com

I have a Canadian colleague who gets a full year off for maternity leave. I had six weeks both times, and why do we opt to pay for wars and billionaire tax breaks when we could use government to take care of ourselves and each other.

there's never been a stronger argument for why we need the humanities than this year, these people

This was a genuine thrill and shock (I guess I'm a mystery writer - who knew!?). @aaronburch.bsky.social is such a champion of writers, and I'm so appreciative of his kindness and support. This was a story I thought was doomed to sit on my computer, but he helped shape it up and gave it a home!

Aaron Burch@aaronburch.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Couldn't be more excited to get to share that @amystuber.com's Short Story, Long story, "Swans," was selected for The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2026! This was not only one of my fave stories I published last year, but one of my fave stories of the year, period. Congrats, Amy!!

Finally finally getting back to novel draft. Halfway there. For the first time in a long time: feels doable

Small Saturday reminder that your human body and face are good, your space is good, and you don’t need to devote your weekend energy to trying to change these things unless you really want to; “improvement” is often a capitalist ruse to keep us disconnected, uncreative, and distracted

What will it take to get this man out of office

Committing to coming out of my day job/world is burning coma to move into a more creative phase and actually write again. Who is with me?

there's a point in novel writing when you start thinking "maybe this old thing from this other old project goes in this new thing," and I'm here to say: no, don't, it doesn't.

I know there's a war going on, and this point is absolutely nonessential, but side note: can we stop with the dangerously thin, heavily surgically altered women? if that's your thing, okay. but acting like that's aspirational? don't we have more to aim for as we age?

ICE is now in the small Kansas college town where I live, rolling up in unmarked cars, conducting armed, masked kidnappings of people on sidewalks & in the parking lots of chain stores and fast food restaurants

My daughter has a new story at The Los Angeles Review: losangelesreview.org/sanctity-by-...

Sanctity by Edie Patterson - The Los Angeles Review

This is the summer she lives in Brooklyn and smokes cigarettes in the backyard where someone who lives two stories below her has built a swing set for their kid and honeysuckle spreads its rangy finge...

losangelesreview.org

After decades of the Republican party's incessant shaming and morality policing, all their faux "family values," they are silent as Trump again shares racist content and appears over 30k times in the Epstein files. Tells you everything you need to know.

Every documents release a reminder that many men still view women and girls as objects, there for them to use Also: we already know this man is a rapist who bragged about assaulting women. What new evidence will it take to change the minds of those still loyal? What more do they need to see?

Heartbreakingly sad how many people will say it’s ok for humans to be violently dragged away from their kids and homes, brutalized, even killed, all in the name of nationalism. America, I should never be surprised

if this is what you wanted, if you see these videos and say "this is what I voted for," you're unquestionably a terrible person

it feels insensitive to post about anything personal during these catastrophically bad times, so forgive me - but sharing my older child's latest fiction at the lovely @psmokejournal.bsky.social www.peatsmokejournal.com/winter-2026-...

Nothing Ever Happens — Peatsmoke

Edith Patterson Stevie is in love with this town. She is in love with its heavy sense of memory and its slow polluted river full of cottonwood cotton. She is a little bit in love with Bria too.

peatsmokejournal.com

Random but putting it out there that if you need someone for a conference, panel, reading, podcast, etc., I’d be interested! I’ve been consumed by my day job and would love the chance to talk to people about writing 💕

Another war for oil when peaceful and renewable alternatives exist. The path we are on is so bleak.

If he can, in a twelve-hour period, militarily unseat another country's leader, claim control of that country, threaten to similarly take over multiple other countries, all without any Congressional involvement, Congress is dead, its power completely gone.

I’m not big on end-of-year recaps, but endless thanks to @penamerica.bsky.social for making this year unforgettable. (If you’re interested, you can order SAD GROWNUPS for the price of an elaborate coffee www.stillhousepress.org/stillhouse-s...)

PEN America@penamerica.bsky.social · last yr.

Congratulations, @amystuber.com!

My younger kid has some new poems up @maudlinhouse.bsky.social Ben Patterson - “Poems About Nebraska” maudlinhouse.net/poems-about-...

Poems About Nebraska

I. Nebraska is Never Anything Iowa passed in a series of collapsing, unrelated images. out of the fog, out of the fog, they said. Cropped grasses and winded bodies of trees seemed to repeat every mile...

maudlinhouse.net

Who did it doesn’t really matter - it’s that almost everywhere in America someone so easily could

The yearly Denis Johnson reread: “and you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you.”

Jack Whitten

Joy

What is this weird stuck time of life, the year before no kids in the house, the year after doing something I always wanted to do, my parents old, me old or getting there. Stuck but racing. Still the trees at night and the orange moon half eaten by clouds. Still tomorrow.

What a beautiful way to wake up this morning. I’m a curmudgeon about politicians, but this is what leading with love looks like.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 9mo ago

Trump: "Hear me, President Trump, when I say this: to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us."