Reading about these guys who are exactly my age, I would like to express my gratitude for my undistinguished high school for setting me up for a life of pleasant surprise.

As anyone who knows me well is aware, Sean McDonald’s support and belief in me changed my life. I can’t wait to see what he does next, and I know it will be amazing.

Sent to the school counselor for crying too much after the Challenger explosion as a first grader. Watched last night’s launch with my current first grader, who gasped in awe. Better than therapy!

this is an insult to angst

TOO REAL

Daycare is not evil Why motherhood isn't a solo project

New essay about alloparenting, religion, & daycare. There's a strange energy swirling around motherhood in far-right circles, asserting the primacy of mothers as the only possible "natural" caregivers, but this ignores our evolution as cooperative breeders. darbysaxbe.substack.com/p/daycare-is...

“No, no, I can steal from other people, but I don’t want you stealing from ME.”

😭

Dancer in the Dark was the only time I’ve ever felt traumatized walking out of a movie theater.

For this and so many other reasons, I’m incredibly proud that we’re publishing @darbysaxbe.bsky.social’s book about fatherhood this year @flatironbooks.bsky.social!

This is a goofy and childish thing to say, but, the good news is that it has occasioned this absolutely terrific essay!

I’m heartbroken to hear about the end of the books section in the Washington Post. I can’t even begin to express how much their coverage has meant to the books and authors I’ve published over the past 25 years.

As a baby editor, I used to send this to every author who got a crappy trade review to show they were in good company!

A stack of the aforementioned books on a desk in front of a window, with a silver tabby cat sitting very politely next to them.

Favorite books I read in 2025:

Lolly Willowes - Sylvia Townsend Warner
The River Has Roots- @amalelmohtar.com
The God of the Woods - Liz Moore
Wild Dark Shore - Charlotte McConaghy
The Everlasting - @alixeharrow.bsky.social
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter - @sgj.bsky.social

❤️❤️❤️

💀

I’m so sorry ❤️

Top 1% of DeBarge listener? i’ll take it.

Solidarity—it’s a good thing they’re cute!

Anyone have any good tips for making kittens not destroy a (fake) Christmas tree? Asking for me!

I just finished reading “Careless People” and for as much as we wonder why folks are still on the former Twitter, why the ever loving fuck is ANYONE on Facebook

In honor of Larry Summers, I asked the female members of my college class (1987) to say if they had any experiences with sexual harassment by teachers/professors, back when this was tolerated as, I dunno, the cost of attending college, and OH MY GOD.

so many dead canaries and we just keep on mining

I don't have a good answer for what the alternative looks like, but asking 18 years to bet their future on highly specified training for jobs based on which they think will be in high demand 5-10 years from now turned out to be a very bad way to structure higher education

Review: Alcatraz is home to the last remaining zoo in Emma Sloley’s resilient ‘The Island of Last Things’ Alcatraz zookeepers refuse to give up even as species are dying in Emma Sloley's 'The Island of Last Things,' a resilient novel set in the future.

For the @latimes.com, I wrote about @emmasloley.bsky.social's wonderful new book, "The Island of Last Things," which was beautiful, bittersweet, bleak, and hopeful, somehow all at the same time:

www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Two actors find themselves way over their heads in Alexis Soloski’s and Dan Fesperman’s excellent thrillers.

@flatironbooks.bsky.social

www.bookpage.com/?p=217857

A Drama Teacher on the Run From a Lurid Past and a Risky Present

SO thrilled with this rave review of Alexis Soloski’s marvelous new thriller FLASHOUT:

Not to brag, but tonight when we sat down to dinner, my child sighed and said, “Mom, you order the best pizza.”

people should read “Careless People"