I’ve been anxiously anticipating the drafting of this piece for weeks … but especially the last few days, promising myself I’d celebrate the close of 2023 by gushing about my favorite reads of the year. And yay! It’s now December 31, and I’m officially at liberty to take a peek back over my reading from …
I’m currently at a writing retreat in Taos, New Mexico. It’s led by one of my favorite people, and this is my second time attending (last time was in 2019, and you can read my pre-retreat anxiety post here). The differences this time are meaningful. For starters, because I’ve been to this location before, I …
Several weeks ago, I came across the image above on a college’s social media feed. For the purposes of this blog post, the institution shall remain nameless (including any notable characteristics of the institution). Suffice it to say, the entirety of this graphic was … well. I have a lot of thoughts, on the many …
If I were in charge of the world at this moment, you wouldn’t be reading this post. Instead, I’d have sent four letters to their intended recipients directly, privately, using stamps and envelopes and the secrecy the US Postal Service allows. But I’m not in charge of the world, and I have been burned by …
Below is the letter I sent to the American Political Science Association‘s Executive Committee tonight, ahead of their meeting tomorrow to discuss the status of the APSA annual meeting scheduled for Los Angeles over Labor Day weekend. Service workers at Los Angeles hotels have organized to negotiate a living wage (read more about that here …
I left my last work role because of decisions made by others, for reasons*. Unpacking the trauma and resulting disequilibrium around that has been the ongoing challenge of my last 16 months or so. Today, I’m not going to write about that unpacking process specifically, but I do want to write a bit (for my …
It took me less than 24 hours at the Braver Angels convention in Gettysburg, Penn., this week to grasp—in a visceral and disappointing way—that the organization and I are not a good fit. I boarded a plane to take me home only a few hours later, flooded with questions about whether I had failed the …
In fall 2002, I defended my master’s thesis at the University of Arkansas’s journalism MA program. I was one of the only — perhaps to this day THE SINGULAR ONLY — person to choose to complete 12 graduate hours in educational technology en route to my MA Journalism degree. Because I’m participating in Magna’s ChatGPT …
This morning, I finished reading adrienne maree brown‘s short book, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice. I needed to read this book–and, probably, you do, too. brown’s central thesis is that progress does not happen when we are constantly engaging in call-out culture. brown is focused on the behavior of …
When we’re young, I think we all imagined that one day, we’ll be famous. At least, I know I did. I remember watching The Disney Channel as a kid, especially The Mickey Mouse Club (the early 1990s revival, starring future superstars like Christina Aguilera and Tony Lucca and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake and Ryan …
