Elissa Altman
@elissaaltman.bsky.social
Author of Permission (3/25), Motherland, Poor Man’s Feast, Treyf, many essays. Author, teacher, editor, musician. Ever hopeful. 🕊️🏳️🌈🇺🇸🇨🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇪🇺 Poormansfeast.substack.com
Thank you @therumpus.net 🙏🏻
The Rumpus@therumpus.net · 2w ago"I needed to be somewhere quiet, to read, and to stitch myself back together..." In our newest culture essay, @elissaaltman.bsky.social shares her grief over losing her father and remembering their shared venture for relief from summer heat. ➡️ buff.ly/drWVVsP
TODAY: We’re joining Black-led civil and voting rights organizations for a national day of action, including a rally at the state capitol in Montgomery. We must use our organizing power to defend and reclaim the sacred rights those before us bled and died for: blackpowerwarroom.com/dayofaction/
The saga of the immolated pork shoulder, a very good toasted garbanzo bean recipe, and a few words on how what goes on in the kitchen reflects the news.
A Time for Quieter Cooking
Dinner As Metaphor for the News [RECIPE]
open.substack.com
Loving this podcast with Jeremy Lee who describes his parents as “wonderfully bonkers.” Mine were just bonkers. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
Jeremy Lee: the much-loved chef who grew up in a wedge of cheddar
Podcast Episode · Homing · March 1, 2024 · 55m
podcasts.apple.com
Join me for an Online conversation celebrating the publication of Anne Lamott and Neal Allen’s new book, Good Writing, this Saturday 3/14 4 pm EST/1 pm PST. Attendees must register by going to ByrdsBooks.com. Hope to see you!
She may be very quiet but she carved a love note to me out of a block of Velveeta. So I married her. ❤️
This is what happens when you decimate the USDA: apple.news/AUKrCy8_tSZW...
USDA Announces Ground Beef Recall in 3 States—Nearly 23,000 Pounds of Meat May Contain E. Coli — Health
Almost 23,000 pounds of ground beef were recalled in three states. The products may contain E. coli, a pathogen that can cause severe foodborne illness. The recall has been given the highest risk leve...
apple.news
I am so thrilled about @annelamott.bsky.social and @nealallen.bsky.social 's new book, which is coming on 3/17. A complete pleasure and joy to read! I’ve also included their tour schedule — please make sure you get to one of their events!
Friends: Join me for a permission/story ownership workshop this March at beautiful Kripalu in the Berkshires. All levels are welcome and celebrated. Extras: you get all the yoga you can manage, beautiful hiking and walking trails, great food, and a compassionate teacher! Join me!
Permission
Who Are We to Tell Our Stories?How can we grant ourselves permission to write the stories we're compelled to tell when we've been told we shouldn't? The act of crafting engaging stories elevates them ...
kripalu.org
Thank you @printmag.bsky.social for publishing my essay on this insane moment in time, and the roots of cruelty.
Is Cruelty Addictive? – PRINT Magazine
In the aftermath of the horrific shooting in Minneapolis, questions of motive and meaning once again dominate the public conversation. This essay by Elissa Altman looks beyond the headlines to examine...
printmag.com
I am thrilled to announce my next book, WHERE YOU USED TO BE: Meditations on Grief, Love, and Living a Creative Life, which is coming from Godine. How is it that the making of art enables us to move through grief, and the living with and carrying it? How does it enable us to metabolize it?
My mother, Rita Hammer, passed away peacefully on Wednesday evening, October 29th, at Regional Hospice in Danbury, Connecticut, after a short illness. Susan and I have no words. www.legacy.com/legacy/rita-...
Rita Hammer Obituary October 29, 2025 - Legacy.com
View Rita Hammer's obituary, send flowers, find service dates, and sign the guestbook.
legacy.com
Time has suspended as we sit with my mother in hospice, and wait.
In the Bardo with My Mother
On grief both personal and public
open.substack.com
Amidst all the strife surrounding my mom being in hospice, I hadn’t seen this. Thank you @longreads.com for choosing my @bittersouth.bsky.social essay, My 24 Guitars, as a Longreads Pick 💕
My 24 Guitars - Longreads
"Music was hazardous in my family, yet I couldn't help playing—even in my sleep."
longreads.com
I want more people to care that SNAP benefits are being cut off on November 1. 40% of SNAP beneficiaries are children. This is callous and vile.
From the website of the in-facility doctor where my mother was in skilled nursing care until yesterday. I would have scratched out his name but then I thought: why bother? I’m looking at you @bcdreyer.social
Let the great world spin, to quote Colum McCann. There is grief all around us all the time now, from Manchester to Gaza, from Chicago and Danbury to the facility where my mother sits, waiting.
the distraction of grief.
On Sustenance and Safety in a Time of Horror
open.substack.com
"Memoirists bear a creative responsibility to the story they are trying to tell, to the characters who appear in it (including themselves, as narrator), and to the craft it takes to get there." Writing about the dead, with a few craft words on Elizabeth Gibert’s All the Way to the River.
The Permission Workbook: Writing About the Dead
Is it ever okay? Also, some craft thoughts on Elizabeth Gilbert's All the Way to the River
open.substack.com
Bay Area friends: Join me tonight at Book Passage in Corte Madera at 6 pm for a conversation about Permission, and the stories we are and aren’t “allowed” to tell—now more then ever. Rumor is that there will be a Lamott sighting….
