"He plays absurdist games with himself: 'Imagine gene-expression space, 20,000 dimensions … You can taste ten parameters of your own blood chemistry.'" a @lizweil.bsky.social masterclass!!

New York Magazine@nymag.com · last wk.

Michael Levin, a Tufts biologist with a 40-person lab, has spent his life trying to prove that minds show up in places we’d never think to look.

apparently I'm being impersonated by AI. if you receive an email from katherinecusuma.agni@gmail.com (or any email that isn't my one professional email, katherine.e.cusumano@gmail.com) THIS IS NOT ME. I hate this timeline.

who is brave enough to let me write about r/orif, the sub where people go to discuss their orthopedic trauma surgeries

brain is working overtime to frame finishing up a couple of big projects as "fun" (excitement! opportunity! what's next!) and not as "cause for existential terror" (perhaps these are the last good stories I ever write! what's next is nothing!)

my story on the steam tunnels beneath the @oregonstate.edu campus, for the Oregon Stater, has just won a silver medal from the CASE awards — sort of the ASMEs of alumni magazines 🩶🥈 www.case.org/awards/circl...

"OSU Below" by Katherine Cusumano

See more about this award-winning entry.

case.org

portland friends: tonight several brilliant writers, including @jeremyklemin.bsky.social and @jasonsepac.bsky.social and @devonfredericksen.bsky.social, are reading at Literary Arts. be there!! literary-arts.org/event/2026-o...

2026 Oregon Literary Fellowships Reading

Join us at the Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe for a celebratory evening of readings from the 2026 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipients. The following fellows will be joining us: Devon

literary-arts.org

I admit I am a REAL sucker for voicey dude essays about combat sports, but this is excellent www.nytimes.com/2026/06/22/m...

What I Learned About Masculinity at Thai Kickboxing School

nytimes.com

"when one describes something, one is also describing how the described deviates from the norm, and therefore also describing what is and is not normal." absolute banger in the summer @thebeliever.net by my friend Alfred Jung Lee: www.thebeliever.net/on-descripti...

On Description - Believer Magazine

Not long ago, I was reading, in a magazine profile, a physical description of a person “who has a prodigious white beard, wavy gray bangs, and dark, beetling eyebrows.” A photo of the person was inclu...

thebeliever.net

thank you to all the editors who've ever told me the ending needs another try

I am more or less constantly trying to sneak one (1!) exclamation point into every essay

jalen brunson cries so i cry

talked to some people (including spike lee) about being inside MSG on May 10, 1998, and what it was like to be a knicks fan in the '90s www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

‘Almost There, Almost There, Almost There’: The Hopes and the Heartbreak of the '90s Knicks

28 years ago, the team’s nemesis Reggie Miller sunk a shot that dashed their playoff dreams. Here’s what Spike Lee and others sitting courtside remember.

nytimes.com

anyway, www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...

No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious

Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of thinking is absurd—and damning.

theatlantic.com

the big void in any AI-assisted or -generated or whatever you want to call it "art-making" is a total lack of SURPRISE. an algorithm based on all the things that have been said before will only ever produce what's been said before. it won't surprise itself (no self) and it won't surprise you.

Katie wrote a smart and compelling feature about garlic breeders for Offrange and now it's going in the Best American Food & Travel Writing anthology!

katie cusumano@k-e-c.bsky.social · 2mo ago

very very very excited to say that I will have a story in the 2026 Best American Food and Travel anthology, guest-edited by José Andrés lithub.com/here-are-the...

🥰 my story about eccentric garlic breeders (and about obsession, attention, and climate resilience) is going to be side by side with so many amazing pieces in this anthology

Jaya Saxena@jayasaxena.com · 2mo ago

So thrilled for the Best American Food and Travel Anthology this year, guest edited by Jose Andres. There are so many amazing selections that I can't wait for everyone to read! lithub.com/here-are-the...

very very very excited to say that I will have a story in the 2026 Best American Food and Travel anthology, guest-edited by José Andrés lithub.com/here-are-the...

Here are the new covers and guest editors for the 2026 Best American Series.

For decades, Mariner Books has stewarded The The Best American Series®, a literary institution that began in 1915 with Best American Short Stories, to your bookshelves. But just in case you’re stum…

lithub.com

Ever called 911 and been put on hold? It happens hundreds of thousands of times every year. In my new investigation for @revealnews.org and @motherjones.com, I found that many of America's biggest cities aren't meeting the national standard for picking up emergency calls fast enough. LISTEN:

Reveal@revealnews.org · 2mo ago

911 centers are supposed to answer 90 percent of emergency calls in 15 seconds or less. Reporter @byardduncan.bsky.social found many aren’t coming close to that. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of callers are left waiting on hold.

pls let me read your essays! your translated nonfiction! your weird hybrid speculative kind-of-a-poem-kind-of-nonfictions!!! submit this week ✨

AGNI@agnimagazine.bsky.social · 2mo ago

ICYMI 👀 Our submissions portal closes on May 31st, ONE WEEK FROM TODAY! We seek out writers who tell their truths in their own words and convince us as we read that we’ve found something no one else could have written. Read our full submission guidelines here 👇 buff.ly/auE6ZFe

the revision's not an honest-to-god revision until

You're not looking through 12,000 new Artemis photos, so here are some of the best: defector.com/youre-not-lo...

TOMORROW 🔥 🔥 The Launch of AGNI 103! Register to join free ON ZOOM: buff.ly/2cQ0ITV AGNI celebrates its ONE HUNDRED THIRD issue with readings by > Hayan Charara > Christie Hodgen > Joel Calahan & Giovanna Frene > Charu Sinha > Musical performance by Alisa Amador

The Launch of AGNI 103

Readings by Joel Calahan, Giovanna Frene, Hayan Charara, Christie Hodgen, & Charu Sinha. Live music by Alisa Amador.

agni103.eventbrite.com

something kind of disappointing about demos/bootlegs/live songs that I pirated from, like, some shady russian website circa 2009 ending up on spotify. so much less magical when you don't wonder whether a file will contain a real mp3 or just a virus

come hang out (on the internet) with us to ring in a beautiful new issue — my first on the masthead 🖤

AGNI@agnimagazine.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Celebrate the arrival of 🔥 AGNI 103 🔥 Join us on Tuesday, April 28th at 7pm EDT for a virtual launch featuring readings by Joel Calahan, Giovanna Frene, Hayan Charara, Christie Hodgen, & Charu Sinha, and live music by Alisa Amador. Register at Eventbrite to get the link!

A list from Issue 153.

a section of a project that has sort of become the mantra for said project

me: *wrestling with a draft, not sure how to start* fernando: what about "the cuckoo bananas is confounding"?

in 1970, an explosion on board Apollo 13 nearly spelled disaster for the mission and its crew. for the new york times magazine, I interviewed two of the flight directors on duty, now in their 90s, about how they brought the astronauts home. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

“It Was Survival Mode”: The Lunar Mission That Nearly Ended in Disaster

Fifty-six years ago, after a tense race to save the Apollo 13 crew, the astronauts finally splashed down safely. Here’s what flight directors who got them home remember.

nytimes.com

you just don’t get to brat summer (2024) without daisies (1966)

for NYT Mag, I talked to two 92-year-old NASA flight directors about the Apollo 13 explosion — and the moment they knew they got the crew home safe www.nytimes.com/interactive/...