Yes, Amtrak trains are outdated and often dirty. Yes, the train is often significantly late. But I could never say an unkind thing about an Amtrak employee, AND they do not allow passengers to use speakerphone or loudly watch things on their phones without headphones. For that, I am grateful.
We are also giving 20% off on out Residents of the Bog tier, which is basically 20% off a 2-for-1 deal!
To celebrate the joy of building all of this together, we are giving 20% on subscriptions for a limited amount of time! Help us bite back, together, and get feminist cultural criticism in your inbox every week. Get the deal at the link:
And last but definitely NOT least, @katelynburns.com wrote about seeing herself in Heated Rivalry, a tender piece on queerness and sports.
Another essential read, @andreagrimes.com on why modern fascism thrives on your loneliness, and how we can run towards each other as an antidote:
@tinavasquez.bsky.social recently wrote this piece about the paradox of thrifting, and how finding high-quality items at the thrift store triggered her imposter syndrome:
We often say fuck the algorithm, but @sesmith.lol went long on how sex workers actually deal with income-stopping algorithms every single day:
"This is not algorithmic softening. It is algorithmic violence."
Have you ever wondered if things would be different right now if the media had actually tried to reckon with evangelical support for Trump? @thebugbeardispatch.bsky.social has:
This week, @freeblackgirl.bsky.social wrote about a growing trend of pop culture about collectivism as a solution to the horrors. A hopeful piece for a terrible time in history:
A few weeks ago, @nicolefroio.bsky.social wrote about children's rights, and how many, many societal issues could be fixed if we actually, truly considered children to be people:
The Flytrap is having a 20% off sale, so what? Well, if you subscribe, you can get immediate access to hopeful, critical, feminist writing and reporting. You don't get that anywhere else but here. Here's some of out greatest hits so far:
That means a lot. I appreciate you.
Thank you! I'm certain you will love what you read!
In the meantime, I cannot wait to see more of Derek's work in the world. I know he will make the most of the Writing Freedom Fellowship and I can't wait to read whatever he publishes next.
I know that Derek wants very badly to build a community around his column, ensuring that it reaches the people who need it the most: formerly incarcerated people who are also struggling to make sense of life post-release. If you have some of these folks in your life, please share Derek's column!
Recently, Derek relaunched his @prismreports.org column as One Bite at a Time, reflecting his new focus on reentry and the challenges of navigating life on parole.
In the months since his release, Derek has written honestly about the anxiety, rejection, and lack of opportunity that comes post-release, grappling out loud with how hard it feels to now be free, even though it's all he dreamed of for 20 years.
Just days after leaving prison, the home where Derek was staying flooded and he spent weeks performing clean up. To help him get back on his feet, many of you donated to his online fundraiser, raising almost $5K of the $15K goal! (The fundraiser is still active, if you want to support Derek...)
Derek was released from prison almost exactly one year ago. In his first column announcing his release, he wrote honestly about how overwhelming it felt to be free after almost 20 years of incarceration:
If you read Derek's column, you know that he writes with so much heart, finding beauty in even the worst of conditions. This column, about leaving prison briefly for a medical appointment, is one my favorites:
It has been one of the great honors of my career to work with Derek. I've never met a more positive, empathetic, and reflective person. He deserves all of the good things.
At @prismreports.org, he launched his column Never Eat the Candy on Your Pillow: A Common Sense Guide to Prison, highlighting the brutalities of mass incarceration. You can see the archive of that work here:
Derek was incarcerated in Kentucky for almost 20 years and during that time, he taught himself to write, pursued higher education, and won multiple writing awards.
Today the new cohort was announced for the Writing Freedom Fellowship, the only program of its kind to pay writers impacted by the carceral system a living wage. I cried tears of joy when I learned that Kentucky writer and @prismreports.org columnist Derek Trumbo is a fellow this year!
SUPPORT INDIE MEDIA--especially publications focused on food! So many food publications are bad and exclusionary and out of touch and I know this won't be because of who's behind it!
If you haven't read our interview with @aemccarthy.bsky.social, it's a great look into why we are starting @weareravenous.com. And at the end there's a discount code on your first year's subscription! www.weareravenous.com/meet-a-raven...
Every time I see him speak, I feel like I'm going fucking crazy.
I think the gist is: The price of gas will continue to increase.
I truly cannot listen to this man. My brain starts to glitch. It remains astonishing to me that such a useless, ignorant man represents us on the world stage. And it frightens me that almost half of the country is watching this and cheering on this rambling bullshit.
Journalists always reach out, by the way. But sometimes it really feels like: What is the fucking point?