Hello and reminder that the free @barrelhouse.bsky.social newsletter has a new, original, newsletter-only essay on pop culture obsessions every month, like this most recent essay by SF Layzell about Peppermint Patty (so great). You can sign up here: www.barrelhousemag.com/contact-barr...

Did everyone (tech leaders) forget how the movie Ex Machina ends????

Might we all reread The Jungle & remember that clean, safe working conditions & good pay are critical for safe food.

Someone get me in a room with MacKenzie Scott’s folks and I’ll deliver my impassioned / well-constructed argument that it’s a moral imperative that she give $20 million to a new distributor specifically for nonprofit and small presses in order to offset her ex’s dismantling of the book industry.

Nothing will make you appreciate vaccines & modern medicine like looking at 19th century medical diagnostic illustrations of skin conditions.

The age of chatbots has me out here waxing poetic about my car insurance agency...it's a national chain, but all agencies are locally owned. Every time I have a question, I call and speak to a person. It's been the same person since 2011 and that is so important to me.

Tomorrow night at the Ivy Bookshop with Arielle Hebert & @stevenleyva.bsky.social ✨. We will be inside to avoid the storms, come thru ✨

EMAILS FROM BUSINESSES ON YOUR BIRTHDAY 2006: enjoy your $10 gift card! 2026: you have the privilege of spending full price at our business!

Or, to quote my favorite Robert Frost lines, "It takes all sorts of in- and outdoor schooling / to get adapted to my kind of fooling."

I'd say about 75% of the the time, I'm writing a poem where I'm waiting for someone to be "I see what you did there" and then we laugh together.

I feel like someone is going to call the EAP for me because I am a middle-aged woman rolling into work blasting the new Olivia Rodrigo: & other poems.

From clown drag shows to literary readings to hiking groups, Baltimore has an ever-growing queer programming ecosystem baltimorebeat.com/from-clown-d...

From clown drag shows to literary readings to hiking groups, Baltimore has an ever-growing queer programming ecosystem

I came into my queerness in earnest during the beginning of the pandemic, and I still think that’s a bit of a shame. Details of my own wobbly and complicated relationship with gender notwithstanding,…

baltimorebeat.com

I'm honored to help share this news and shine a light on the important work being done by literary arts nonprofits to champion writers and reading.

Literary Arts Fund@literaryartsfund.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Literary Arts Fund is pleased to announce the recipients of its inaugural general operating grants, 40 nonprofit literary arts organizations and publishers spanning 19 states—from Alaska to Florida—that will receive a combined total of $7.7 million in unrestricted funds.

next round of Literary Arts Fund grants opens for application on June 8

Literary Arts Fund@literaryartsfund.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Literary Arts Fund is pleased to announce the recipients of its inaugural general operating grants, 40 nonprofit literary arts organizations and publishers spanning 19 states—from Alaska to Florida—that will receive a combined total of $7.7 million in unrestricted funds.

I am so proud of the CityLit Project team ❤

Literary Arts Fund@literaryartsfund.bsky.social · 2mo ago

These nonprofits champion writers and reading, and uniquely impact literary culture. They organize book festivals, present readings and conversations with authors, and publish a vast amount of poetry and work in translation, among other activities. Read more: literaryartsfund.org/announcing-t...

The Literary Arts Fund is pleased to announce the recipients of its inaugural general operating grants, 40 nonprofit literary arts organizations and publishers spanning 19 states—from Alaska to Florida—that will receive a combined total of $7.7 million in unrestricted funds.

Poetry reader @arahko.bsky.social is leaning into the sacred rage of Angry Girl Summer 🔥 Her reading list of poetry collections is published in @cincinnatireview.bsky.social 🤩 buff.ly/f8ZQfOW

Happy pride! withfriends.co/event/283520...

Mera Kitchen’s new series serves up food as memory, migration, and inheritance baltimorebeat.com/mera-kitchen...

Mera Kitchen’s new series serves up food as memory, migration, and inheritance

At Mera Kitchen Collective, food has always been more than something to eat. It is memory, migration, and an inheritance; a chronicle of the places that people have left and the loved ones, places,…

baltimorebeat.com

I learn a lot from my writing group…including that Joni Mitchell is still alive.

I am Fiona Apple’s 1997 VMA speech. Anyway, here is a live performance of her that I watched three times on the treadmill this morning. youtu.be/Bpm1AeTVgWk?...

I Want You To Love Me – Fiona Apple (Live at The New Yorker Festival 2020 HD)

YouTube video by Fiona Apple Rocks [FAN ACCOUNT]

youtu.be

This was my takeaway from The Mandalorian and Grogu.

This, always and every day and no matter what, THIS. Right now many things are terrible, they would be a lot more so were there not so many people doing so many things in in hope, in defiance, in solidarity.

Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR)@hcrichardson.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Or even if things are terrible, there ARE things we can do… 🙂

For Pride month, can straight people celebrate by walking faster?

My autoimmune diseases see you

Stone Cold Jane Austen@abbyhiggs.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Microplastics are the powerhouse of the cell

I like to say “no heroes”, but here I am being shocked by this take from my Polish queen of insane fiction. lithub.com/nobel-laurea...

Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk apparently used AI to write her latest novel.

In a recent interview (conducted and published in Polish), Nobel Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk admitted to using AI in her creative process. The writer Maks Sipowicz, who drew attention to the interv…

lithub.com

Kind of thinking I should be adding collagen to my diet coke so I remember to take the collagen.

All the comms newsletters that have been like "AI will transform your workflow & productivity" for the past 6 months are starting their "buy our service to see how AI is wrecking your strategy" messages.

I don’t regularly check this app, but when I do, I read @abbyhiggs.bsky.social updates like a novel.

Stone Cold Jane Austen@abbyhiggs.bsky.social · 3mo ago

And that’s why we need a ballroom

Leah and Rahne cordially invite you to the premiere of Leah & Rahne’s Micro Cinema Studio Weds May 13, 7-9pm If you’d like to show your work, let us know! Think of it as a video open mic of short shorts (<5 minutes)