Black-crowned night herons are Oakland's official bird but they often fall or are pushed onto the streets or sidewalk below. They break legs, or toes, or wings — and if they’re lucky, end up at International Bird Rescue. @nuala.bsky.social shares what she experienced at a recent heron release.

Free as a Bird: Rehabilitated Night Herons Released in Oakland

The black-crowned night herons arrived at a rescue with broken toes, injured wings, or damaged legs. After weeks of rehab, they were released into the wild.

coyotemedia.org

"Caro says he couldn’t have read every paper from LBJ’s time in The White House, because it would have taken him “six lifetimes,”.... I thought, well, he actually had two lifetimes, didn’t he? His and Ina’s. And I have less than one, really." www.talkscratch.com/i-want-a-lit...

I Want a Literary Wife

But the economy won't support it.

talkscratch.com

More people than ever are utilizing food pantries. Here's how to make the most of what you get, from @tavos-kitchen.bsky.social www.coyotemedia.org/first-aid-ki...

First Aid Kit: How to Make the Most of Your Food Pantry Haul

More people are accessing food pantries than ever, and it's not all cans and boxes. Here are some tips for storing perishables, cooking good meals, and getting creative in the kitchen.

coyotemedia.org

"Wives should not be replacements for research assistants. What I need is an industry that takes this work seriously, even when women (even yes, mothers and/or wives) do it, so that writers can hire research assistants and still afford to feed their families."

I Want a Literary Wife

But the economy won't support it.

talkscratch.com

Today at Scratch, @maggiemertens.bsky.social sits with whose writing ambitions get to see the light of day and the often gendered labor that makes it possible.

I Want a Literary Wife

But the economy won't support it.

talkscratch.com

Did I sneak in the tag "Kidney Almost Have It All?" into this piece about bean club divorces? You better believe I did.

COYOTE@coyotemedia.org · 3d ago

Cole Harry found himself in the midst of a sudden divorce. His ex took the apartment, the furniture — and his Rancho Gordo Bean Club subscription. When heirloom beans are caught in the middle of a messy divorce, who should get custody? @soleilho.com asks Bay Area food club leaders to chime in.

It feels like there is a direct link between the tragedy of Jason Arday and the accusations of AI usage that are coming overwhelmingly at authors of color.

Rahawa on the cursed choices for writers: "I know exactly the type of person The Atlantic has in mind for the position; I suspect you do too. I believe we can leave it at that." www.talkscratch.com/legacy-media...

Legacy Media Wants to Hire You (No, Not You)

Not me either, but that's OK.

talkscratch.com

I am very lucky to often be the person @rahawahaile.bsky.social texts about some weird (complimentary) audio thing being like "wanna come to this with me?" The answer is always yes. And the answer is ALWAYS to read what she writes about it: www.coyotemedia.org/golden-lionh...

golden lionheart collier’s ‘Hidden Currents’ Is a Masterpiece of Spatial Composition

At SF's Audium, 176 speakers tell the history of Black sound in the Americas through modular synthesis.

coyotemedia.org

I've recommended Reece's book at least a dozen times in the last few years. I was forced to cut the Bath Riots and the policies that lay the groundwork for Buck v. Bell from my own manuscript, and I'm still furious about it. Anyway, read White Borders. bookshop.org/p/books/whit...

Reece Jones@reecejones.bsky.social · last wk.

My book White Borders makes the direct connections between the people behind the racist 1924 immigration restrictions and the Trump administration. Harry Laughlin ('expert eugenics agent' for house in 1924) → Pioneer Fund → John Tanton → Stephen Miller www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/u...

For @coyotemedia.org, I wrote about attending a spatial sound art performance about blackness and forced migrations—featuring hundreds of field recordings and audio clips—while encircled by 176 audio speakers. If you're in the Bay Area, I can't recommend seeing collier's "Hidden Currents" enough.

golden lionheart collier’s ‘Hidden Currents’ Is a Masterpiece of Spatial Composition

At SF's Audium, 176 speakers tell the history of Black sound in the Americas through modular synthesis.

coyotemedia.org

Oakland QuakeSky how you doing?

Seems chill that culture writers across beats are posting about the journalistic end times from the worker-owned collectives they started because there was nowhere left for them to go.

The Latest Elegy for Music Journalism and Middle-Class Musicianhood

Sometimes professional failure isn’t your fault.

hearingthings.co

Maggie Mertens@maggiemertens.bsky.social · last wk.

Is anyone like... making money these days? Anywhere? Anyhow? Asking for... well no, I'm asking for me. But also, bc @rahawahaile.bsky.social just really made some excellent points here. www.talkscratch.com/legacy-media...

I wrote about the end times

Hearing Things@hearingthingsco.bsky.social · last wk.

The dream is dead but we didn’t kill it

as usual @rahawahaile.bsky.social is 100% correct www.talkscratch.com/legacy-media...

Legacy Media Wants to Hire You (No, Not You)

Not me either, but that's OK.

talkscratch.com

For Scratch this week, I wrote about the gulf that exists between the handful of high-paying culture jobs available to writers/editors and the crumbs left over for the rest of us. (Also, that 300k Anthropic writing job that everyone circulated at the end of June.)

Legacy Media Wants to Hire You (No, Not You)

Not me either, but that's OK.

talkscratch.com

For Scratch this week, I wrote about the gulf that exists between the handful of high-paying culture jobs available to writers/editors and the crumbs left over for the rest of us. (Also, that 300k Anthropic writing job that everyone circulated at the end of June.)

Legacy Media Wants to Hire You (No, Not You)

Not me either, but that's OK.

talkscratch.com

Me and the Black-owned LA bookstore Reparations club are celebrating 1 year of The Payback by offering signed paperbacks. Its the hottest student loan heist novel of 2025, now with my weird-ass signature. rep.club/products/pay...

The Payback: A Novel

When Jada Williams is relentlessly pursued by the Debt Police, she is left with no choice but to take down her student loan company with the help of two mall coworkers--from the author of the "lethall...

rep.club

I wrote a piece about the beloved Pacifica Pier, an SF Bay Area ICON, for @coyotemedia.org. The recent crack at the beginning of the pier, demolition of Chit Chat Cafe, and emergency declaration is leaving a lot of questions about the future of it. www.coyotemedia.org/what-is-paci...

What Is Pacifica Without Its Pier?

Officials shut down Pacifica Pier after a huge structural crack appeared in June. For anglers, whale watchers, and Pacifica residents, the loss is about more than the pier itself.

coyotemedia.org

“Covid and climate change are two major pillars of collective denial in the last decade… So though our lending library was created in response to one kind of public failure – namely a failure of public health, which is still ongoing – it can serve as a solution in response to this second failure.”

How clean air clubs are protecting Americans from wildfire smoke

Mutual aid groups that started giving out PPEs during COVID are now loaning air purifiers and distributing masks to fume-addled communities

theguardian.com

The Oakland Review of Books launchiversary party at Eli's on 8/20 is open to all & free to paying subscribers! Tickets are $15 or whatever it's worth to you to funnel money to writers who care about books & reading & this place we all share in the Bay. You coming? Let us know luma.com/6viuhae6

Coyotes are having a cultural moment. We named our newsroom after them, and artist @wolfchirp.bsky.social wrote a book, "Trickster at the End of a World", about being obsessed with them. So naturally, @cecilialei.bsky.social had to chat with Helen about it. www.coyotemedia.org/helen-shewol...

Why Coyotes Have Sunk Their Fangs into This Author

Coyotes have become a Bay Area icon. In ‘Trickster at the End of a World,’ author and artist Helen Shewolfe Tseng shares what they could teach us.

coyotemedia.org

This is one of the most catastrophic developments imaginable for US media and the country. I don’t even have the words for it.

Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership

The move sets the stage for more corporate consolidation in the media industry.

nbcnews.com

Rahawa Haile@rahawahaile.bsky.social · 3y ago

A fun fact about me is that I have a degree in telecommunication and will die on the hill that media—all of it—has never recovered from the deregulation and consolidation made possible by the Telecom Act of 1996. Don’t get me started on what it did to minority-owned radio and TV stations.

OH I SEE HOW IT IS www.coyotemedia.org/summer-2026-...

soleil ho@soleilho.com · 2w ago

we're at 65 new subscribers now!! if we make it to 75 by the end of the day I will randomly pick one of the 10 people who subscribe and take you to my favorite Chinese BBQ spot in the East Bay (if you're not in the Bay Area, I'll send you an eating itinerary for your next trip out here!)

today on COYOTE: on ChatTJB, the "startup" "AI" "company" where one guy answers all of your prompts himself so that you stop giving your brain function over to LLMs. www.coyotemedia.org/chattjb-want...

ChatTJB Wants You to Stop Trusting LLMs

A San Francisco poet is answering your prompts badly, slowly, and earnestly.

coyotemedia.org

In Open Country (2027)

Aaron Bady@zunguzungu.bsky.social · 3w ago

Borders are the great fascist technology of the 20th century, and they are, in the 21st, still one of the main reasons we can't have nice things.

Early on @coyotemedia.org made a list of dream bylines we'd LOVE to have on the site and @annaleen.bsky.social was one of the first on it for me. So stoked to see this piece about ~~speculative transit~~ and big dreams for the Bay Area. www.coyotemedia.org/funding-bay-...

A Modest Proposal for Funding Transit Instead of AI

In the ’60s, the Bay Area almost got a high-speed train from Marin to San Jose. What could happen if we dreamed big again?

coyotemedia.org

didn’t promote my book much last year because I was getting very sick with diabetes, but it appears to be on sale, and unfortunately it’s still relevant, thanks to Fauci/RFK/Covid discourse bookshop.org/p/books/disp...

Disposable: America's Contempt for the Underclass

In this “barn burner of a book” (The New York Times Book Review) New York magazine senior writer Sarah Jones blends personal stories and in-depth reporting to expose the harsh reality of America’s cul...

bookshop.org

okay everything might be crap but HEY @propublicaguild.org WON THEIR FIRST CONTRACT THAT’S GREAT www.propublicaguild.org/updates/prop...

ProPublica Guild Ratifies First Contract — ProPublica Guild

Members of the ProPublica Guild, which represents more than 150 workers across the nonprofit investigative newsroom, overwhelmingly voted to ratify our first contract on Friday, exactly three years si...

propublicaguild.org

indie pub cage match when

Oakland Review of Books@oaklandreviewofbooks.org · 3w ago

Our friends at @coyotemedia.org are doing a subscription drive, so support them if you can (even though they outrageously stole our unique and proprietary idea to be a hyperlocal bay area voice that publishes an events calendar and is mad about tech barons): www.coyotemedia.org/email/ad0d0c...